9 CHAPTER 7:

JAYDEN'S POV:

"Cheese Tapas" Zienna muttered under her breath with a blank face.

"What is Cheese Tapa doing here?" Cole muttered for his part with the same blank face.

After some deep thinking, Zienna looked at me, "You suspect Santiago?"

Cole followed, "Because of Cheese Tapa?"

I replied, "Yes and no," answering both of their questions, "Think about it. When did we first meet him?"

"When it was past one day since Mina disappeared," Cole replied.

"When did you first meet him, Zienna?" I asked her.

She steadied herself, "The day before you guys met him."

"Exactly. That night, Tommy came to me saying that the guy waited a whole day to meet me from the morning. That was when you sent him home, remember?"

"Right," said the confused Zienna.

"What was the reason? Why did he had to wait for me a whole day even before Mina disappeared?" I asked.

Cole shook, "Yeah! Even if it's regarding a different reason, he should've told you the next time he met you! But why did he come?"

"To play the innocent role obviously, though it went a bit of too much flop," Zienna replied.

"I get that, but, what would have he done if you had met him the same day?" Zienna added.

"If our assumptions are right, then he would've known that I wouldn't be in the office for the day because of the case at that moment." I replied.

"How are you so sure?"

"We've never met each other before. But why did he ask for me and not anyone else? There were numerous cops from both other departments and as well as ours that day, including the both of you, except me. So, there are chances he might have been tracking our movements." I explained my perceptions.

They were thinking it through with shook expressions.

I continued, "There's more. The next day when we met him, did you notice something? He was here even before the victim's mother. And when he met Mina's mother at the entrance of our office, do you remember what she first said to him?"

"Yes! She told him her daughter was gone and that it's been a day already!" Cole jumped.

"Yes. Like informing him!"

The both of them widened their expressions, realising he was also here in Bianca's case.

It was so late at night. The Colonel ordered the interrogation to be conducted the next day morning. And so, Santiago was made to stay the night in the cell.

After completing the formalities, I drove home.

I took a nice late-night shower and came to bed. That's when my phone rang.

"Jasmine!" I screamed.

"Well, well, if it isn't my busy body brother" she snapped.

"I'm sorry sis, you know how it is," I apologized, "But what is it so late at night?"

"It's 6:45 in the morning here, Dumbo! I live in Hungary now, and I'm your sister called Jasmine Maddox. Can you remember that much?"

"Oh right, the time difference! But hey, don't say that! I thought of calling you, it's just that I didn't find the time."

"A new case?"

"Yeah."

"Having a hard time?"

"You can say that."

"You okay?"

"I suppose"

"Had dinner?"

"No. Hey, I might doze off if you continue."

"Ungrateful! I was trying to be considerate."

"Haha! I can see that," I added, "Okay, okay. Let's talk about you. How are things there?"

"Hmm, not so good."

"What's wrong, Jas? I didn't expect that."

"Nothing bad, it's just that I'm not used to things here, it's lonely, and not how I expected it to be."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know. Are you sure you can hang in there?"

"It's not your fault, Jay. That's okay, I'm sure I'll get used to it. Don't worry about me. If things don't work out, I might just run away, just so you know."

We continued talking for a while. It was good talking to her after a long time. I must find time to talk to her often, despite my schedules.

I went to sleep after a while.

***

"Mom? Mom! Where are you? Look at this!" a little kid cried.

He runs around looking for his mom to show her something, but sadly couldn't find her.

I go to him and say, "Hey little guy, why don't you go home now? It's late already. You shouldn't be out alone at times like this, okay?"

I can realize somewhere on my mind that his mom has already returned home, so I urge him to get back home.

But then, a middle-aged woman comes to him and offers to play with him, bringing him some toys.

The both of them plays for quite some time and each of them returns back to their respective homes.

The kid runs with his new toys-

Buzz-Buzz! The Alarm went off. It's time to start the day.

Nice timing!

After few hours of jogging, workout, shower and dress-up, I drove to the station. I didn't have the mood for breakfast today, so I planned on grabbing something real quick on my way.

As I was exiting with my sandwich, I ran into someone familiar.

"Nicky?"

"Jayden! Oh my Goodness!" she cried.

"What are you doing here? I thought you moved into a different city?"

