Where's My Dolly?
Okay, so I'm super into this story and have already written up the next chapter :D sorry to any Dawn fans out there. It had to be done!
Read away people!
Chapter 9: Just Follow the Clues
It was late. If Leaf had been awake enough, she would have realised that it was almost four in the morning. There were some rummaging sounds coming from the room across from hers.
She remembered hearing it last night but she figured she was just over tired and imagined it.
Leaf woke up the next day feeling extra cosy for a reason she was unaware of until she opened her eyes. She noticed that there was an additional blanket on her bed, covering her. The weather had not been great last night and she remembered thinking about using another blanket last night but after looking for one in her room and then Gary's, she gave up. She did not take Gary's, just in case he came home.
And maybe he did. Leaf noticed that the blanket that was on top of her one belongs to Gary. Upon this realisation, Leaf could not scramble out of bed quick enough and out of her room. She had expected Gary's room door to be shut but strangely enough, it was wide open. Leaf mentally kicked herself. She is not delusional. The noises she heard last night were indeed real!
But once she was in Gary's room, she noticed that no one was there but someone has been in the room. She noticed that that his books have been rearranged from their position that she had set them down on last time. They were now not open at specific pages but shut over and placed back on the shelf above the desk alphabetically - in its rightful place. Looking at the books sitting neatly on the shelf, it reminded Leaf of a library.
Xx-x-xX
Once dressed, Leaf made her way to the Oak's library which was situated on the bottom floor, through the backdoor in the living room. Leaf had only ever been in the vast library which had floor to ceiling shelves filled with books on three of the wall while the fourth was a floor to ceiling window which looked out into the dense woodland forest beyond the garden a couple of times. And each time she went in there, she was with Gary who seemed to know precisely where every book was kept, minimising the time they spent in there.
Leaf did not know where to start looking. None of the books were placed in any kind of chronological order, at least not one that Leaf understood. If her hunch about the writing on the scrap bit of paper was indeed right, then the book must be in amongst the mass of books somewhere; the school library had nothing on the topic she was looking for but the Oak's library had many books that dwell in specific topics, like the one she was looking for. But where would she start? All the books where neatly in line with each on the shelves except for one book.
Leaf reached up for that book, her fingertips just touching the bottom edge of it. It was a bit too high up for her to read the title from where she was standing. She tried to reach for it and eventually when she got it down, she read the title aloud. Molecular biology. Not what she was looking for but she opened it anyway. The book looked like it had something wedged in one of its pages and Leaf wanted to know what it was. It was a note. To her.
Top shelf, left corner.
GO.
So the note was not exactly directed to her but Leaf could tell that the information on it told her precisely what she need to know. Leaf shoved the book back to where she took it from, a lot more easily than the process of retrieving it in the first place. She headed to the shelf that the note directed her to which was next to the window. The top shelf was too high up for anyone to reach so she slid the ladder along to where she needed it be. She climbed up the steps and hoped it was there, holding onto the red curtains to help her keep her balance once she made it to the top.
Her face lit up when she saw what she hoping to see. Principals of Spectroscopy.
"Jackpot." Leaf said to herself as she took the book down from the shelf and backed down from the ladder. She headed to one of the rustic looking leather seats by the window and stared blankly at the book. She could no longer remember why she needed the book so desperately but nevertheless, Leaf opened the book to a random page and there was another letter in it. A longer one this time and yet again, this letter was not directed at her.
Victims 1 and 2: Leaf's Parents (Thursday 12th Oct.)
Victim 3: Sophia Burnell (Friday 13th Oct.)
Victim 4: Aide Ferguson (Saturday 15th Oct)
Victim 5: Dawn Berlitz (Tuesday 18th Oct.)
All victims had an incision round their neck and at each crime scene no weapon was left behind.
Day that the lab was robbed: Wednesday 11th October.
Leaf folded the note over once she had read it, she was absolutely certain that this was Gary's doing. His writing was what everyone would call one of a kind. But suddenly Leaf unfolded the sheet again, a connection hitting her hard. Her parent's, Sophia Burnell's parents and Aide Ferguson all carried out work revolving round this project that was stolen from the lab. But what about Dawn? Her parents have nothing to do with the project so why was she murdered? Leaf sighed. Maybe she had not worked it out after all.
Xx-x-xX
The next morning at school was different. Leaf entered homeroom to none of her usual friends instead of a grumpy (but secretly smitten) May alongside an optimistic and always upbeat Dawn and her slacker of a best friend Gary. She concluded that May must've taken an additional day off school to cope with Dawn's unexpected departure.
Leaf sighed and sat there thinking about things that have happened this week. She sighed again when she suddenly remembered something. She had not seen the professor since two days ago when he scurried down to him lab to make a phone call to Ivy.
