AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I killed the lights, pulled to a stop outside of Charles' place, and shut off the engine. The night was dark and a thick cloud cover in the sky obscured the moon. The lights in his place were on and there was a car in the driveway. I sat there a moment, pondering what my next move was going to be.
I couldn't exactly knock on the door
and ask if Avery was there. I'd sound like a crazed, overprotective parent. But, given the fact that she hadn't come home and wasn't answering her cell phone, I was worried. Beyond worried, actually.
As I sat there thinking about what my play was going to be, I saw the front door to Charles' place open. I watched as two men – one I recognized as Charles, and an older man I thought could be his father – came out, carrying what looked like a body wrapped in a blanket between them.
“Oh, my God,” I whispered to myself.
Avery. Had they killed her? I quickly rejected the notion. Charles was a lot of things, but a hardened killer wasn't one of them. At least, I didn't think so. But, the oddly shaped bundle wrapped in the blanket told me otherwise. It certainly set the red flags waving and the warning bells going off in my head.
I couldn't be sure that it was actually Avery wrapped in the blanket they were carrying. For all I knew, she wasn't even there, and they were carrying nothing more ominous than a rug. I sat there frozen with indecision. Do I get out and confront them? What if I was wrong? What if Avery was back at home now? What if she'd met somebody and had gone back to his place?
Or, what if she was lying dead in the bundle Charles and his father were loading into the trunk of their car?
The thought persisted, gripping my mind, and refused to let go. I made the decision to follow them and see what was going on. If they were leaving, I doubted Avery was at the house anyway. I'd follow their car, see where they went, and what they were doing. That would tell me all I needed to know, one way or the other.
The voice in the back of my mind whispered to me though, asking what I was prepared to do if it was Avery they'd put into the trunk. And truthfully, I didn't have an answer to that. I had no idea. I figured I'd cross that bridge when I came to it.
I hunched down in the seat as Charles drove his car out of his driveway, quickly hooking a right, speeding off down the street. I started the engine and pulled away from the curb. Not being a spy, I wasn't very good at following somebody to begin with. Given that it was late, and there were few cars on the road, it made that task even more difficult.
I was gambling on Charles not being very good at it either though, and not really knowing how to pick up on a tail. I kept a safe distance back. Far enough behind them that I didn't think it looked obvious that I was following them. I just made sure to keep their taillights in sight.
We drove for damn near an hour, winding our way through the outskirts of the city. Eventually, we entered a district of what looked like rundown, dilapidated old warehouses. I turned off my headlights and followed them through the warren of old buildings. They turned right up ahead of me and in the darkness, I saw the flare of brake lights. They were stopping. I stopped where I was and shut off the engine.
Quickly getting out of my car, I quietly closed the door and hurried to the corner of the building. Peering around the corner, I watched as Charles and his father moved to the trunk and started talking amongst themselves. The conversation they were having looked pretty animated. They were careful to keep their voices down though, making it impossible for me to hear them.
I didn't know what it was, but something told me it was, in fact, Avery in the trunk of that car. Call it intuition, a sixth-sense, or my Spidey Senses tingling. For some reason, as I stood there in the darkness of the night, I knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, they had Avery and were planning something terrible.
Not knowing what else to do, I retreated back the way I came and hunkered down behind my car. Pulling out my cell phone, I dialed the number for the police. As I waited for the call to be connected, I looked around at the cracked, broken buildings. The windows in the warehouses had long been smashed out, and most of the buildings looked like they were on the verge of collapsing in on themselves.
I supposed if you wanted to dump a body, this would be the place to do it.
The call was connected and the woman on the other end of the line started speaking in French. My French was passable, but I was far from fluent.
“I need to speak to a detective,” I said in my broken French. “Somebody who speaks English, please?”
“English?” she asked.
“Yes, please,” I replied, grimacing at how rough I sounded speaking their language. I swore if I got both Avery and I out of this mess, I was going to have her teach me the language too.
“Please hurry,” I said. “This is an emergency.”
“Stay on the line.”
She clicked off the line and I waited for several long, agonizing moments for somebody to pick it up again. I felt every single grain of sand slipping through the hourglass, my heart thundering in my chest, knowing Avery was running out of time. If they had her wrapped in a blanket in the trunk of their car, they hadn't brought her out there to sightsee. Assuming she was still alive, they'd brought here there for something terrible.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the line was picked up. It was a man whose English was accented with French but was very clear and concise. I peered over the car to make sure Charles and his father hadn't grown suspicious and weren't bearing down on me.
They weren't. I was still in the clear.
“Detective Moreau,” he said, his tone clipped.
“Detective,” I replied. “My name is Spencer Sullivan and I need to report a crime. A possible murder.”
“Murder?” he asked, his tone skeptical.
“Yes, sir,” I said. “My nanny has gone missing and I've followed two men who are carrying what looks like a body wrapped up in a blanket to an old warehouse district on the outskirts of town.”
