The Survivor

Prologue

"This is a lawsuit waiting to happen!" Sergeant WIliams said, slapping down a pile of papers onto his desk. Matthew Williams was a stocky forty-three year old man with a long nose and a forehead that wore wrinkles of happiness from another time. He rubbed his worn out eyes and sighed, looking down at the coffee stain on his suit.

He had spent the past ten hours looking through files of missing girls in Seattle. Heck, not just Seattle. Tacoma, Pierce County, South Hill, Puyallup. Young, innocent girls. Gone. The information was just too much to take in. Body after body. Image after image.

The person behind it was clever and slick. They never got caught and only left behind evidence that something was happening.

Across from Sergeant Williams' desk sat Officer Kelly Hastings, who was the complete opposite of Matthew with her long brown hair and petite nose. She fiddled with her pen, her brown hair pulled into a misshapen bun, "Yes, sir. But technically, there can't be a lawsuit until the culprit is found."

Her perfectly shaped eyebrows wrinkled in frustration and she chucked the pen across the room. Getting up, she paced back and forth in front of Williams' desk. She huffed over to the pile of files on the desk and slammed her fist on them, "Ten girls identified and in the morgue. Ten. What are we going to do, Matthew? I'm sick and tired of looking at pictures of murdered children. With no lead as to where this.... or even who this killer is for that matter..."

Her eyes began to water. "I'm sick and tired." she whispered, shaking her head. It usually wasn't too difficult to find anyone these days. They were all reckless and left behind enough dust to do DNA testing.

"I know." Williams said gravely. "Trust me. If I knew anything, you would too. And I want to get to the end of this just as much as you and the rest of the force do."

"I'm just angry that we have nothing to tell distraught parents and families. The look on their faces when we notify them...." Kelly looked up into Williams' exhausted gray eyes. "Sometimes, I really hate my job."

Williams nodded in agreement, "Me too, officer, me too."

A silence filled the room then and the only sound was the slow ticking of the clock above the door. Kelly retrieved her pen from where she threw it and continued to tap it against her notebook. Williams leaned back, closing his eyes, trying not to think at all.

Suddenly, the shrill ring of the phone sounded, making both Williams and Hastings jump in surprise. Sergeant Williams reached across the papers strewn on his desk and took the phone, "Yes?"

Officer Hastings watched as his expression changed from tired to alert in under three seconds. She leaned forward, anxiously waiting for Williams to get off the phone.

"Yes. Yes sir, thank you for notifying me." he placed the phone down, and immediately turned to the computer. He shook the mouse quickly, causing it to buzz in irritation. Kelly walked around the desk to lean over his shoulder.

"What? What is it? What did you find?"

He had typed the name Maria Bradley into his identification site. A picture of a teenage girl with medium brown hair and brown eyes popped onto the screen, along with all of her information. Date of birth, height, weight and so on.

"Who is that?" Kelly inquired, hoping it wasn't another missing girl.

Williams paused, scrolling through her information. Kelly waited impatiently, wondering why he became alert over yet another missing girl.

"She's a survivor." he finally said.

Officer Hastings almost fainted, "What?!"

The sergeant didn't answer her, but instead pulled out a new piece of paper and began to scribble an address.

Kelly sighed in exasperation, "You're going to need to give me a little more than that!"

"It's an address," he huffed. "To the Good Sam hospital in Puyallup. She's there. She's alive."

He got up and began to shove miscellaneous papers and badges into his suitcase, "And we're going there. Now."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on," Kelly held up her hand. "I know that we are desperate for information. But we cannot just go barging into the hospital. Who are her parents? How long has she been there? What is the extent of her injuries?"

He growled in frustration and sat down, "You're right."

She smirked, "Always am. But here, we've finally got something. Let's work with it."

Hope was coming, and the two officers could feel it as the night drew on.