Behind The Flames: A Detective Chineke Series

Chapter 15

 Fifteen minutes later, the police showed up in their two squad cars. One car was to transport Jeff to lockup before his trail and the other was for the kids to be transported to child services for adoption.

"Mr. Chineke, we're going to take the kids to child services. Imani wants you to stop by her office after you leave the hospital." The police officer told me.

"Alright, will do. Thanks." I replied to the officer.

"No. Thank you for catching this guy." The officer pleaded sincerely.

Standing next to me, Tarah hard the appraisal I received from the officer. I looked at her and raised my eyebrows three times with a smile. She felt left out and overlooked even though she helped with the case.

"Ahem!" Tarah coughed sarcastically with her arms crossed.

"Oh yeah, thank you too!" The officer commented as he noticed Tarah's gesture.

"My pleasure! Zale wouldn't have caught Jeff by himself I wasn't here." Tarah spoke happily.

We both knew who did the hard work here. Yet, I was glad to see her happy about what we achieved together.

"Right. Speaking of Jeff, he said something about some evolved symbol. About learning the stages. I don't know." The officer added just before he walked off.

"Okay, thanks again." I said mysteriously.

I watched the officer get in the cop car to transport Jeff away. Just before the car drove off, I caught a glimpse of Jeff pointing to what appeared to be a symbol. A tattoo maybe. It was a black triangle. At first, it seemed normal, but then I thought about it. Jeff was trying to tell me something. I had no idea what it meant.

"Uhm, hello!" Tarah yelled at me.

Snapping back to reality helped me remember that there was still something I had left to do.

"Oh, my bad Tarah. I zoned out." I responded sincerely.

"I see. So, what was that all about?" Tarah asked curiously.

Somewhere in my mind, I was hoping Tarah wouldn't ask about what caused me to zone out. Even though I didn't have to tell her, I decided to feed her curiosity.

"Well, Jeff said something about my powers. Something about becoming evolved. I believe that symbol he just showed me had something to do with it." I explained truthfully.

Tarah looked puzzled for a second before she put two and two together.

"Oh, so Jeff has powers too?" Tarah asked.

"Yep!"

"Makes sense." She responded while placing her fingers on her chin.

I just stared at her. Then, Tarah noticed me staring at her.

"What?" Tarah questioned with her wondering eyes.

"Why you gotta do that?" I asked her.

"I'm lost." She mentioned calmly.

I just shook my head. Maybe she didn't realize it.

"That's my catch phrase." I told Tarah with a smile on my face.

"Man, whatever! So, what are you going to do about this symbol and becoming evolved?" Tarah asked curiously.

"I'll do my research and train my power more. Eventually, I'll get there." I told her.

"After you get the old couple, right?" Tarah reminded me.

Honestly, I had already forgotten about the couple. I told Simon to look out for them. Now was the time for me to go finish business with them.

"Oh yeah, let me get to the hospital. Meet me there after you get Jeff's stash of cash from his trunk." I replied to Tarah as I reached for my keys.

"Alright, then we can go from there on if we'll leave the country or not." Tarah reminded me again.

"Right. Hopefully everything goes good." I told Tarah.

Tarah turned and jogged in the direction of Jeff's car to get the cash from the trunk. After Tarah left, I noticed the kids in the other police car. Two officers were escorting their belongings and bags to the car. Once all their stuff was inside, the two officers got in the car and drove off on a different route.

"On to the hospital." I whispered to myself.

As quickly as I could, I jogged over to my motorcycle and hopped on. Turned on the ignition with my key to navigate my way to the hospital. Suddenly, I heard an explosion in the distance ahead. Boom!

"The hell? Don't let it be what I think it is." I told myself anxiously.

Pushing the gas to nearly fifty miles per hour, I got to the scene of the explosion in a few minutes. I parked on the road. From what my eyes caught in sight; I could see one of the police cars on the road flipped over near the outskirts of the pavement. Fire was burning from the hood of the car. Releasing the strong smell of burnt leather and carbon dioxide in the air. One of the police officers was standing bent over coughing in the middle of the road. The other was laying on the grass a few feet away from the car's passenger side.

"That damn dirtbag got away... but we'll catch him eventually." The standing officer spoke softly.

Without saying a word, I just drove off. It was no longer my problem, yet I knew things were too easy to be true.