Missing

14

Chapter Fourteen

The Next Day

The roads to the wood were long and winding, I had been allowed access by the police to go and search the area for this cave Mark spoke of. I was dreading what I would find there; maybe a body, decapitated animals, aliens.

Parking my car in the empty car park for the wood, I got out to eerily silent place. A shiver ran down my spine as I walked towards the dense mass of trees that stood menacingly in front of me. I slowly began to walk towards the woods, with every step I regretted my decision to come alone.

The silent breeze whispered through the leaves of the large trees as I cautiously traipsed through the quiet area;only my footsteps, the wind and the occasional bird shook the ominous silence. I retraced steps that I hadn't walked in years as I made my way to the oak tree that he had been talking about.

"He is probably talking rubbish, you're listening to a madman!" I spoke to myself, almost argued with myself before I suddenly came face to face with a place I dreaded.

The tree stood in all its glory, centre stage in the clearing; I hadn't changed since I was a child, it was still so tall and formidable. Then, right next to it, was the cave. The haunting, scary cave. The large boulder had indeed been moved and left the mouth of it gaping wide, almost inviting me in. Cautiously I went over to it, expecting some mad person to pop out and kill me. But nothing like that happened.

The closer I got, the more I could see a mound of something and my first reaction was that it was a mound of dead bodies. Heart palpitating in my chest, I felt like I couldn't breath. Mark, my childhood friend, couldn't be a murderer. But as I neared even closer I ruled out the chance of the mound being bodies. It was something very different. Inside the cave was a mound of money, wads of notes that had been stacked up.

"How? What? Why?" I mumbled to myself as I took a closer look, the more I stared the more confused I got. It was a vast amount, more money than I had even seen in my life. I knew Mark had made money through some organisation but the amount was unknown till that movement. Standing in front of me was around two million pounds in cash, a fortune in anyone's judgement.

It was fascinating at first, and then a dark twist fell on it. There was no logical reason for Mark to hide his money in a cave, he had no reason to tell the police where it was. It made no sense.

"I need to go back," I said to myself and almost sprinted to my car, fumbling trying to put the keys into the car to make it start. I couldn't stand being in that ghastly place anymore, torturing myself with made up theories. I wanted to know.

At the police station I ignored everyone that tried to talk to me, tried to convince me not to talk to him. I wanted to, I needed to talk to Mark Smith.

He was sat in his cell still, staring at the ground and only looked up when I was standing by the bars.

"So you went to the cave?" He said, still not looking directly at me.

"How'd you know that?" I asked him, slightly put off by the fact he knew I had gone.

"I knew you'd come back when you saw what was inside, I knew you'd want the answers."

{Sorry this is short but the plot will pick up in the next few chapters I promise}