Chapter 29: .bad/girls/don&t/die
I woke up in my holding cell. It was probably early in the morning. The reason I woke up? Chrissie and Darren came in. I was naked, sitting in a corner, rocking back and forth like some crazy person. You wouldn’t think the isolation cells were hot at night? Neither would I.
“Winchester, it’s time to get out,” Darren said. “And get some clothes on for goodness sake.” Chrissie rolled her eyes as I got up, showing off my body in all its glory. I wasn’t too shy about it, but I didn’t plan on strutting around naked the rest of the day.
“Have you finally come to your senses?” I asked.
“The charges were dropped, and Chad didn’t bother pressing charges against you.”
“Good,” I said as I put my shirt back on.
“Are you going to press charges against him?”
“No,” I simply answered.
“He war trespassing. You could probably get him for conspiracy to commit something or other.”657Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv54xzw4lCT
“Conspiracy to commit murder,” I muttered under my breath. I was pretty sure about what that man wanted. He wanted Onila, he wanted to take her for the ring.
I wouldn’t let that happen. No one was going to get Onila.
“We need to talk about something,” Chrissie said.
“What?”
“You might be in serious trouble for withholding information from the investigation, but we won’t charge you with anything. Cameron doesn’t need to know.” I nodded. Cameron was the chief of police, and my absolute superior. If he found out about it, I would be dead, or at least without a job.
“What that what we needed to talk about?” I asked. Chrissie shook her head.
“There is something else.” She got a forbidding look on her face.
“What is it Chrissie?”
“You know Onila was here yesterday? She showed us some pretty incriminating things on a computer. This made me think that I need to come clean, because I’m a part of it too,” she sighed and I touched her shoulder to reassure her. “You’re going to look at me differently.”
“Don’t worry about me,” I smiled at her.
“I’m addicted to oxycodone. That’s why Onila thought I was Oxycotton.”
“I knew you couldn’t be Oxycotton,” I said.
“Onila is supposed to stop by today. You’ll talk to her when she comes.”
“Can’t I go home to see her?”
“You’re back on the case,” Darren said. I could hear in his voice that he didn’t really like it, but he still had to. We had lost so many officers and many were still in the hospital after the explosion. So we waited. While we were waiting we did some work. We found more pictures and tried to sign into Document10. It didn’t work. At least not with the old password to Document9. We even tried with the obvious ones such as Oxycotton and Bastyboy.
As we were working, Darren explained that he was helping to pay off Chrissie’s drug debt and that there was money in the envelope that night. My suspicions of them were gone, and I felt kind of bad for ever accusing them of anything. I would have to have a serious conversation with Onila when I saw her. I would also make her get rid of her cancer sticks. They weren’t good for her. I didn’t want to be too controlling if we were going to have a relationship. I thought some freedom was good for her. Then she would have room to be herself. Making music and sewing all day while I wrote reports and our children played on the floor. Fuck, I shouldn’t fantasise that far into the future. Still, after a little more than a week, I knew that I loved Onila. I didn’t think she loved me back, at least no yet, but she would, and we would be happy together.
Two hours passed and Onila didn’t show up. I started to get worried, but Darren said they hadn’t specified a time for the meeting.
After four hours, Chrissie was visibly worried as well. I begged them and asked if we could go to my flat to see if she was safe and sound. Darren still wanted to wait for a while, saying that she probably just forgot about it, but when the fifth our passed, we got into the cop car, ready to turn on the sirens.
We sped to my flat and I ran up to the door to unlock it. The place looked pretty empty. I walked into the bedroom, where Derrick was. I shook him and he woke up.
“Where is Oni?” I asked.
“She’s at Jennifer Vaughn’s house, she left a note on the kitchen table, I think it’s still there. Did you get out of jail?”
“Don’t have time to talk, need to make sure Onila is fine.” I ran to the kitchen and found the piece of paper.
As we drove to Jen’s house, I frenziedly called Jen’s number. Every time I called I came to the answering machine. It was a nightmare not knowing if Onila was okay. I tried to calm myself down, saying to myself that she probably just slept in Jen’s luxury bed, having the sleep of her life. But something deep down in my stomach, said that it wasn’t the case.
As we got to Jen’s house, the first thing we noticed was the barbwire on top of the fence. We had to cut it and climb over. There was also glass on top of the fence. I screamed out in agony as I climbed over. I got seriously cut on my hands. As we climbed over we didn’t worry about not having a search warrant. All that mattered was making sure Oni was fine, even if it meant breaking protocol. We wiped our bloody hands on our uniforms. I had changed into my black and blue uniform as we waited for Onila to come.
The front door was unlocked. I had read the files on the Vaughn stalker case so I found it strange that Jen chose to leave her door unlocked. It was when I opened the next door I realised the depths of her paranoia. Behind the door there was another door. This one looked like those cartoonish door to bank vaults.
“How are we supposed to get inside?” I asked.
Darren tried pushing the door, and surprisingly it opened. Inside the house was beautiful. Minimalistic, but beautiful.
“Jennifer!” I shouted. No answer. “Oni!” Still no answer. I motioned for Chrissie and Darren to ready their guns. They did as they were told and soon we started going through the house, room after room. The bed was messy, and the bathroom light was on. Jen had no concern for the environment.
The hatch to the attic was open. I gasped as we came up to the cold attic. There were three large computers with four even larger screens.
It looked like someone had lived there because there was bed clothing all over the place. We found a couple of short, reddish brown hairs on a pillowcase. Could this be Ubel’s hair? It sounded like the description Oni had given of the man. We didn’t want to touch things because of the possible evidence.
“What is this?” I said, touching one of the computers ever so slightly. The screens lit up and I saw a picture of a small child in a cage.
Was this also a live feed? I wondered.
The basement was even more terrifying. There were scribbles all over the walls. It was painted in red, and it looked like blood. The scribbles said everything from “WHY DOESN’T SHE LOVE ME?” to, “MUSTN’T SAMPLE THE MERCHANDISE!” There were also maps and seemingly random pictures on the walls. I rarely got freaked out, but this was some serious shite. There were more computers down here. We looked at them. She was signed into Document10, as Oxycotton. Of course. It was now it dawned on me. Jennifer Vaughn, my childhood friend, was Oxycotton.
I collapsed on the ground. She had Onila. I had just given her over to her. Was this some kind of sick joke the universe played on me?
“She’s Oxycotton,” Darren whispered. I needed to collect my thoughts. We needed to do something quick. We needed to… needed to. Bloody hell, how was I supposed to be professional again? How was this police thing supposed to work? How? I couldn’t form a coherent thought, much less a sentence.
“We need to look at the evidence.” It was Chrissie that spoke. She was standing with her back to us, looking at the maps on the walls.
“Here, help me take these down.”
We took the maps down and started putting them together. It was like a giant jigsaw puzzle, but it much easier once we figured it out. It was a map of the city and the surrounding areas.
There were red X’s over certain places. Almost like a kid’s treasure map. There were three places like this in total. All of them were pretty far away.
Darren started calling other officers on the radio. He called for some of them to come here, and for others to go to the first X. He gave the coordinates and told them good luck.
Darren was going to meet some officers at the second X, and he sent Chrissie and me the third one. The third X was an old farmhouse according to Darren.
We left for the farmhouse, hoping to find Onila safe. Hoping to find her alive.
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