Chapter Eighteen: Conducting The Research

13 4 2
                                    

   Coby needed answers. Not only was he trying to figure out where his wife was, but now he also wanted to know how much Robert had seen into Coby's life. He spent days just thinking about how he could get answers, or who he could trust. Because of all this thinking, he had missed many days of work. That caused him to get fired... he had never thought that would happen to him. Now, Coby was living in a huge mansion that he could hardly afford anymore because he was short on money, and he also had to provide for a cat. Some days he went without a meal because he jus didn't have enough money.

   But one day it hit him. He remembered how Robert and Emma June had been fighting over why they hated each other so much. It even got to the point where Emma June admitted that she was Robert's step sister. That got him thinking... what if Robert, or maybe even Emma June, had other siblings?

   That was his answer. He needed to look more into Robert and Emma's lives. Strangely enough, all of the time Robert and Coby had been friends, Robert had never said anything about siblings, pets, other friends, or even his parents. While Coby was sitting and thinking about the whole friendship, he started to realize how much about Robert he really didn't  know about. Where had he grown up? Had he ever had a girlfriend? What size shoe did he wear?

   Coby was tired of thinking. He was tired of sitting around and regretting his decisions about his friendship with Robert. He was tired of replaying Emma's murder in his head. He was especially tired of not getting answers. He decided to head to his treasured computer. At this computer, he would find all of the answers to his questions. At least that's what he thought.

   He went over to his desk that was in the study. To do this, he had to walk down one of the longest corridors in his home. This brought back bad memories... this was the hallway that Robert had hunted down Emma and him that one horrible night. Robert's words suddenly came rushing back into his brain. "Anyone up for a quick game of deadly hide and seek?" "Ready...Or...Not...Here...I...COME." Coby had to stop thinking about those moments. The longer he thought about them, the more he got paranoid.

   He sat down at his desk and turned on his computer. He cracked his knuckles and took a deep breath. He got into his typing position and went to Google. He went to the search bar and typed in, "Science Lab Of California Employees". What came up was a ton of links to random websites. He clicked on the first link because it looked like the legit Science Lab website. Once in the website, he clicked on a little tab that said, "Staff Members". On that page was hundreds of pictures of the workers that worked at the Lab. Thankfully the names were in alphabetical order. At the top, it said that the page was last updated a few years before, which meant Robert and Kaitlyn would both be on the page. He scrolled down quite a bit into a K section. He used his mouse to outline the names until he found Kaitlyn's name. There she was. There was a small picture of her with her name directly below it.

   He knew that he couldn't stay on her picture for too long or her would get emotional. He didn't have time for that. So, he kept scrolling. He finally reached the R section. He used his mouse to outline the R names until he would find Robert. He kept looking for his name and picture. He sat there for a few minutes just looking. But something shocked him. His name wasn't there. Neither was his picture. He scrolled all the way back to the top to go back through the names and look for "Robert's" picture. He started back at the A's. He scrolled through A-S. "Robert" wasn't there. He scrolled through the T-Y section. He still wasn't there.

   He finally got to Z. He yet again used his mouse to outline the names until he found his x-friend's picture. Then, he stumbled onto his picture. He looked at the name below the picture. The name read, "Zack Pure". The whole time Coby had been friends with Robert, he had been faking his name. Why?

Knowledge+Power=DeathWhere stories live. Discover now