Ulterior Motives

Six Little Letters

The ringing of the telephone sounded through the small office. Cheryl reached for it immediately.

'Officer Blossom speaking,' she said into the phone.

'Hello Miss Blossom, I have the results from Toni Topaz's fingerprints that you were asking for,' a man told her. It must be the lab.

'Ah yes, were Miss Topaz's fingerprints on the outside of the window?' She asked, eager to know.

'They were,' he told the officer.

'Okay, thank you,' Cheryl mumbled, hanging up.

This proved her theory. Toni had left on her own accord.

The first thing that she should do is phone the family, but she decided against that. First, she wanted to look for evidence of where she could be right now, so that she'd have more to tell the parents the next time she contacts them.

Filing through the photographs of the girl's room, she found the one of the crossword that was on her desk.

Deciding to start there, she pulled it out of the pile and placed it on her desk.

It appeared to just be a normal crossword, except there were no clues along the bottom. The paper was jagged, as if Toni had ripped the clues off.

But why would she do that?

Hardly any of the actual letters were legible, and it was only half filled in. Four of the words were completed, while the rest were left blank - as if Toni had never got around to completing it.

Out of the four words that were completed, only one had letters that could be read.

It was a six letter word and was on the left hand side of the puzzle, going downwards.

The word clearly began with an 'A', then the fourth letter was 'T' and the fifth was 'I'. That was all the cop could figure out.

Jotting some things down in her notepad, Cheryl decided to phone Toni's house and see if her parents had any idea what the crossword could mean, she needed to tell them about the fingerprints anyway.

'Hello, Officer Blossom speaking,' Cheryl introduced herself.

'Oh hello,' Toni's dad replied, 'let me just call my wife to the phone so that we can speak to you together.'

Cheryl heard some rustling on the other end of the line, then was met by Toni's mom's voice.

'Hello, Officer Blossom,' she said.

'I am just calling to let you know that the crime scene investigators found that your daughter's fingerprints were on the outside of the window frame, which shows that she left voluntarily,' Cheryl informed in an apologetic tone.

'Oh my God,' Toni's mother cried, 'why would my baby girl runaway?'

'We don't know why yet, Mrs Topaz, but I will get you answers as soon as possible,' Cheryl promised.

'Thank you,' her dad said sadly.

'There is another thing that I found that I'd like you to have a look at,' the Officer began, 'there was a half finished crossword left on her desk and the clues were torn off, only one word has letters that can be read.'

'What letters are they?' Mr Topaz asked.

'It is a six letter word, the first letter is 'A', the fourth is 'T' and the fifth is 'I',' she told the parents, hoping that they could help her to figure it out.

'Okay, we'll have to have a think, we'll call you if we figure it out,' Toni'a father said.

After thanking them, Cheryl hung up.

She threw her head into her hands out of desperation. She was still no closer to solving this missing person's case and now she'd just gone and upset the parents.

'You okay?' A male voice said. Cheryl looked up to see Officer Davis peeking his head around the door.

'Yeah, just not getting very far with this case,' she told him as he walked up to her, embracing her in a hug.

'What do you have?' He asked.

'A half finished crossword, fingerprints on the outside of a window and a picture of a rose,' she told him, her voice on the edge of breaking.

'Damn, not a whole lot to go off then,' he admitted.

Cheryl just looked up at him. He really wasn't helping.

'Blossom,' he said, holding her eye contact, 'people don't just disappear without a trace.'

'Well I do realise that,' she snarked, cutting him off.

'You need more evidence, and the only place that you will find that is at the scene of the crime. No matter how many photographs you take and how much you analyse them, you will never think like Toni would think unless you put yourself in her shoes, think like an emotional teenager, then you'll be one step closer to finding her,' he finished.

It was like a lightbulb went off in Cheryl's head. She really had to get to know the fugitive, had to find out what she liked to do, what she was like. That way, she'd be able to anticipate where she would run to.

'Thank you,' she told the cop, 'I know what I have to do now.'

~~~

Author's Notes:

I haven't written for a few days so hopefully this doesn't suck 🤷‍♀️.
What do you think Cheryl will do next?
Have you figured out the crossword yet?
Where could Toni be?
Thanks for reading, please vote and comment if you enjoyed it!! 💛💛