The Drifter

C H A P T E R 3 4

C H A P T E R  T H I R T Y – F O U R
Crossroad Choices

Mr Havens collapsed his face into the palms of his hands.

Mr Jackman smiled only tentatively at me as I began to process his words.

Brian Andrews was a fake name.

There was someone out there toying with us, laughing at us as they had manufactured someone completely new just to cover their tracks further. Where we presumed we had a new lead to a potential end, it was in actuality just a dead end, and nothing more. Nothing less; nothing more.

"They gave a fake name when they bought the phone?" I asked, my voice aghast. "What does it mean for us?"

Mr Havens rubbed his face with his hands as Mr Jackman neared us, perching on his desk chair and wheeling close to us. He spoke with a gentle tone. "It now means for us that we're not any steps closer to putting an end to these crimes – if more are to continue, that is. It also means we have no idea who this person is. We can perform certain protocol, though..."

"Which is?" I prompted.

"We have the phone number. We also know the service provider as we had to contact them for the Brian Andrews' name, so we can contact them again and fathom out where this phone was purchased. We can contact the store to see if there was any CCTV functioning in there at the time and possibly capture an image of the person who purchased the phone. Of course, it could result to nothing, but any hope we have right now, we have to seize it. But if we could get an image, possibly, then we could talk to that person – it might not necessary be the suspect. They might have been coerced into buying the phone for someone else. There are many possibilities of how this could end up playing out."

"And for now?"

"And now, I suppose we just wait. I'm sorry we've just wasted your afternoon, Addison. We hoped that if it was someone around school you might have recognised him or known anything about him that you could have provided insight. You can go home now – you're working tomorrow, correct?"

"Yeah, I'll be back in tomorrow. What happens as we wait?" I asked, shunting my chair back to my desk and retrieving my handbag, my phone screen illuminating as I glanced at it. Still no message from Aidan, but I was going to message him the minute I departed from the office.

"We figure out any connections and deal with other crimes, unrelated to these."

I nodded meekly as I offered a small wave to both Mr Jackman and Mr Havens before departing from the office. As soon as I was on the other side of the door, I retrieved my phone, sighing softly as I composed a message to Aidan.

Addison: I'm finished. You still here?

I received a reply within seconds.

Aidan: Meet you on the first floor where we left?

Addison: Okay

Curiosity piqued, I guaranteed that I would arrive at the specified meeting place before Aidan so I could check out the signage in that direction on the first floor before he thought I was prying too much or about to ask questions that he would prefer not to answer. We still had to descend stairs to exit the building, so I knew not too expect too much from the signage such as for offices. Either way, when I arrived, slightly perspiring from the rush from the elevator to the corridor, I glanced up.

OFFICES A5 – A14
CONFERENCE ROOMS 2 – 5
INTERROGATION ROOMS 7 – 11
DATA ROOM 2
EVIDENCE ROOM 1