TITLE:FAYETTEVILLE
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Sheriff Mullins' desk was getting full of
papers and pictures. He needed this mystery
to all come together, and fast. Fayetteville
has had murders before, but this one was
horribly different. It was a teenaged girl. The
thing was, she was technically just missing .
Social media and "the talk of the town" was
that Genni was dead. The 17-year-old girl,
Beta Club member, energized part of the
community, was gone. Yes, the scene looked
like a murder... but there wasn't a body. And
the girl that reported it, Kathrine, didn't see it
happen... she just had a feeling .
There was bleach in her blood according to
the samples taken from the scene. Oh, the
blood. There was so much... she could have
bled out... if it were all hers. There was also
deer's blood in the mix. Honestly, it looked
like someone had dumped deer blood all
around the crime scene to make it look like
Genni bled more than she did. Genni's blood
was there, but it wasn't all hers.
Kathrine told him that the killer (or
kidnapper) had a crowbar and was wearing a
red hoodie with the strings tightly closing the
opening to hide their face. That's all? That's
all she could remember? There were way too
many holes in this story.
Speaking of holes, there was one that was
getting deeper and deeper. Genni's parents
have been at his desk all the time. They had
taken off from work to grieve--which is only
fair--and been driving, searching, calling...
doing whatever they can. Sheriff Mullins
prayed he would see Genni. Find her and take
her straight to her parents. He couldn't stand
to see parents hurt in this way...
So this is what he had:
Genni's blood.
Deer blood.
Bleach.
Two terrified parents.
One terrified town.
This is what he didn't have:
A body.
An answer.
He pulled out Kathrine's police report and ran
his finger over the wrinkled paper. He
stopped at her phone number and started to
dial his phone. No , he thought. He set the
phone back where it belonged on his desk. I
need to go home. It's so late already, he
thought.
But today was his lucky day. He didn't need
to call Kathrine. She was pulling into the
parking lot with Zach, bringing the weapon of
concern: the crowbar... Derrick's crowbar.
