Note: I'd like to stress out that this story takes place at least 2 years
before the events of The Earth Angel. Linda's still developing some of her
powers and Lena Thorul is not yet her best friend at this time.
Chapter Six
The day at Leesburg High was slow, as usual. Students were falling asleep in their classes as their teachers torture them with never ending lectures, surprise quizzes and assignments. Whoever invented school should be crucified or burned at the stakes.
Coincidentally, the practice of the school football team and the cheering squad got finished about an hour ago. The rest of them got back to their classes while others decided to hang outside the school.
"Come here," Invited seductively by an ebony skinned beauty to her boyfriend, peering through the half opened door of the janitor's room.
"Louise," Called out Dylan Jacobs with a playful grin on his face.
"I wanna show you something." Louise Menken twirled a strand of her curly black hair with her finger. She batted her long eye lashes for added charm.
Like a moth drawn to a flicker of flame, Dylan followed his girlfriend inside the small room. But just before he entered, he made sure that the coast was clear and that no one saw him enter.
Luckily for them, the janitor's room Louise picked was located at the far end of the building, under a stairwell, where students rarely passed through.
Dylan studied the contents of the floor wax smelling rat hole. Buckets of floor waxes and a bunch of brand new floor mops were gathered in one corner of the dimly room.
The room stinks. No a good place to hang out. If it wasn't for Louise, he wouldn't be caught dead entering the God forsaken room.
Louise literally jumped unto his hormonally pumped up boyfriend. Dylan slipped his hands from under Louise's short skirt, caressing her supple buttocks in the process.
Both of them kissing each other passionately.
Only a flickering old light bulb illuminated the place. After a while, Louise broke free from kissing Dylan and just stared straight into his ocean blue eyes.
Suddenly, Dylan noticed a small drop of blood flowing down from Louise's right eye.
He furrowed his eyebrows. Dylan placed her back down on her feet and then brushed the drop of blood with his finger.
"You're bleeding." He commented, confused, checking the smudge of blood on his finger.
Louise was obviously stunned when he said that. She took a step backwards and touched the blood on her right cheek.
"Oh no!" Mumbled Louise. She blinked ones and felt hot tears escaping her eyes.
Turning around to face a small mirror on the wall, she found out that it's not just ordinary tears but tears of blood. Louise frantically brushed away the streams of blood and just managed to smear it even more.
As if seeing your girlfriend crying blood is not enough to shock a teenage guy, Dylan's body went completely numb when Louise turned around to face him and witnessed one of her eyes fall out from its socket.
The eye hits the floor with a squishing sound. He looked up at Louise and shivered at the sight of the dark and empty eye socket. She's only got one eye left.
Dylan backed off but Louise was quick and immediately pounced on him. She grabbed the collar of his letterman jacket and slammed him hard against the wall. Instantly, Dylan became unconscious. "Sorry baby." Louise uttered under her breath as she reached out and started to pull off one of Dylan's eyes. Blood squirted everywhere.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It didn't take long for the students to notice the smell of fresh blood coming from the janitor's room. They were mortified when a puddle of blood started to form on the floor outside.
The news reached the local Leesburg police department and without delay they sent their best investigators and police officers to the high school. Students gathered at the scene of the crime, watching the officers do their work.
From one side of the stairs, Louise Menken was sobbing really hard while being questioned for her boy friend's death. She claimed that she was in the girl's locker room taking a shower when she suddenly heard Dylan scream. Louise advised the investigators that it was only then that she found his dead body.
"Everything's under control." Informed one of the police officers to the crowd of students. "So everyone please vacate the area, now."
Principal Gregg Lisbon, a tall man on his fifties with grey hair and a wrinkled façade, prodded the students to leave the scene of the crime. The students walked away, still talking about the horrible fate that ended Dylan Jacobs' promising life.
"I can't believe he's dead." Linda Danvers muttered to her best friend Lucy Lane while they headed for their lockers. "We were talking on the bus this morning and the guy even asked for my number. Weird."
"Well, they didn't call Leesburg Bizarro Land for nothing." Lucy reminded as she stopped to open her locker. She dumped her bulky books inside and slammed the locker shut.
"Ever since those meteors got here twelve years ago, bad and weird things began happening in Leesburg." She added. Linda rolled her eyes when she heard that comment coming from her.
"Here you go again with that meteor theory Luce." She replied as they commenced walking through the corridor. "You know very well that the scientist dismissed that mutation hypothesis via the green meteor rocks."
"Oh yeah?" Lucy stopped on her tracks to face her friend. "Then how can you explain those supernatural occurrences?"
They were already out of the school building by this time.
"A seven year old boy that can lift a Volkswagen car, a man that can breathe fire? What about the girl that could enter your dreams and kill you? Mary Stevenson right?" Lucy mentioned some of the bizarre powers the town people of Leesburg are developing. "Then this happened to Dylan. How can you explain that?"
