Black Rose

Chapter 88

Monday night

After a long day Nida felt worried a frustrated. She had to stop when coming back because she couldn't see a thing with the heavy rain and then to make matters worse her phone had died. She walked into her bathroom and got ready to strip the day off and gather her thoughts.

She needed to call Mew, now that she knew Oni had never made it to her home, she was really worried. She would go to her place tomorrow to see if anything was amiss but she wanted Mew to track her phone first.

She closed the water and walked into her bedroom in her bathrobe. She looked at the mirror on her vanity she had pictures of her groups of friends. Oni was notably the shy one, the introvert, it was maybe why she felt so protective of her.

She grabbed her phone and called Mew, she glanced at the time on her clock as the phone rang. 10:15 PM. He should definitely still be awake. Her call went to VM and she tried again. Nothing.

She put the phone down frustrated she would just have to stop by tomorrow this couldn't wait anymore.

———

Late Tuesday Morning

Gulf looked over all the victims pictures , locations, details. They had gotten the results back and Lawan had drugs in her bloodstream, not only recreational ones but one he was familiar with. He frowned, he knew that one of the drugs in her system he was given to sleep when he had the fall months ago. Could the killer have taken it from him. He pulled out the envelopes with location and took them out, something about them nagged at him.

There was a knock at the door and he glanced over to see Nida standing there. He quickly pushed the evidence in the drawer.

"Come in"

She stepped in shyly which was uncommon when it came to Nida, she was full of energy and loud and loved to tease, he noticed the dark circles under her eyes and frowned.

"Nida what's wrong?" He said standing up and walking to her he took her hand and it was cold. "Did something happen?" He asked concerned.

"I may be overthinking, you see I wanted to ask my brother for help but I can't find him anywhere."

"He got a special case last night so he's been working on that all night, he's not in the office" he squeezed her hand "if you don't mind I can help"

Nida nodded the stress she was feeling because of this was getting to her. She just needed peace of mind "I think one of my best friends is in danger, I need help tracing her cell phone"

"Okay.. let's talk about it first why do you think she's in danger!?" He guided them to take a seat

"She disappeared Wednesday of last week, she was supposed to go to my party but never made it"

Gulf understood but asking for a phone trace he would need more than that "Have you had any contact with her since?"

Nida nodded "She texted me that night and everyday after that but she wouldn't answer any of my calls only text, and the text messages didn't sound like her, there was no emoji's" she sighed frustrated "when I spoke with her yesterday that was the part that really raised my alarms"

"You two spoke? What did she say?"

"She sounded hoarse like she had been crying or screaming non stop, she had also told me she was at her family home so yesterday I drove 2 hours out to see and her mom told me she hadn't been there since the holidays, also in our group we have safe words for each other"

This caught Gulf's attention the most

"She's allergic to seafood so we decided that would be the best way, if we are ever in an uncomfortable situation or we don't feel safe or can't speak freely she would ask me for seafood, I would respond with it as well and she would confirm, yesterday she asked me for shrimp" Nida's stress had reach an all time high and her voice broke "I know I'm not being dramatic I feel it something is wrong, why would she use the safeword, where is she that she had to lie and why did it sound like she was saying goodbye!" She cried.