Chapter 26: Missing (EDITED)

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Will's POV, One Hour Later

I walked inside my apartment after my workout, grabbed a bottle of whiskey, and began drowning my sorrows much like I had been doing for the last week.  The bureau was so pleased with the case closing they'd given me some time off.  I'd used it by going to the gym, drinking, and sleeping.  I was doing my best to get my mind off a certain brown-eyed girl, but nothing was helping.

She was everywhere I looked.  Her words were all I could hear:  she didn't love me.  I'd wrestled every day with the desire to go to her, tell her we could still be friends.  Realistically, I knew it wasn't possible, but my heart ached being away from her.  It felt like somebody had ripped away a huge piece of me.  No matter what I did, it didn't get better.

I sighed, pulling my phone out of my pocket and turning it on.  I always turned it off when I went to the gym.  It helped me concentrate when I didn't have the option to look at it.  I saw several missed calls accompanied by as many voicemails.  I scrolled through them, seeing that the first was from Annalee.  My heart thumped painfully in hope at what she wanted to talk about.  I turned on the voicemail she'd left and at the sound of her voice I sank.  She sounded like she'd been crying. 

"Hi Will, um, it's Annalee. Look, there's something I need to tell you. I don't want to leave it on your voicemail. I need to talk to you. Please call me back."

I couldn't help but wonder what she wanted to talk to me about.  My first reaction was to immediately call her back, but I stopped myself and decided to listen to the other voicemail first.  I needed to brace myself if I was going to talk to her, otherwise I might beg her to be my friend again, though that's not really what I wanted.

I opened the next one and my eyes widened to see it was from Mr. Bloom.  He hadn't called me in a while.

"Will, something's happened to Annalee.  I can't get there quickly enough.  I need you to go see what happened.  The cops won't tell me much unless I'm there in person.  All I know is she was in a car accident by her apartment.  Please hurry and make sure she's okay."

He sounded very worried, and I had to admit the worry was coursing through my veins as well.  What happened to her?  I rushed out of my apartment into my car and drove toward her apartment.  I saw a huge scene laid out before me.  There was an ambulance, fire truck, and several cop cars.  A huge truck was severely damaged in the front and another car was upside down many feet away.  I looked closer; it was Annalee's car!  I ran toward the crime scene when a cop stopped me.

"You can't go back there sir."

I felt my pockets, relieved once I felt my FBI badge.  I hadn't left it home after all.  I flashed it at him and he let me come closer.  The two detectives from the Brian Mills case came toward me, nodding in acknowledgement.

"What happened here?  Where is Annalee?"

They exchanged looks I didn't like before one turned back to me.  "We don't know.  This truck obviously crashed into the young lady's car, but both the driver of the truck and Miss Bloom are missing.  There was some blood by her car, but other than that, there's no trace of her."

I stared at them, willing someone to tell me it was all a joke.  But they both looked as serious as a heart attack.  I felt panic welling up into my chest.  Where was she?  What happened?  I took a deep breath to get control of it before I ended up sobbing in the fetal position.

"Do you have any idea of what happened?"

"We have a theory.  It's possible that the woman accomplice wasn't hired for a one-time job after all.  Maybe she was behind this.  If that's the case, she must be connected to all this somehow."

I nodded.  It was possible.  "Have you contacted her boyfriend yet?  He might know more about this."

The man looked me square in the eyes as he said, "We haven't been able to get a hold of him.  We called his last known phone number, but nothing's going through."

I stuffed my panic and fear down so I could get busy finding her.  "Alright, I'll track him down."  

I rushed to the place he'd told me he worked: club NightShade.  I marched in, tracked down the manager as the employees were setting up, and asked him where I could find Jaime Gomez.

"I don't know.  Haven't seen him in over a month."  He shrugged.  I stared.  What?  But Jaime said he was working here.

After a second, I opened my phone and scrolled through my messages with Annalee.  She'd sent me a picture of the two of them at one point.  Ah, there it was.

"Is this him?"  I said, showing the club manager.

He looked at the photo for a second then handed it back to me.  "Nope.  I haven't ever seen that guy."

The pieces started clicking into place for me.  Jaime, or whatever his real name was, had to be involved somehow.  "Do you have an address for him?"

The club manager went through his records and gave me Jaime Gomez's last known address.  I rushed out of the club to my car and drove around until I found it.  It was a rundown little house just outside the suburbs.  Parking in front of the house, I walked up to the door and knocked.  With no answer, I went around to peer through the windows.  

I saw a relatively person-shaped shadow on the floor through the window.  I knew I'd come to regret this later, but I didn't have time to wait for a warrant so I kicked the door in.  The second I stepped inside the most horrible stench hit my nose and I coughed and spluttered, finally covering my nose with my sleeve.  I felt my stomach drop; that smell could only mean one thing.  I peered into the living area and saw exactly what I was expecting: a dead body.  It had to be that of the real Jaime Gomez. I checked out the rest of the house as I was waiting and came to see something else that surprised me: another dead body. This one looked fresher, and I recognized her. It was Lindsay Smith. I was glad she was found, though I was sorry she was dead. "Jaime" must have killed her to clean up his trace.

I called the New Rochelle police force out to the crime scene.  They recorded the crime scene and what I saw in detail before I could finally get a word in.  I asked if I could log into the FBI database on one of their computers.  After some convincing, one officer finally gave in.  I hopped into his car and opened the database, signing in.  I sent the photo of Jaime and Annalee to my email so I could open it on the computer and ran it into the FBI database.  I needed to find out who "Jaime" actually was.  

While I waited for the photo to scan through our databases I felt my chest sinking.  I had been right about him all along.  I thought I would have felt gloating, but I felt horrible.  I hadn't tried hard enough to find out the truth.  I'd run his name as a background check, of course, but I should have run a photo as well.  I should have spoken to his workplace sooner.  I'd allowed my jealousy and feelings for Annie to cloud my judgement.  Despite my desperate attempts to shove all the feelings down so I could do the job, I felt a tear slip out down my cheek.

I wiped it away as I heard the tell-tale ding of the computer telling me it had a match.  I looked at the screen and couldn't believe my eyes.  This meant Annalee was in more danger than I thought.





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