CHAPTER TWO
Vanished
The building was glaring with lightbars from the parked police cars that had surrounded it. Other cars were shooting by with spotlights on. One of the police cars stopped into the driveway and parked. From car, he walked towards cordon. He signaled private cars to turn back as the road had been blocked including access to the building. It was a high-rise tower, standing very tall, with forty plus storey’s, it looked massive. Police detectives could be seen from the ground floor, standing on the 28th floor balcony.
One of them seemed to be a police photographer, he was taking photos of the window and another one was explaining what could possibly have happened.
Down on the ground floor near the reception were hundreds of cameras flashing, held by journalists inquiring about the incident and how many victims had been killed.
The corridor of the apartment was full of uniformed and ununiformed police officers. The detective in plain cloth asked the Officer in charge, “what happened here?”
“A Girl and her granny went missing from the house,” one of the crime officer’s replied, concentrating on the sheet of paper he was filling in “A Mother came back from seeing her ex-hubby, but found daughter and the visitor both missing. She searches the whole house before informing the police about the incident, but the daughter is nowhere to be found, furniture is destroyed, and there are evident signs of a possible break in.” he pointed him to the window on the balcony that was totally smashed. “The mother is in there, but she’s in a very bad mental state.”
The detective sergeant moved forward near the door. The lock on the door looked normal, with no signs of alterations at all. Except the window in question, that was opposite a corridor and leading to the balcony. It looked like a Hollywood movie stunt; apart from the fact that here something had really happened. This was no stunt.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry about your daughter and her granny.” He said. “I’m a detective with the local authorities, I’m afraid that I will have to ask you a few questions. Any information given to us will prove very important.”
“Any surveillance systems in here?”
“Yes! In the reception, and I have seen one camera near the elevators, except in the corridors of each floor.”
“What’s the name of your daughter and the other victim?”
“Chloe Mulder and Kris Griffiths.”
Everything was lying upside down in the apartment, except the two nice pieces of art that were hanging up on the opposite wall. A patch of blood was visible a few feet away from where the detective sergeant was standing. It was really hard to imagine what had happened and how it had occurred.
He followed the broken glass trail heading towards the window on the balcony. The pieces of glass made crunching noise as he walked through them step by step. None of the lights in the apartment were lighting. They were all broken as if someone had done it intentionally, breaking one by one. Daylight from the broken window helped to reduce the darkness inside.
The detective asked, “Have you found anything unusual other than what we’re seeing?”
“It looks like clean scene of a crime. But I haven’t thought of anything else except my daughter.”
“Hopefully, she’ll be found okay” said the detective sergeant consolation, thinking that Tracy may just have survived death. The impact in the house was so huge that there was possibility the suspect was the one they should be most worried about.