"Yeah, Max was transferred here, so we moved together yesterday." She stated.

"That's great!"

"How's Jasmine doing? I heard she moved to Budapest?" she asked.

We talked for some time, sharing information on how life was treating us.

"It was good seeing you again Nicky! I'm running late to work. See you around! Ask your husband to stop by some time."

We exchanged our goodbyes and I left.

Nicky is a friend of Jasmine and I; we grew up together for some time in the orphanage until a couple adopted her. We were still in contact until she moved into a different city with her husband, Max.

I speeded up as I was late today.

I went to the Interrogation room.

Santiago was seated there and Cole was interrogating him.

I was informed that he'd been denying the allegations right from the start of the interrogation. He didn't answer anything proper on why he was here the previous day before Mina's disappearance.

Many officers tried to get something out from him, but in vain. He just wouldn't say anything at all. They were all frustrated that they needed a break to continue with him, and so, they left.

I joined Cole to the interrogation room. As I was about to take the seat, the power went off.

"Ugh! So annoying," I said.

"Where are the others? How do we record the enquiry if there's no power?" Cole asked in an irritated tone.

"They're on break. I know, right? They know our station's facilities revolve around electricity, shouldn't they at least upgrade UPS or stuff like that?" I raged with annoyance.

"Ugh! I guess we have no other option than to wait for the power." He said.

"Whatever! It's not like he's gonna confess anyways!" I stretched.

I turned to Santiago and held out my hands to shake with his', "Oh hey Mr Santiago! Sorry, I was just caught up with something, I couldn't greet you."

"That's alright, Sir" he replied.

"Please don't stress on this too much. It's just a formality." I assured him.

"Okay, sir. Thank you," he was a bit confused by why I wouldn't let go of his hands.

"I just feel bad you had to go through all of these. The world is so unfair" I exclaimed.

You know what I'm trying to do here!

After some fake empathies from my part, I paused when I got a call.

Dr Arnold Smith notified me that the autopsy results were out.

That's when Zienna entered. I told them I was going to get the results, while the both of them stayed back in the room.

I reached Dr Arnold's workplace and waited for him at his office. He came in with the results.

"How are things, Doctor?" I asked him.

"Couldn't get worse. See for yourself," he showed me the file.

He began, "According to the results, the victim has been tied up when unconscious, in a place where the water level goes up gradually until it drowned her. It has taken nearly a day to completely drown her. In addition, there are also traces of electric shocks projected to her body while the body was still in the water."

The colour of my face slowly drained when he continued explaining. So, what I saw was true.

Without wasting any more time, I sped to the station. Cole was out from the interrogation room. As soon as he saw my worked-up face, he knew what I was going to tell him was something bad.

I handed over the results of autopsy and the simple form of explanation of it in a piece of paper to him. He read it aloud to all the cops present there. Everybody had the same reaction. They were all worked up and worried.

I asked Cole on how things went there.

Finally something better! The forensic has found his fingerprints on her glasses. His DNA matched the sample.

We went to the room. I told him about the forensic reports. He was astonished, unable to handle the sudden, unexpected discovery. He started to sweat.

"T-That's ridiculous. You can't acquire clear fingerprints from wet products. The glasses were wet, the samples should be washed off." He stammered.

"Well, what you didn't know was that the hinge of the glasses are sensitive and the sample is preserved in the metal, which can be acquired easily." I stated.

He didn't utter a single word after that, regardless of whatever was asked.

Now that he has blurt out the truth accidentally, the interrogation can be continued by others. I dragged Cole out of the room.

Before I could say anything, he began, "We've sent people to acquire information on all of his owned locations, just in case."

"Thank Goodness," I exclaimed.

He realized something suddenly, "Did you see something? I bet you did! I saw the look on your face before you went to Dr Arnold. What's it?"

"Although it was vague, I get the rough idea. An unconscious girl tied up in a water tank, vast and vague amount of water, a board named 'San constructions' and a quote that said, 'Again-Difference'" I explained to him.

He swore under his breath. We contacted everyone we thought could help in finding the San Constructions.

I quickly assigned different officers to carry on different tasks and asked for a backup team to follow us. I also asked Tommy to set our cars as soon as possible.

I was rushing crazily, "We need to hurry, Cole!"

He looked at me.

"It's Bianca." I said,

"She's not dead."

***