Ulterior Motives

Unlocking Answers

Cheryl knocked on the door of the Topaz house, hoping that someone would be home.

'Oh, Officer Blossom, hello,' Mrs Topaz said as she opened the door, 'what can we do for you?'

'I was hoping that I'd be able to spend a bit of time in Toni's room,' Cheryl told the older woman.

She walked into the house and headed straight up the stairs. The small room was exactly the same as last time she'd seen it, nothing had been moved.

She set her black briefcase onto the desk whilst she wandered around the room.

There was a shelf with old vinyl records on above her bed. She had some classics such as 'I will always love you' by Whitney Houston and 'Wannabe' by The Spice Girls. Cheryl admired her taste in music.

The thing that struck the young redhead as unusual was that there was no record player anywhere to be seen.

Brushing it off, she sat down at the desk and opened up her briefcase to get to work.

She pulled out the brown folder that she had come to know so well over these past few days and her laptop, placing it down on the younger girl's small desk.

Cheryl knew that she just had to think like Toni, think about why she would want to run away and where she would want to go.

Opening her laptop, she stifled a yawn, trying not to think about how exhausted she was. This case was taking its tole on the young cop, and it was only her first one in her whole career.

After about ten minutes of looking for any evidence, both in the room itself and researching the local area for places Toni could hide, since Cheryl lives a couple of hours away, she came across something taped the the bottom of Toni's desk.

I felt cold. Maybe metal?

She pulled at the sellotape until it eventually came off. It was a key.

A silver key sat in her pale hand, it was circular at the top and the jagged part was quite long.

There was a code on the back of it that had been imprinted into it when it was made. Cheryl knew that the code would tell her the general area where the key was from.

With her new found evidence, she decided to head back to the office to get the key traced.

'Officer Davis?' The redhead called into his office, peeking her head around the door.

'Hello Miss Cheryl, what can I do for you?' He asked, gesturing for her to come in. He seemed to be in a good mood, as usual.

'I found this key at the Topaz house, i was wondering what the best way of getting it traced would be?' She questioned tentatively. Cheryl wasn't the type of person who enjoyed admitting when she didn't know something, but she had to be sure that she got this right.

The older cop looked down at his notepad and scribbled something, before tearing it out and handing it to Cheryl. She took it from him and thanked him, before leaving to get on with the tracing process.

Once she reached her desk, she read what was on the piece of paper. In scruffy handwriting, it read 'tracing place' followed by a phone number. With the key in her hand, she punched the number into the old landline.

'Hello, Texas Tracing Center, how can I help?' A friendly woman said over the phone, her voice so automated it could've been a robot's. Cheryl wondered if she'd ever sound like that when going out to a job, whether she'd become subject to the state system of slaves, people who worked day in and day out doing nothing different from one day to the next. She hoped not, but it seemed to happen to most people eventually, no matter the job.

'Hello?' The woman prompted, sounding less robotic this time.

'Sorry, hi, the sound went fuzzy,' Cheryl lied, snapping herself from her thoughts, 'I'm calling from Austin's police department, I found a key in a missing child's bedroom, i was wondering if you could trace it for me?'

'Absolutely ma'am, I will make you a priority, we should have it traced by the end of the day,' she told her as Cheryl let out a sign of relief, she didn't know how long she could wait, 'can you please read the code on the back of the key to me?'

'Zero, eight, four, five,' she paused, 'nine, seven, four-'

'-Sorry, what was that last number?' The woman interrupted. Cheryl rolled her eyes dramatically, despite there being no one to see her.

'Four,' she repeated, 'then the last number is two.'

Cheryl had more important things to do on this case, but this key could hold some answers, so she stuck with it.

'So it's zero, eight, four, five, nine, seven, four, two?' The woman asked. Cheryl groaned inwardly.

'Yes,' she told her, being careful to not let her irritation show in her voice.

After thanking her, Cheryl hung up, relived that it was over. All she wanted to do was bring Toni home safely, and time wasn't on her side.

~~~

Author's Notes:

So where do you think the key could be traced to?
Do you believe that Toni ran away by choice, or could Cheryl be missing something?
What do you think of this story so far?
I hope you enjoyed, please vote and comment!! 💛💛