Yesterday, I poured through the case report again. The police discovered an unidentified user had hijacked my cousin's wifi and subsequently her passwords...and later even her phone itself. After Sam's disappearance, they traced her iphone several miles away to a ditch beside a dirt road. The phone had no fingerprints on it, which is suspicious in and of itself.
If Sam's wifi was hacked, it likely means the perpetrator had been lurking around her property for several days. The police did a cursory search of the house after the incident but found little aside from a few clumps of dog hair from Sam's schnauzer, which had also gone missing.
Yesterday, a concerned commenter replied to my initial post, leaving me wondering if the bastard could have been hiding somewhere inside Sam's house. I decided to dig a little deeper and take a road trip to my cousin's home, which my family still owns but dares not step foot in.
On the way to Sam's place, I decided to stop and see Amberlyn. Her farmhouse was gorgeous in a rustic sort of way. It was our first time meeting in person, and I found myself impressed by her intelligence and sensitivity. I had not been expecting her to live in such rural isolation and asked if it was difficult to maintain so much house and property by herself. She admitted it wasn't easy, but she simply didn't have the heart to leave the house she had shared with the love of her life. Her husband, Warren, was serving as an army specialist in Afghanistan when he was killed by friendly fire. After shifting our conversation to more banal topics and downing several glasses of iced tea, I asked Amberlyn to show me the elm tree where she had found the note. Her brow creased, but she agreed. She didn't like visiting that spot near the road.
I don't know what I was expecting as I stared at the twisted elm. A chill ran down my spine when I remembered the fear in Amberlyn's voice the night she told me about the bizarre stranger wearing my cousin's sweater. I saw a thumbtack sticking in the tree and asked her if that was where the threatening note had been secured. She said yes. I was initially excited, before realizing that any usable prints would have undoubtedly faded away in the past two years. Nevertheless, I plucked the tack from the tree and put it in my pocket.
I'm tapping this out from a Denny's restroom stall (I had too much tea at Amberlyn's place and had to stop on my way to Sam's house.) I'll give you another update as soon as I've concluded my search.
-N
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targeted.
Mystery / Thriller(Note: Fiction) Hello Internet. Exactly two years ago, my cousin Samantha disappeared without a trace, likely abducted from her home in the middle of the night. The investigators have pretty much given up, but my family is still holding on to the ho...