"I can't." Linda simply answered, sitting down on a small bench situated under a shady tree. Lucy crashed next to her.
"Poor Louise." Lucy expressed, giving out a sigh. Linda just nodded in response.
Silence filled the air between them for a while, thinking about the tragic end of Dylan Jacobs.
"I bet I can easily get into The Oracle if I could get any details about the crime." Lucy suddenly murmured with a far away look. All this time she was thinking about the ways she could join the school newspaper.
"I think I can help you in that department." Replied Linda with a wink.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Have doughnuts!" Linda announced as she entered the Leesburg Police Station that same afternoon.
A chubby female police officer in the front desk greeted her with a warm smile. She placed down the phone and leaned forward the desk.
"Oh Lyn! You're a life saver!" Officer Jane Austin declared. "I'm starving!"
Linda flashed her back a smile. She opened up the doughnut box, took out pieces of tissue papers and spread them on Officer Austin's table then she put down 2 pieces of her favorite doughnuts.
"So Jane," Linda started to muttered, licking off the excess doughnut icing on her fingers. "Is my dad in there?"
Jane nodded as she took a huge bite off the delicious doughnut. She was enjoying every bit of it.
"I heard about what happened in your school." Officer Austin said with her mouth full of semi grinded food. "Terrible."
"Yeah." She retorted with a saddened tone in her voice. "I actually came here to talk about that incident with my dad."
"Oh. Go right in." The female officer advised Linda as she gestured her to the entrance with her free hand.
"Thanks Jane." Linda picked up the box of doughnut and entered the office.
"Thanks for the treat, sweetie!" Jane called out to her.
When her father first took her to the police station at the age of six, Linda was mortified at the sight of handcuffed criminals and policemen with guns on their sides. But when Mr. Danvers explained everything to her, she quickly understood the need for the guns and handcuffs.
"Men of Justice. Protector of the oppressed and the weak." She could still remember those words by her father when she asked what a police officer does.
Linda sensed a tingling feeling at the back of her neck whenever those words echoed inside her head. Little did she know that she would also live by this description and oath in the future. She headed straight to her father's table, her eyes scanning the entire station. She went passed Officer Byrne's table and he immediately acknowledged her with a smile. A Latin looking man in his late twenties sat on a chair before his table with his hands cuffed at his back.
The man gave him an evil look when he realized that Linda was staring at him. Immediately, she took off her gaze and proceeded.
Officer Danvers sat on his mahogany colored office table. Folders, manila envelopes and papers piled up at one side, while a framed picture of him, his wife and their daughter, Linda, rested on the other side of the table.
Fred was currently reading some autopsy report from the bureau about the mysterious death of Dylan Jacobs at the local high school. Just like the other police officers who checked the crime scene, he was baffled. What kind of monster would harvest eyes from people?
Dylan is not the only one victimized by this monster, for the past 3 weeks the station has received at least four incidents of people being robbed of their eyes. Unfortunately for the police, the suspect doesn't seem to have any finger prints.
Fred took off his glasses then massaged his aching temples. He looked up and from a far he spotted his young daughter coming towards him with a big smile on her lips.
"Hi." Linda greeted leaning over the table to kiss her father on the cheek. "I have doughnuts."
"Ok," Mr. Danvers began to say, resting his elbows on the surface of the table. "How much is it?"
She placed down the box of doughnuts and gave her father a stunned look. "So I look like a price tag to you now? I'm not gonna ask you to buy me clothes."
Linda settled on the chair before Officer Danvers' table and continued, "Can't a daughter ever visit her father at work?"
Her father slowly shook his head, beaming Linda a smile. He apologized and explained that he's been trying to figure out the mystery surrounding Dylan Jacobs' death.
"Do you have any suspects yet?" She asked curiously tapping her fingers on the table.
"Well, yes we do. We have several. According to the information we gathered Miss Bla-." Fred's voice trailed off, realizing what his daughter's trying to do. She's fishing for some information.
"Yes?" Linda waited anxiously for her father to go on.
"And here I thought you came to the station motive free." Mr. Danvers pointed out.
"I'm totally motive free daddy!"
Fred tucked the autopsy report in one of the folders and stood up from his chair heading for the file room. Linda also stood up.
"Alright, so I wanted to know some stuff about the murder." Confessed a flushed Linda, following her father around the office. "I wanted to feel safe-or something."
"I'm sorry hon, but we're not allowed to divulge any information about these types of cases."
"Even if-."
"Even if we're family." Fred finished for her daughter. He vanished into the file room of the station as Linda was left outside, thinking.
Just when Linda almost gave her hopes up, she heard someone call her name. It was Officer Ashley Morgan. A junior police officer in training with killer looks. Ashley's tall, he's got warm caramel eyes bordered by long dark lashes and a nice thick brow, cropped brown hair and a great athletic physique.
"Hey!" She said beaming back his smile, lagging behind him as he walked for his table. She noticed that he was holding a cup of steaming coffee in one hand.
