Ulterior Motives

Fingerprints, fingerprints, fingerprints

'How did it go with Toni's parents?' Officer Davis asked as Cheryl headed back to her desk.

'It was good, I have a few possible clues,' she told him. 'She has a wall in her bedroom that is covered in polaroids and one with a red rose on was missing.'

'That's strange, maybe a kidnapper or a burglar took it as a souvenir,' he suggested, his brown eye brows furrowing above his blue eyes.

'Yeah, maybe, I'll let you know if I find anything else of interest,' Cheryl said, hinting for the other officer to leave her to get on with her work.

Once he had left, she opened her phone and sent the photos that she had taken to print.

The black printer on her desk whirred to life and spat out a few sheets of paper.

Deciding to work on the one with the bed and curtains in, Cheryl placed the others into the brown file and grabbed a pen to get to work on the photo in front of her.

She stared at the photo, imagining herself in the young girl's position. The white bed sheets were made perfectly, probably more perfectly than normal for a sixteen year old girl.

This could show that she was hesitant about leaving, because she took the time to fold the covers underneath the mattress and smoothen out the top, rather than leaving in a hurry and leaving the bed messy - almost like she was prolonging leaving.

The white cover had silver flowers embroidered onto it, so Toni seemed like a sweet, innocent girl with a great life as far as Cheryl could see. She just needed to work out what Toni was running from and she'd be one step closer to finding her current location.

Moving the photo up a little, Cheryl focussed on the window above the bed.

The wooden bed frame overlapped the bottom of it slightly, but it would still be able to be climbed out of.

White curtains were pushed to the side, they looked messy compared to the rest of the room. It was almost as if Toni had made everything tidy and then drawn her curtains back in a hurry.

The handle that locked the window was left up, meaning that it could be pushed open and - more importantly - closed easily.

Cheryl decided that it would be best to get fingerprints taken from the outside of the window frame to see if it was Toni who pushed it closed.

She called the number, on the telephone that was on her desk, for the crime scene investigators that had originally visited the scene when Toni was first discovered missing.

'Hey, it's Officer Blossom, I've been put in charge of Toni Topaz's case,' she introduced herself to the man on the end of the phone.

'Ah yes, hello, what can I do for you?' He asked, his voice chipper.

'I was wondering if you could send someone to take fingerprints on the outside of the window frame and compare them to Toni's?' Cheryl asked.

'Yes, absolutely, I can have some people out within the hour,' he told her.

'Great, thank you,' Cheryl replied before hanging up.

That was great news, they were usually really fast at getting results back, so by the end of the day she should know whether Toni pushed the window closed behind her, which will help her to find out if she left voluntarily or not.

Cheryl pulled the rest of the pictures out from Toni's case file and started to have a look over them.

There was a picture of the left wall on the top of the small pile, so she looked at that one first.

On the side closest to the door, there was a fairly small white desk with a white chair tucked underneath. On top of the desk was an unfinished crossword that Cheryl had taken a closer photo of and would have a look at later.

Next to the desk was a white wooden wardrobe. The doors were made out of a corrugated translucent plastic that slides open and closed. It looked to be fairly new and in good condition, the parents clearly had enough money to care for their daughter, so this didn't seem like a case of neglect.

Cheryl was confused. She had initially treated this as a runaway case, but what she struggled to get her head around was what a girl like Toni could be running from.

She'd know whether Toni left on her own accorded soon enough once she got the results from the fingerprints back, then she'd know what she was looking at for sure.

——

Author's Notes:

This is actually really fun to write, hopefully you are enjoying reading it too.
How was your day? Let me know, I love talking to you all ☺️
So do you think that Toni chose to leave?
If you so, why?
Thanks for reading, please vote and comment!! 💛💛