Ulterior Motives

Body Bag

Cheryl knocked on the heavy, wooden door, the sound echoing around the bare corridor surrounding her.

'Come in,' she heard the familiar voice say.

Opening the door, she saw Officer Davis in front of her, beckoning her to go up to his desk. She walked over to where he was sat and he spoke to her.

'So how are you feeling?' He asked, since Cheryl had had the last two days off sick.

'I'm doing better, the doctor thinks I fainted because of low blood sugar,' she explained.

'You were shouting Toni's name,' he said quietly.

Cheryl nodded. She knew she had been but she hadn't told the doctor. She was scared that he'd tell her to take time off work.

'So what did I miss?' Cheryl asked the man, knowing that he continued with the investigation whilst she was gone.

'So I set up a search party in the area that we found the ring, since that is the only place that we have evidence that she has been to. That was after her parents told us the ring was in fact her's,' he told Cheryl, 'we have officers with dogs out, Toni's family, but mainly volunteers, this case is becoming quite well known.'

Cheryl nodded her head yes.

'I saw things on the news about it,' she sighed, knowing how much harder the paparazzi would make her job. 'We should go and join the search,' Cheryl suggested.

'Yeah, I was there all of yesterday as well,' he informed, a glazed look over his eyes.

He stood up and walked with Cheryl to the parking lot. They decided to take his car, since it had bigger tires, being a range rover, so it'd be better on the country roads.

When they arrived at the scene, Cheryl was overwhelmed by the amount of people who were there. Many cars lined the path that lead towards the lake, some being cop cars. She guessed that there were about forty cars in total. This was an even bigger case than she thought.

After opening the door and stepping out of the car, the officers were met by Toni's parents, who were walking towards them.

'Has anything been found so far?' Cheryl asked them, eager to get to work.

Mrs Topaz informed her that the only thing found so far had been the ring that they found, nothing since.

Cheryl and Officer Davis decided to split up in the search, realising that the more ground everyone could cover, the better.

She headed to the left hand side of the gorgeous waterfall and began searching the forest behind it. There were a few other people doing the same, about five people in that area total.

After searching for what seemed like forever but could have been no more than an hour, Officer Blossom heard an ear piercingly loud scream. She immediately recognised the voice as Mrs Topaz's.

Running to the right hand side of the lake and into the forest, where the Topaz's were, Cheryl saw an old, rickety shed that had been opened. Inside, she saw a body bag.

Crowds of volunteers gathered quickly, and the few police officer tried to keep them under control.

'Step back,' Cheryl demanded, pushing her way through the crowd of people. When she reached the shed, another officer was inside along with both of Toni's parents.

She looked at the other officer, who she didn't know. He nodded his head at Cheryl, then the body bag as though she should be the one to look. Both of Toni's parents nodded their heads slightly too, giving her permission to find their daughter's lifeless body inside, to see her as nothing but decaying matter.

Crouching down, she struggled to keep her balance on her feet but was hesitant to kneel as the floor had mold growing on it. She touched the cool metal of the zip and began to pull it down, the little crackles it gave off filling up the room, the noise of the crowd completely blocked out.

'It's not her,' she announced with relief as she saw that it was the head of an animal.

Quickly, she zipped the bag back up and stepped outside, the smell becoming too strong for her. She fell to her knees and rested her back against the shed that was threatening to give way at any second.

It wasn't her. Relief flooded through the redhead's body as that phrase kept repeating over and over in her head, seeming to be more real each time.

'Who was it?' Mr Topaz asked. Cheryl didn't even realise he was standing by her, looking down to her.

'It was some kind of animal,' she told him, 'looked like a dog.'

As he thanked her and walked back to his wife, Cheryl wondered how long it's be before it was Toni in a body bag. No fifteen year old could survive by herself being homeless for long.

But she didn't have much time to wonder because a ringing sound jolted her from her thoughts, bringing her back to her surroundings.

She reached to her back pocket to grab her flip phone out and answered it.

'Hi, this is Mark. I'm the handwriting expert who you asked to look at those pieces of writing for you,' he told her in a very matter-of-fact way.

Cheryl gestured to Officer Davis, who wasn't far away, to come over to her.

'Ah yes, do you have the results for us?' She asked, once the other officer was standing next to her.

'I do, I can confirm that the three pieces of writing, -the poem, the description of the redhead, and the piece of what looks to be biology work- were all written by the same person, just two were done in cursive and one wasn't,' he told them, Cheryl's heart dropping to her stomach.

'Okay, thank you,' she said, before hanging up.

'Toni wrote the poem and the piece about the redhead,' she told Davis, quietly.

'I'm sure there's a logical explanation for this, there are many redheads in this world, not only you,' he reasoned, trying to comfort her. But Cheryl wasn't convinced.

~~~

Author's Notes:

Did you think she was dead for a second? 😉
What do you think of this story so far?
Hope you enjoyed and didn't get too scared for Toni 💛💛