Chapter 11

DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything.

"I give up, guys!" Don cried, swivelling his chair around. "Her phone's off. I hacked her email too; there are over thirty unopened messages. How can we tell April we're not going to hurt her if we can't even contact her? How do we know they haven't found her?"

Raph shouldered his way past Leo and pointed at the second figure on the screen. "It's obvious, genius. Her. April's with that girl, whoever she is. Find her, we find April."

Don whirled back around; his fingers scrabbled over the computer keys. "OK. I'll see if I can get the license plate of that taxi and a picture of the other girl's face."

"If anyone can do it, Donnie, it's you." Leo clapped him on the shoulder.

xxx

The apartment was definitely colder than before. Taylor was certain April hadn't come back, because there was mouldy bread in the cupboard and a carton of milk that was almost empty, with the previous day as an expiry date.

"Where are you, April?" she groaned. She was seriously thinking about ignoring what Don had said and calling the police anyway. A missing persons report should be filed about twenty-four hours after their disappearance.

It had been a lot longer than twenty-four hours.

She decided to rummage in April's room, to see if there was some clue to her disappearance.

Taylor pulled open April's desk drawer to see a pile of photos. She pulled them out, sat on April's bed and began to rifle through them. The first was of an unusual symbol painted on what looked like a cargo container.

Hold on. She told me about this.

Another picture was of a large bulky figure in the distance, frozen in mid-jump. It must be one of those vigilantes - but how could he move quickly and quietly with that on his back.

Then Taylor had a horrifying thought. What if April had been telling people she knew who the vigilantes were and the vigilantes heard about it? Taylor was willing to bet they wouldn't want their identities to become public knowledge, particularly because of someone whose job it was - had been - to make things public knowledge.

They clearly weren't afraid of the Foot. There was no way they'd be scared of taking on someone like April.

...Tapes. April had been looking at tapes. If the pictures hadn't been moved, the tapes wouldn't be either. Where had April put them?

Taylor was almost beginning to feel excited. No - she was getting excited. It was a good thing her mother couldn't see her right now; she'd think Taylor was crazy.

To be continued…