Like I said, only about an hour. At five forty something, I was once again awake. This time it was because of a phone call. "Mhhommn." Well, it was a logical statement in my mind…"I must have woken you up." I made a noise of affirmation; turns out I fell into a deep sleep in that hour. "Have you found anything?" I had never heard hope sound so hopeless as I did right then. I forced myself to sit up in an attempt to wake myself up further so I could form actual words. "I may, or may not have found something. I'm not trying to be vague, but I won't know for sure if it is or isn't something until today when I can dig a little deeper." There was a pause as I waited patiently for the response, "Contact me if you discover anything concrete please, she may be running out of time." I wanted to tell him he couldn't think like that, that he needed to be optimistic…but knowing that could come around and bite me in the ass if things didn't work out, I kept my mouth shut. "I'll be in touch." Was my response, there was a quiet 'thank you' and then the call was over. I sighed now that I knew he couldn't hear me, it had been two weeks since she'd gone missing, and two weeks since I'd been enlisted by my friend Meekel to find her…I just prayed I wouldn't let him down.

With a renewed sense of urgency I walked to my computer and opened another secure file. It was different from the first one, this one was Meekel's, and unfortunately, it didn't have as much information in it as I would have liked. Mainly it was only information on the missing vamp, Meekel's mate Tula. She had long straight black hair and a slight olive tint to her skin which came from her Greek heritage. I had medical information, background information, and the rundown of her actions on the day she was taken. Someone was trying to force Meekel to cooperate in some sort of plot that was a foot. There was one suspect who I had been monitoring via computer, but turns out not all vamps like new age technology. There was one incident though, and that was the only reason I'd been keeping him monitored. Someone had sent Meekel a video clip. Their voice had be distorted and the room carefully covered to keep the location completely unknown. In the video, the abductor showed Tula suspended by silver chains in the middle of the room. The threat was starvation and, at a point, sunlight exposure if he chose not to cooperate. This is when I was called, Meekel and I have a history. When I was younger, my uncle had picked me up from a friend's (I was in his care due to my parent's alcoholism) when we were hit by someone who was trying to outdrive a cop. The end result was our car going off a bridge and plunging into a frozen river. My uncle died instantly, I unfortunately was to drown, if Meekel had not seen the incident, or had not had a good a heart as he did, I would have died. So there was no question, when he asked, if I would help or not…unfortunately I didn't have much to go on thus far.

I threw on some jeans, a white tanktop, and a blue zip up vest before grabbing my bag(which I took everywhere with me), slipped my laptop into my backpack, and snuck out the door with my boots in hand since wearing them out might disturb Ashley. I grabbed a granola bar on my way out and slipped my boots on the second I was off of wooden floors, including the porch. Now the only question was…where to start. I hopped into my old Jeep and gave it a moment to warm up while I thought about where I would go…the "lead" I had was that I managed to trace the video that Meekel was sent back to a library in a nearby town…so I suppose the most logical thing to do would be to start there. I wasn't happy about the hour long drive, but at least I had started early.

The city I was heading to wasn't small, but it wasn't big either…only about 13,602 people in it. The library was at the West end of the town, the end I would have to go through to get in anyways so it seemed perfect. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out which computer it was sent from…no no, that would be too easy now wouldn't it? But I did have the exact date and time that it was sent, and I'm assuming the library has some sort of security system, even one camera would do. The only tricky part would be finding and accessing the security room…if they had anything aside from a television that streamed live feed from their one camera in the main office.

Once I arrived to the library I ran a hand through my dirty blonde hair as I surveyed the outside. They had two cameras in the parking lot, which covered every parking spot. Good news. Before exiting the car I put my hair up in a bun and covered it all with a bandana…I sort of resembled the women's rights lady…you know… the "We Can Do It." Lady. Also, just to be safe I put in some brown colored contacts. I didn't feel like trying to hide from the cameras, so my lame disguise would have to do. Once I did enter, I found they actually had multiple computer station areas each with their own camera above them. I let out a sigh of relief, they seemed to have a decent system. Now to find the security room…turns out, it's behind the librarian's desk and office, in which were two middle aged ladies who were ranting to each other about…something…not marital problems I guessed judging by their bare ring fingers. I took a stroll around the place, picking up an occasional book trying to avoid looking suspicious while also trying to figure out something that would get them away from the area long enough for me to try to find the tapes.

Luckily for me, I found two boys, around the age of twelve who just screamed mischief. And for ten bucks a piece, they agreed to literally scream for a good ten minutes and give the librarians a chase. The best part? They didn't even ask why. They gave me a ten second head start to the front, and then all hell broke loose. I even flinched at the high pitched screams, and I'm the one who planned the thing! It worked though, the two woman immediately jumped up to restore order giving me the perfect opening to slip into the room. Luckily for me, the door was unlocked. That seemed appropriate though, who would try to break into a public library security room? ….okay, well….besides me.

I sat down in the nearest spinny chair and slipped on my gloves (I'm smart enough to not leave a trail). Thankfully, librarians seem to be organized by nature so they had all previous security tapes logged and organized. Now, to find the correct date, August 13th at one eighteen in the afternoon. I found three tapes for this date, but like I said, they're organized. Each one had time stamps so I pulled the one from noon until five in the afternoon. I glanced up at the current film and noted that the librarians were still chasing the boys, but after a second of deliberation I decided not to risk it and took the disc out of the case, leaving the case, and left, but not before erasing any footage of my being here of course.

I hopped into my car and drove down the road until I found a parking lot where I didn't think I'd be disturbed. Once parked, I pulled out my laptop and slipped the DVD in, tapping my fingers impatiently as I waited for it to load. I suppressed a groan as it loaded with a view of six different screens, all too small for me to be able to make out anyone's face. Thankfully though, it allowed me to enlarge one screen at a time which still made this a tedious task. But I got on with it and fast-forwarded to the precise time. I got lucky on the first computer shot, there was only one person who was on the computer. A middle age looking woman (this town seems full of them) who, thankfully gave me a wonderful, full view of her face which I copy and pasted into a separate document. The next computer station had three visitors using the computers at the same time. I managed to copy two of their faces, but the third had a baseball cap on. I made a note of the time he left the computer and would be sure to check for him in the parking lot. The last station was a busy one, there were seven people at this station. I copied the ones facing me, and waited for the moment the others left making a note of it on my note pad. The next step was to go through the parking lot footage. This part was easier than I'd expected and their license plate numbers would give me access to a bit of their background.

Now that that part was over, I drove around until I found a fast food joint to grab some food in. I ended up at a Wendy's which was fine by me since I loved their chicken sandwiches. As soon as I was about to take the first bite, my laptop beeped notifying me that the background checks were done and that my lunch would have to wait. As one could assume, they all were locals and, after entering their addresses into my GPS I went for a small drive by. When you think of a kidnapper, you'd think of someone who has either a shed or a basement where they could keep their hostage…in this case every person except one had a shed, and after some digging into their blue print (yes, you can find ANYTHING on the internet) it turns out only three have basements.

I finally pulled up to the last house, snapping a quick picture I drove on, encouraged by the crazy rumblings of my stomach. As I devoured my sandwich I took a look into the backgrounds I had. Only two of the "suspects" had previous troubles involving vampires. 'Well that's a bit of a relief' I thought with a smile. I glanced at my watch, seven o'clock, time to head home and get everything sorted so if Meekel wanted to meet tomorrow night I would be prepared. By the time I got home, Ashley had gone off to work so I could do my work without having the guilt of her being in the house with me and not spending time with her….we really need a bonding day soon. But that would have to wait…I had quite a bit of work ahead of me.