The Trap

chapter 8: Officer Springs

I step up to doors of the karate studio where Toby's mother said she dropped him off. I open the door and a big whoosh of cold air greets me. They must have the air conditioner on high.

A man who looks to be in his mid thirties approaches me. He's wearing a black karategi with a matching black belt. 

"What can I help you with officer?" Asks the man, looking a bit curious.  

I reach into one of my pockets and pull out a picture of Toby that his mother gave me, and hand over the picture to the man. 

"Have you seen this boy?" I ask the man. 

"Never seen him before." He says examining the photo. " What's this about?"  

"He's missing and his mother said she dropped him off here." I tell him. 

I pull my card out of my front leather jacket pocket and hand it to him. 

"If you see this boy, please call that number on the card." I tell him as he hands me back the photo of Toby. 

"I hope you find him." 

"Thanks." I say, before turning around and exiting the studio. 

I get in my car but I don't start it right away. I need to think about my next move. 

So, at the moment I know that Toby was dropped off here but never went in, and his mother thinks a boy named Tyler is to blame... I should  check Toby's room and see if there's any hints on who this Tyler is. 

I reach into my back pants pocket and grab my car keys before starting the car and pulling out of the parking lot. In side of my brown leather jacket pocket is the address of Toby's house, so I slip the piece of paper out and read the address written on it. The address says that his house is on the same road as the Middle School. 

After about 20 minutes I reach Toby's house and pull up into the driveway. There is a car already in the drive way, which is probably Toby's mom's car. 

I shut my car off and as I step out of the car, I see the front door open and Toby's mom steps out. 

"Any news?" Toby's mom asks, sounding chocked up from crying. 

"I think your right about Tyler being involved but I need to search Toby's room to find out for sure." 

"What could be in Toby's room that would prove that?" 

"Maybe a computer or a journal?" 

 "He has a computer ." She says, wiping away a tear from her eye. 

"Good." I say, walking up the driveway towards the house. 

Toby's mom opens the door for me and I step inside the house with her right behind me. 

The house opens up into a kitchen and there's a small room to my left with a washing machine and dryer. Toby's mom leads me to a hallway at the end of the kitchen that I didn't see before because the hall is to the left of me instead of in front of me and because the counter is also on the left side with cabinets underneath it and cabinets above it. 

She takes me down the hall, which isn't that big, it's pretty narrow and there is only two rooms on the left of me and one room to the right of me. The end of the hallway opens up to a living room with 2 small sofas facing a flat screen TV. She leads me to a set of stairs that's hidden by walls, i would have thought it was just another room if she didn't show me where the stairs were. 

"His bedroom is the room on the left." Toby's mother says 

"Thank you." I say, before heading up the stairs to Toby's room. 

I reach the top of the stairs and find that there are only two rooms up here, one on my left and one on my right. I open the door to Toby's room and get a big whiff of body spray. His bed is on the left of the room and next to his bed is a wooden table with his laptop on it and other various things. 

I take his laptop off the table and sit on his bed before turning it on. The laptop takes about a minute to turn on and when it does i'm greeted with a password protection screen. The password is a pin number, which in my opinion is harder to crack but luckily I have a flash drive that can easily get through this password. I pull it out of my jacket pocket and plug it into the laptop. It takes about two and a half minutes to get through because of a lot of technical things that I don't really understand but it works. The laptop opens up to a sunset background and I stare at it admiringly as I wait for everything to load. When everything loads I click on google and type in gmail, hit enter and then click on gmail. The Email page loads without me having to put in a password and I see that Toby has a recent email from Tyler.  I click on the email and start reading.  It looks like they were going to meet around 3:30 pm and were going to end the feud between them. It also looks like there was going to be a crowd of people... If he was in front of a crowd someone's gotta know what happened to him or at least where he went.  

I shut the laptop off and place it back down on the table. I walk downstairs and see Toby's mother waiting in the living room. She stands up immediately. 

"Find anything?" She asks me 

"Yes, but I still need you to fill in some blanks." 

"Okay. Ask me anything." 

"What time did you drop off Toby?" 

"I dropped him off around 3:30 pm" 

"Well, It seems Tyler made plans to meet with him at that same time." 

"So it was Tyler!" She says, angrily 

"All we know is that Tyler met with Toby at around the same time you last saw him, that doesn't mean it was Tyler, It could have been someone at the park where they met." I said, trying not to let her do anything stupid. 

"It was Tyler I know it!" 

"I'm not ruling it out but we can't jump to conclusions, we need more evidence." 

She ran a hand through her hair and took a deep breath.

"Well, then go find more evidence." She said, pointing to the door. 

"Okay." I say, walking into the hallway towards the door.