Twisted, Chapter One
SUMMARY: Detectives work desperately to recover a pair of missing siblings. A discovery leads them to believe that the disappearances might involve more people than they anticipated.
"Brad, go get your brother and sister. It's time for breakfast and I've already called them twice," Dana Locke told her ten-year-old son.
"I don't want to go get them; they're all the way upstairs!" Brad whined.
"Your mother didn't ask if you wanted to, Bradley," Jason Locke told his middle child sternly.
Brad made a face and slid off the stool and walked upstairs, grumbling the whole way. "Ben! Wake up!" He yelled from the doorway of the room he shared with his little brother. He then moved to the room right next to Ben's. "Brooke! It's time for breakfast. We have to leave soon, so wake up!"
Brad waited and didn't hear anything from either bedroom. He rolled his eyes and headed into his bedroom to get dressed. Ben! Get up!" He exclaimed, walking over to Ben's bed and shaking the lump under the covers. He cried out at how soft the lump was and drew back the blanket. The lump was a stuffed animal and a pillow.
Brad then ran into Brooke's room and turned on the light, realizing for the first time that her bed wasn't even unmade.
He ran back downstairs.
"Mom! Dad! Ben and Brooke aren't in their beds!" He exclaimed.
"Don't joke like that," Jason said absentmindedly, tossing pieces of toast onto his children's plates.
"I'm not joking, dad. Ben's bed just had a pillow and his bear and Brooke's bed is made!"
Dana looked at Jason, her eyes wide with fear. "Call 911, I'm going to look around outside," Jason called, already running for the front door.
Detectives Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson responded to the 911 call reporting a missing youth and a missing adult.
Olivia began following the police responding to the call while Elliot began getting details from the parents who were obviously distraught.
"Bennet Samuel Locke. He's seven," Jason told Elliot, offering a wallet-sized color photograph of the first-grader. He had dark brown hair and bright green eyes.
"But he goes by Ben," Dana said, holding the stuffed animal that had been in the bed rather than their child. "Our son Brad found it in the bed when he went to wake up Ben. Ben never sleeps with it, it just stays on the bookshelf that's attached to his bed," she explained.
"Did you let police see it before you picked it up?" Elliot asked.
"No…I just panicked, and grabbed it. Here, you can have it now," she said. Elliot took it gingerly and handed it to a passing officer.
"What about the adult that is missing?" Elliot asked.
"Our daughter Brooke. Brooke Audrey Locke. She is eighteen. We can still report her, right?" Jason asked, handing Elliot a picture of Brooke. She and Ben, as well as Brad, shared the same hair and eye color.
"Yes, of course. You mentioned that her bed wasn't made. Are you sure she came home last night?"
"Yeah, she had dinner with us. She got home from the college at around 6 and we had dinner at 6:30. I don't remember seeing her after that, though…" Dana trailed off.
"But that's not unusual," Jason pointed out, "she often goes into her room after dinner and we don't see her again. She's taking a big course load to avoid having to take summer classes."
"Yeah but she comes out for a drink or something. We didn't see her again last night at all," Dana remarked.
"Do you think she went somewhere?" Elliot asked.
"No. She's pretty disciplined about her school work. She's actually lost a lot of friends lately from not wanting to do anything but study. She sees her boyfriend occasionally, but that's it," Jason said.
"I'll put in the alerts for Ben and Brooke," Elliot told them, going to walk away.
"are you going to do that Amber Alert thing for them?" Dana asked hopefully.
Elliot shook his head. "There's not enough information. We have to have a description of the kidnapper, of the car…Plus…" He stopped, realizing that it would probably not be best to piss off parents of missing children this early in the investigation.
"What?" Jason asked.
"Was there any tension between you and Brooke?" Elliot asked carefully.
"No. Of course not, why?"
"The first people we suspect in these type things is always family, so please don't think you're being attacked."
"Look, we didn't kidnap our own children. I understand that this route has to be taken first, but I don't want time wasted on investigating us when we're obviously upset at this, when someone has our son and daughter."
"We will investigate any possible lead. Is it possible that Brooke got upset at something and she and Ben took off?"
"No!" Dana finally cut in. "Brooke didn't take her brother. Why would you even suggest something like that?"
"Ben shares a room with your other son. There's one window in that room, and it's above Brad's bed. So someone would have had to enter their room through the door, which is also much closer to Brad's bed, and take a struggling seven-year-old without even waking his brother, who was a foot away. And Brooke's bed hadn't even been slept in, so it seems that she would have been awake when she was presumably taken, and therefore would have also put up a big fight," Elliot explained.
Jason took a step closer to Elliot.
"Brooke is missing. Someone took her. Someone took Bennet. Find my children," he said through clenched teeth, grabbing Dana's hand and they headed outside.
As Elliot went to walk through the house one more time, he noticed a young boy sitting at the kitchen's breakfast bar, eating eggs and toast.
"Hey. You must be Brad," Elliot greeted him.
"Yep," Brad responded, not looking up at him.
"I bet you're upset about all this."
"Do I still have to go to school? I think I should stay home. I have a test today and I didn't do my homework," he said.
Elliot eyed him. "Um, I don't know about that, buddy. Hey, do you know anything about your brother and sister? Why they weren't here this morning?"
Brad shrugged. "I mean, there was-" He started but Jason stormed into the kitchen.
"Don't talk to my son without my permission," he snapped at Elliot, motioning for Brad to come near him. He steered his son out of the kitchen as Olivia walked past them and over to Elliot.
"Find out anything?" She asked him.
"I think we need to find a way to speak to the brother. The dad doesn't want us to talk to him for some reason."