Chapter 414: Chapter 414

Aliya placed the phone down and kissed her teeth. She was still outside Ingrid’s room when she received that call.

She exhaled sharply, her grip tightening around the phone before she attempted to throw it onto a table as she typically would but then remembered that she was in the middle of an empty corridor. The screen dimmed, its glow fading into the muted light of the room. Her eyes rolled skyward; a reflex born of annoyance rather than thought.

"Of all the things..." she muttered under her breath, her voice laced with irritation. The call had been as unwelcome as it was intrusive, stirring emotions she didn’t want to face.

She closed her eyes, drawing in a long, measured breath as if to gather the pieces of her composure,

"Tyler is gone, and so is his time; why did that stupid cop have to maul my mood when things were just getting better?" Aliya asked herself.

For a fleeting moment, her brows furrowed, betraying the lingering anger that simmered beneath the surface. But when Aliya’s eyes opened again, it was as if a switch had been flipped.

Gone was the annoyance that had threatened to consume her moments before. In its place was a serene calm, a deliberate mask she wore with practised ease. Her shoulders relaxed, the tension slipping away as she focused on her next tasks.

Even the earlier dissatisfaction towards Ingrid when the little girl had asked her to leave her room had faded away. The ’disturbing’ call was relegated to the back of her mind, locked away in a corner where it couldn’t touch her.

’Not now. I have other things to think about, and I’m not about to let anyone—especially those wanna-be nobodies—derail me!

With a steadying breath, Aliya took a step and then another before arriving in front of the second connecting room, Gabriel’s.

She stopped as the two girl’s voices drifted over.

Those two had changed a lot more than she expected. Aliya had expected them to welcome her with open arms. In fact, she was the one who was supposed to shun them so that they beg for her attention.

"What went wrong?" She whispered in askance.

Just as Aliya trained her ears to hear what the two girls were talking about, the voices cut off abruptly as if a mute button had been pressed.

She raised her eyebrow and tried to listen attentively to no avail.

"What happened?" She asked herself again and then directly placed her ears on the door, but nothing changed.

"Whatever!" She said and then stepped away from the door, lost in thought, while she thought of Ingrid. Samantha was of no use to her, and therefore, Samantha’s dissatisfaction did not register much with Aliya. Ingrid was different, though. Aliya could not help but think that she must have missed something with her. Gabriel had also long since been insignificant.

"Ingrid is only nine years by now.... I still don’t see any signs of power on her.... I knew that she was totally useless! That was a good call!"

Aliya muttered to herself and then continued on her way. The phenomenon of not hearing what was going on in the children’s room was already dismissed from her mind. She was ready for whatever was ahead.

’All obstacles are cleared! Let’s get to work now!’

T- Vino Island police station...

"What do we have? Anything new, guys!" The head officer boomed as he entered the meeting room designated for this. Even though it was past midnight, all the lights were on in the precinct.

The whole lot had given themselves a couple of hours in which they had gone to pack a change of clothes. As this was a major incident on its own, they had been told that they were to be there until the issue was resolved. A large task force had been set up to support Leon and Evans in their tasks.

While the precinct had emptied for a few hours, Evans and Leon had stayed behind, reviewing what they had so far.

Even though most of the policemen were unhappy with this directive that had come from the top, they knew that they had it easy. Some of them were on the field with the search team; others were at the cliff, the seashore, the accident site, etc. The public was demanding results that they did not have, and the pressure was starting to bear down on them.

"We have confirmed that the other Royston sneaked into the car trunk himself...." Leon started as the video footage played on the screen.

"We are not sure why, but there was a confrontation in front of the restaurant, so we think that might be related...."

"Ok, we can rule out foul play with that...."

The boss started, "What of the other half of the body?"

"We have no report on that yet, nor do we know how it got cut into two.... Maybe it got washed away at sea?"

Many heads nodded at this,

The discussion between the detectives went on for a while before they were all dismissed with tasks. They were only mandated to take naps in shifts, but there were to be people working at each point in time.

"We are not leaving till this bizzire case gets solved!"

"Our priority is to find Mrs Thornston!"

"Should we not consider the probability of her elopement as the news media is spreading?"

"Are you a policeman or a gossiper? Shouldn’t the facts of the case speak out to you? Would a lover go into the boot of the car while the other supposed lover sits in the same car?!"

"YES, SIR!" They all echoed.

Leon and Evans left the room and headed for Leon’s office, which had become their base in most of their tasks. Leon went for a comfortable two-seater by the window and then closed his eyes, and Leon did the same in the opposite corner. The two were exhausted. Leon dimmed the light from an app on his phone, thinking to get a couple of hours of sleep to continue.

They were unsure how much had passed when they jolted awake in their office with a scream,

"OMG! Where did you come from?!!!!!"

With hands against their throat, adrenalin and blood rushing through their veins, they looked at their tightly shut door and the man in there, wondering how the hell he had gotten in there!

Currey stepped into the room directly under the lights, taking time to look all around.

"Through the door, of course; where else?" Currey replied nonchalantly while the two detectives shared a look and then looked back at the closed door. The lock was still turned on. The two were light sleepers, so they were puzzled that they did not hear anything from Currey.

"Was I that tired?" The two wondered simultaneously.

"Leon was the first to push off the doubt. HE stood up and turned the lights on to full brightness,"

"How may we help you, assistant Currey?"

He did not bother asking why Currey was there at that time of the night, for he understood more than anyone that Currey was under much more pressure than they.

"What do you have for me?"

Evans’ look showed dissatisfaction, but like Leon, he never uttered a word.

Leon brought Currey up to speed in no time including discoveries about Tyler.

"I’m not sure if I should tell you this..."

Leon told Currey about their call with Aliya as well. Currey nodded, pursing his lips, but did not comment on it.

He made the detectives lead him to Tyler’s body. Currey examined it for a while and then nodded,

"Someone will come and complete the burial processes after you are done with it."

"What of the deceased’s wife?"

"Do you think that she will come in based on the conversation?"

Both Evans and Leon shoot their heads. Currey nodded.

"It’s settled then." After getting the updates, Currey turned to leave but then saw a device on a table that held some of the debris,

"Yes, that was a network jammer..."

Currey looked at them, urging them to complete their sentence,

"We found this stuck on the car...."

Currey’s eyes widened in realization. This was the reason that they had not been able to reach Shelby and the rest, even on the phone.

"So, they cut off both the mind link and the network connection?" Currey muttered to himself,

"Mind link?" Leon asked, "What’s that?"

"Forget about it! Just let me know if you find out how this got onto the car!"

Currey instructed and then left.

As he walked through the cubicles, the various officers looked at him puzzlingly, wondering when he had arrived there, but no one dared ask.

Outside, Currey walked into a corner and then disappeared, reappearing in Ian’s cold room.

Currey had a lot on his mind, and that was understandable. He needed to gather all the facts because as more time passed, all the clues would be lost. He had a lot of people on the ground, but that appeared not to be enough.

"It feels strange without them here." He whispered with a grim expression. Currey first sat in front of the many monitors. He typed in a frenzy, first reviewing the information that he had received from the various entities that he had instructed earlier.

Currey pulled out one of the archived digital files and then inserted a string of commands. Just then, the whole lot of monitors went dark, with only one progress bar, which was at 5%. He sat there for a while until it moved to 6%.

"This is going to take a while..."

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