Autopsy of a Mind

I turned to Sebastian when we were halfway to the station. "Received it," I chirped. 

"Did they send the scanned copies?" Sebastian asked.

"They send the scanned copies and the documentation in the prison system," I prompted. "From what I can see, there are schedules and attendance sheets attached, too."

"Good," Sebastian hissed. "Now it's time to get this bastard and put him down," he seethed. 

"You're really angry all of a sudden…" I trailed off. 

"I should be. I spoke to Alicia for so many years but I had no idea there was someone else." He sounded mildly defeated. 

"You're still human, Sebastian. And love is the most irrational thing on the planet. A person can either shout about it to the world or act like it doesn't exist." She smirked. "You couldn't have seen the change in her body language or clothing because she was wearing that orange jumpsuit and her hands and legs were tied to the chair for the duration of the interview."

"But I have spoken to people like that," Sebastian must have felt guilty. 

"When someone is brainwashed or part of a cult, they don't have the same expressions. Drive. We got him now," I assured. 

He glanced towards me before going back to driving. 

When we reached the station, the general buzz of people going in and out was evident. 

I saw Nash standing at the reception, talking to a group of new recruits.

"Hey, I'm back. Is there anything new we need to work on?" I asked. 

Nash turned, clutching his heart. "Make some noise, Evie. You scared me to death." He rubbed his hand. "We have a missing person's case being lodged with one of the officers, so we will probably get that. Depending on who the case gets assigned to, we might have some work to do," he said calmly. 

"Well, you won't be disappointed with the paperwork I brought. We have a lot to go through." I chuckled when I saw the expression in his eyes. 

"What paperwork?" he asked. 

I shrugged, not wanting to disclose it in front of others. 

Now that I knew this guy definitely had some government or police connections, I was not going to speak to anyone about him… not even the emails to the superiors would go out. Who knew, maybe one of them was the dreaded family member of the accomplice.

"Okay," he said casually.

Sebastian kissed my forehead before disappearing into his office. When we went into ours, Nash opened his mouth to speak. 

"You spoke to Alicia, didn't you?" he asked, no longer casual. I nodded. "I thought Sebastian was going to do that. You were not allowed inside," he said, frustrated. 

"I know you discussed me while I wasn't there. But I needed that. I know a bit more now. I think I can find him. And it is not going to be long," I said finally. 

"I can see it on your face." He paused. "So, what did you find on him?" he asked. 

I spilled whatever had happened and he gaped. "This is not how I taught you. But good for you, you got your information and a semblance of revenge."

I smirked. "So, we have the employee files for everyone working as guards, temporary staff, and the canteen staff. We have their phone records and home addresses. We also have their recommendations and other details," I must have had a huge smile on my face. 

"Great. We can start going through the information, now," he said. "Good detective work!" he praised. 

I sent him the information when Nash's phone rang.

He picked it up and spoke into it for a couple of minutes before a haunted look appeared in his eyes. 

"What's wrong?" I asked. 

"Emergency case. It's a missing teen," he said. I blinked. 

"The missing person's case?" I asked. He had been casual about it before, but now it was a different story altogether. "What about it?"

"Eleven-year-old female student got out from school but never came home. Her parents reported that she didn't come back on time today and went to school to find her. They found her bag and nothing else."

I cringed. 

"She's a child, so we will have an alert sent out, right?" I asked. 

"Yeah, it has been sent out. A primary team has been sent out to scope out and interview people but there is a catch," he muttered. I waited patiently. "She is on insulin. If she forgets to take it twice a week—"

"She dies," I finished. "No matter if this is foul-play or the girl wandered off, we need to find her before she goes into shock," I stated. "They need us as reinforcement?"

Nash nodded.

"Have we checked her bag yet? For the contents? Are the parents still here?" I asked. 

He nodded once again. "They're waiting outside. Inconsolable, of course. So, let's go there."

We rushed to the waiting room. With the chill in the wind, I could see that the parents were distraught. They were wearing their home clothes, their feet in slippers. They just had shawls draped over their shoulders but they looked like the chill had penetrated their bones. 

"Excuse me," I said softly. The father raised his head, his eyes were red from unshed tears. Beside him, the mother sobbed, her head in her hands. She didn't look up. "My name is Evie Marie Lewis and I will be joining the team to find your daughter," I reiterated. 

