Ulterior Motives

Framed

'Hello, this is Officer Blossom and Officer Davis calling, we have some news about your daughter's case,' Cheryl told Toni's parents through the telephone

'What's happened?' Toni's mother questioned. The anxiety was evident in her voice.

'We put all of the pieces together from inside of the vinyls and it made a poem, did you know that your daughter wrote poetry?' Cheryl asked, wondering how close Toni truly was to her parents.

'No we didn't know that, could you read it?' The older woman said, her voice dropping when she realised that Toni had kept parts of her life private.

'Absolutely,' Cheryl told them, before beginning to read it.

Once she was finished, Mrs Topaz was in tears.

'How didn't I notice something was wrong?' She asked, not expecting an answer, 'She had a relationship that I didn't even know about.'

'That's not one hundred percent the truth ma'am, we are considering the possibility that the person who Toni asked to help her out in the poem has been the person leaving these clues, so we are going to have to rethink everything that we thought we knew,' Cheryl explain in a monotonous voice, becoming more and more certain with every passing day that she'd never find this kid.

'Cheryl,' Mr Topaz began, taking the phone from his upset wife, 'we actually found something today whilst cleaning out the car. In Toni's car door was a folded piece of paper, we unfolded it and it spoke about someone who she seemed to think she was in love with, but the handwriting was different to her usual one.'

Cheryl looked up at Officer Davis, her heart dropping to her stomach. She had to think fast about how to respond to this.

'Would you be able to send a scan of it to us, along with some of her normal handwriting, maybe from a school book or something, we can get a handwriting expert t compare them all,' she said as the other cop gave her a reassuring nod.

'Yes, I'll send it across now,' he promised.

'Thank you, give your wife a hug from me,' Cheryl told him before hanging up.

The redhead wondered what would be written on this piece of paper, would it hold all of the answers that they had searched for for so long?

She didn't have to wonder for long because, as promised, Mr Topaz sent the scan over promptly.

It appeared at the top of her emails, she clicked on it which lead to an attachment, which she also clicked on. This opened a piece of lined paper with the same cursive, swirly writing that made up the poem, but instead of black pen this time, it was blue.

Cheryl began to read it, saying it to Davis so that they could read it together, staying at the same pace.

'Waves crashed down the rocky waterfall, pooling in the lake beneath. We sat on the shore, the tiny beach housing us for the next little while. I looked across to see the love of my life, the girl of my dreams. Her fiery hair danced in the wind, reminding me of fall leaves descending to the ground in all different shades. My eyes ventured down from her's, stopping when they got to her thin but curvy waist. She reached her pale hand towards mine, her long fingers wrapping around my smaller, tanned ones. I smiled up at her and her eyes reflected my feelings: content, happy, in love,' Cheryl finished, feeling her heart speeding up with every breath, her whole body becoming shaky.

'Dang, she seems in love,' Officer Davis remarked, shooting a brief smile at the younger cop.

'This can't be happening,' Cheryl mumbled.

'What's wrong?' The older cop asked, frowning.

'I think she's trying - she's trying to frame me,' she stuttered, 'red hair, thin waist, pale skin, long fingers, she's making me look guilty of her disappearance!'

'Don't be silly, there's no way that she could know that you'd be the one to work on her case, it must just be a coincidence,' he assured.

Cheryl still thought that it could be the truth. Maybe the person who she'd asked to help her had planted that letter after seeing that Cheryl was on the case. There would be no way to know until they got results from the handwriting expert to find out whether Toni had written it.

~~~

Author's Notes:

You can thank ClaireCooks for the double upload, apparently she waits for each upload like her life depends on it.
Could this really be about Cheryl, or is she being paranoid?
How could Toni even know Cheryl, they live a few hours apart?
Ahh so many questions! 💛💛