The brunette snapped out of her thoughts when she was ushered out of homeroom and to whatever class she was in, though she never did show up to class today. She wanted to find a certain green haired boy instead.
And as if her wish had been granted, Drew appeared right before her. They signed out of school and headed to a local café, occupying the discrete table hidden at the back of the petite building.
"How did you know that what I was looking for would be in the Oak's library?" Leaf wasted no time on general chit chat and went straight into her question.
"I take it you found what you were looking for." Drew said his voice was calm like always.
Leaf nodded. "I did though I wasn't actually too sure about what I was looking for." She confessed. "You seemed even surer than me." Leaf said, not even bothering to hide the fact that she was suspicious of Drew. Her eyes were narrowed at him. "You've been in contact with Gary." She accused.
Drew shook his head. "More like the other way around." Leaf was surprised by this. She urged Drew to elaborate. "He called me two days ago but again it was a bad connection. I couldn't really make out what her wanted me to do but I gathered from what I could hear that he wanted you to go to his family's library."
"Wait, if he called you two days ago, before lunchtime when you came to find me," Leaf started, confused; she dug around her fleece pocket for the piece of paper that she was led to. "How did her know about Dawn's death so soon?" she looked at Drew who looked just as confused as she did.
Xx-x-xX
For the first time since last week, Leaf went back to her own home. The damage in the kitchen was still evident, only the scrap broken bits had been cleared away. Her bedroom looked the same as the last time she saw it except the bed had been removed and not yet replaced.
Leaf settled down on the couch in the living room and read the headline of the papers she picked up from the porch on the way in. Apparently the paper boy did not know about what has happened to the Greens and kept delivering papers to their door each morning. There was nothing that Leaf found particularly fascinating in the papers so she set it down on the table and switched on the television, something she had not watched in a long time.
… Officer Jenny has claimed that all the links from the Oak laboratory are dead. The police have released an official statement stating that the case may be closed due to lack of links to follow and the more urgent cases of the recent attacks which has successfully killed three and critically injured two.
Leaf switched the television off after hearing that little bit of news and pulled out the bit of paper from her pocket again.
Day that the lab was robbed: Wednesday 11th October.
Victims 1 and 2: Leaf's Parents (Thursday 12th Oct.)
Out of the dates on the sheet, the two she read again stood out the most. "Are suggesting that the two events are related?" she asked the sheet as if it was Gary and although she got no reply from the stagnant house, she had a feeling that she was right.
Xx-x-xX
It was almost dinner time when she returned from the hospital after checking up on her parents. Her mum's condition had improved vastly since last week when she was found but her dad was still the same, sometimes attempting to slip away from life.
The Oak house was quiet, very quiet and if you ask Leaf, a bit too quiet. Leaf went down to the lab to see if professor Oak was around. And he was not. Leaf took this as an opportunity to snoop about in his lab, something she had not done in a long time and never had she felt so scared to do it.
The lab was in a state, not what she had expected seeing Gary was such a tidy person when it came to his books and paperwork but then again, she should of seen it coming when she went into the library the yesterday. Leaf did not know where to start looking from. The paper was spilling off of the tables and onto the floor, almost covering it all. Leaf looked over towards the computer. Any luck and the computer may still be on but when Leaf approached it, she realised that it was off and when switched on, it required a password. She did not want to risk anything for a change seeing as it was the professor and he probably did have some sort of over dramatic alarm system or whatever. She continued to look and what she found under a mound of paper was rather striking. Physiology of the Brain.
She recalled seeing the chapter of Gary's textbook open at the page titled Physiology of the brain and the book sitting right before her eyes was title that too. Maybe Gary was onto something when he left and if Leaf's guess is correct, then that should be the reason why Gary left.
Xx-x-xX
That night Leaf tried to piece together what she knew about the case of the dead victims and the case of the stolen lab project. The first thing she wrote down was the dates of all the attacks of the date the lab was robbed, followed by the fact that the stolen project was highly likely to be biology related, allowing her to rule out a few things but not many and the final thing she wrote down was something that she could not seem to get her head round: there is a way to find out who the next victim is. Or so she thought.
Leaf looked at her list, unsatisfied as to how much was on it. Maybe she had found out less than she thought. "This seems really short. Surely I must know more than that." She sighed.
"Think again. You have definitely missed something." An all too familiar vice said from the door, causing Leaf to scream.
Xx-x-xX
Woohoo! I'm on a roll! I'm really into writing this and will defo finish it soon! But for now, reviews please? Tell me if you love it, hate, think it is absolutle crap or sitting on the fence about it! Also, any guesses as to who that is at the end?
Love ya! Silver-hedgehog