"Hello," he said, sniffing once. "You will find her, right?" he asked, his voice shaking. 

"We will do our best to find her and bring her back home safely," Nash said quickly before I could promise something. "Would you mind if we asked a few questions?"

"We know other officers have asked you before, but we want to crosscheck for any information that we might have missed. Is that okay?" We helped one another in this manner. That was the teamwork we had. This was why we solved every case that came our way. 

The father sat up and wiped his face before nodding. 

"When did you think something was wrong?" I asked. 

"She is supposed to get home around one in the afternoon. She studies in a morning school, so she comes back home early," he said. 

"So, she didn't come home at one. What did you do?"

"We called the school and they said she left for home…" he trailed off, his brows scrunching. 

"And how far is the home?"

"It's around 500 meters from our home. We just allowed her to come home alone from this school year." The mother started to cry. 

"We shouldn't have let her!" she sobbed. The father pressed his hand over hers in an attempt to console her. 

We let her cry. 

"Do you know any friends with whom she could have gone?" I asked. I didn't want to sound skeptical but these were procedure questions. 

"No, we called everyone to see if they had seen her. Everyone said she went home straight after school and she didn't talk to anyone." 

"Thank you. Any friends or relatives whom she might have come across?"

"No. She has her diary and secret magic stuff in her bag, so she wouldn't leave it behind even if someone she knew asked her to go."

Magic. Okay, it might not have been something to look at but I kept it at the back of my head. 

"How often does she need to take her medication? Can you give us detailed information on what the prescription is, the dosage, and timings?" 

Their eyes dimmed. 

"Do you think you won't find her in time?" the mother shuddered. 

"We need to have all bases covered. We want to return your daughter to you healthy," I assured.

The mother pulled out her phone and showed me the prescription. "I keep her prescription on hand for emergencies. I can share it with you if you want," she said hopefully. 

I nodded. I helped her transfer the picture to my phone. "Would you mind bringing her prescribed insulin so that we can administer it if need be?" 

The mother nodded. "Okay. Please go home, take a shower and have some warm food. We'll search for her and when you come back next, we will try to give you an answer."

I smiled. The parents looked a little reassured. They held hands as they left.

I stood up and turned to Nash. "Is there any chance she fell sick and walked away?" I asked. 

"It's possible. We will look at the footage."

About half an hour later, the bag was brought in for inspection. It was sent to the forensics lab and we followed.

The whole thing was dumped out. 

"Mind if we look through as well?" Nash asked as we entered. 

"Please do. It's not much, but maybe we can get something."

Apart from the school books and stationery, we also had her journal. I picked it up and sighed. 

"I don't want to pry into her journal but we might get a clue, right?" I whispered.

"That's the job. Read," Nash ordered. 

I flipped through the journal, reading every line carefully until the very end. 

"Wow, you're a really fast reader!" the analyst gasped, looking at me when I put down the journal. I shrugged. 

"Occupational hazard," I commented. "Did you find any prints?" I asked. 

"Plenty of fingerprints. The dirt on this is a lot too. We'll need to run this through our catalog and maybe something will happen," he commented. 

"We shouldn't rule out she walked away because she was disoriented," I said blandly.

Nash's phone was blowing up. He looked down in confusion. "It's the cyber-crime department," he groaned. He picked it up and I heard hurried talking on the other side. "Email it. Email the footage, email the link… everything. And don't take the video down. Keep it rolling."

My throat constricted. "What is it?" I asked before he could hang up. 

"They found a livestream on a website. It's one of those violent fantasy websites where people pay to watch videos. The missing girl was in one of them. Someone from the cybercrime team recognized her when the camera flashes towards her."

Horror struck me. "They need to watch those things every day?" I whispered. 

He nodded. "It's about a particular streamer who has been showing extremely violent content. They are trying to ascertain if these men and women are willing participants… Now we know." His eyes darkened.

"God, I don't know if I am happy or horrified. Let's get down to this. We need to find her," I breathed. 

I pressed my eyes together and sighed. "I sometimes regret working here," I admitted. 

"Don't. Don't think about it. It's only the end result that matters. We need someone like you on our team. No matter what we see… we have a job to do." He patted me on the shoulder and we walked out. 

It was going to be a long day.