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Morana tapped on the picture and zoomed in, the words becoming clearer on the screen and read.
The Count of Missing Girls Shoots Up To 25
Tenebrae, July 8, 1989: In a ghastly turn of events that have shocked the city, 25 little girls between the ages of 4 and 10 have been gone missing in the 2 years. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Sources reveal that these are only the open and reported cases the police are working on.
The latest victim is the 6-year-old Stacy Hopkins (above), who went missing right from the sidewalk while her mother turned the corner at Madison Avenue. It is unclear as to who is to blame. While some believe this to be the work of organized crime groups, some have even talked of the occult. Most of the girls, from what our sources revealed, had gone missing from right under adult supervision…
Morana read the entire article describing the gruesome details, not understanding why someone had sent this to her. Who had sent it? And why? Had it been sent by mistake? It must have been.
Bothered about what she’d read but ready to put it out of her mind for the moment as Tristan Caine walked towards her, Morana almost locked her phone when something on the screen caught her eye. A tiny little note was handwritten in the corner with the headline.
Check the article from July 5, 1998.
An article dated twenty-two years ago.
She couldn’t decide if she was really, really brave or really, really stupid.
Maybe an odd combination of both.
Honestly, there were times when Morana wasn’t particularly proud of herself, even while she wanted to pump her fist in the air and jump in glee. The reason for that was simple – sometimes, Morana did things in her recklessness that she knew she shouldn’t but still when she succeeded in doing them, she wanted to preen.
Right then was one of those reckless moments that made her want to preen.
She contained the urge. Barely.
The reason for both her stupidity and her bravery was five cars down, driving a huge black SUV, the vehicle so huge she was easily able to keep her eye on it from so far down the lane. Not a good vehicle for covert operations at all. But since it worked in her favor, she liked it.
After returning back to the penthouse from her old house with her stuff, Morana had locked herself in the guest room and gotten to work on the new set of codes, while also running a background check for the newspaper article some mysterious person had sent her from over thirty years ago. Tracking the said mysterious person had been impossible despite her numerous tries, telling her the one thing she’d needed to know about him or her – he or she knew computers. Really knew computers, for having evaded her.
And it made her wonder if they hadn’t been related to the original theft of the codes.
She’d mulled over a lot of possibilities while doing the work. Thankfully, the owner of the apartment hadn’t bothered or interrupted her at all. Not once in the thirty hours that she’d been working tirelessly on the codes - not for food, or drinks, or just plain staring.
Nothing.
And honestly, after getting the article, she was grateful. Because there were things going on, things she had no idea about. She needed some answers before getting in deeper than she already was. Her stray thoughts had been evident enough for him on the ride back to the apartment, and he’d withdrawn himself.
For nearly thirty hours, Morana had worked on the base for the new codes. She actually made a whole lot of progress, but it wasn’t that which had sent her down the path to recklessness. Oh no. It had been the article, or rather, the background search.
Trying to find something on the Alliance had resulted in absolutely nothing. But trying to find about the series of kidnappings in Tenebrae thirty years ago had yielded more results and gruesome truths than she’d been able to digest.
I
t had been a series of forty-five abductions (at least those known to the public). Abductions of young girls from their homes or parks that had spanned over a period of ten years. The missing girls were never found, not one. Since they had been abducted sporadically over the years, it had been hard for the police to gather much evidence.
Morana was smart enough to connect some dots, yet she had no clue how that was related to the fall of the Alliance. She didn’t even know if it had something to do with it. For all she knew, the person behind the article could’ve been a lunatic or just a prankster.
Yet, she knew in her gut it was connected.
She had since the moment she’d seen the article and the note. The note had led her to the last article reporting the disappearance of a baby Jane Doe.
Morana had tried, after catching up on some much-needed sleep, to try and talk to Amara about it. It had been the beautiful woman after all who’d given her the first clue. But the moment she’d brought up the kidnappings and the Alliance, Amara had stiffened and zipped her lips tight. Morana knew it was because of the loyalty she felt towards Tristan Caine, but it had only frustrated her. Dante would’ve been as helpful as a goat, and asking Tristan Caine alone would’ve either resulted in her pressed against the nearest flat surface or dead.
And she wanted answers. Not his fingers wreaking havoc on her, or his knife slicing her skin open.
Just answers.
Which was why, under dire circumstances, her brain had come up with a plan after exhausting every single option (short of alien abductions). The plan was simple in theory - find out something about Tristan Caine, something to hold over his head (because that man’s closet of skeletons could accommodate a small country, she was certain), and then blackmail him into giving her the truth.