"Haven't seen you here in a while." Ashley retorted, placing down the cup of coffee on his neat looking table.
"Yeah, you know, school."
"Sucks?" He queried.
"Big Time!" Linda concluded sitting back on a vacant chair beside Ashley's table.
He gave out an adorable laugh which made Linda's heart melt almost instantly. Growing up, Linda imagined his prince charming to look exactly like this guy. A true gentleman, funny and he looked so good that it hurts sometimes. He's got that heroic aura going on.
Linda used to tease him that he was born to be a police officer. Ashley would then reply that Linda's destined to do great things someday in the future.
"By the way, how's Grandma Morgan?" She mumbled softly.
"She's good." Ashley replied after taking a sip from his cup of coffee. He drummed his fingers on the table, pressing his lips together. "Which reminds me,"
He opened the drawer of his table and retrieved a small rose colored sealed envelope. Ashley handed it to Linda. It was a greeting card from Ashley's grandmother addressed to Lyn Danvers.
A smile formed at Linda's lips again. She looked up at Ashley and found him to be smiling too.
"Thank you for taking care of her, Lyn."
"No biggie. You have to go to work that night. Duty calls." She reminded Ashley tracing the name Lyn Danvers at the back of the envelope with her slender finger.
"I had fun spending time with her. She's a little peevish at first but ones you knocked down her defenses you'll realize how amazing she is. A hardcore chatterbox." She continued with a giggle.
"She couldn't stop talking about you. She kept on asking me when will you be back to visit her." He said.
"Oh, I can drop by your place this weekend."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. Positive." She answered with a nod.
"Great." Muttered Ashley with a tone of excitement in his voice.
Linda's eyes darted to Ashley's table, scanning for something. The framed picture of Ashley and his girlfriend of 2 months, Meredith Kingston's nowhere to be found. Only the picture of his grandmother's present.
Ashley noticed Linda and he followed her gaze.
"We broke up." Ashley told her, his beautiful face growing sad.
Linda was just quiet.
"About a week ago." He added, looking down on the floor.
"Good." She blurted out.
Ashley looked at her funny at the sound of that.
"I mean I'm sorry to hear that!" Linda cleared with her face blushing furiously. She gave herself a mental kick in the head for that embarrassing remark.
"Really smooth Linda!" She thought to herself.
The man of her dreams looked amused at her with a smirk on his face.
"So-whatcha doing?" Linda started to say with hopes to change the subject as quickly as possible.
"Uh, just currently reviewing reports for your dad." Ashley informed resting his hands on the mountain of plain white folders on his desk.
Something clicked inside Linda's head upon hearing that. She recalled that Ashley was being trained as an assistant to Officer Danvers, which meant that Ashley's handling the same cases as her father.
And somewhere in that pile of folders are the autopsies and police report on Dylan Jacobs.
"Shoot!" Ashley spoke out. "I forgot my wallet in the men's room."
He got up and said, "I'll be right back."
With that Ashley started off, leaving Linda alone. She noted how lucky she is that day. Slowly she proceeded to Ashley's table. She looked around to see if anyone's looking at her. When the coast was clear, Linda began rummaging through the file folders. Using her super speed in reading she was able to find the file she was looking for.
He hurriedly browsed through every detail on the report from the police investigators. It says that Dylan's girlfriend Louise Menken was off the hook since the police didn't find any of her finger prints. A name popped at the upper right corner of the second page, Ms. Angela Black. Then beside the name was an address. Linda easily memorized the details.
The third page revealed a body sketch of the victim. Dylan didn't acquire any wounds on his body. It says that a strong blow at the back of his head might have caused his instant death.
"Eyes had been forcefully extirpated from the sockets." It says on the bottom page.
Linda winced, thinking of how painful it would be to experience that. Questions began forming in her mind.
Why would anyone pull out somebody's eyes?
What for?
What kind of creature would do such a thing?
Chapter Six
The day at Leesburg High was slow, as usual. Students were falling asleep in their classes as their teachers torture them with never ending lectures, surprise quizzes and assignments. Whoever invented school should be crucified or burned at the stakes.
Coincidentally, the practice of the school football team and the cheering squad got finished about an hour ago. The rest of them got back to their classes while others decided to hang outside the school.
"Come here," Invited seductively by an ebony skinned beauty to her boyfriend, peering through the half opened door of the janitor's room.
"Louise," Called out Dylan Jacobs with a playful grin on his face.
"I wanna show you something." Louise Menken twirled a strand of her curly black hair with her finger. She batted her long eye lashes for added charm.
Like a moth drawn to a flicker of flame, Dylan followed his girlfriend inside the small room. But just before he entered, he made sure that the coast was clear and that no one saw him enter.
Luckily for them, the janitor's room Louise picked was located at the far end of the building, under a stairwell, where students rarely passed through.
Dylan studied the contents of the floor wax smelling rat hole. Buckets of floor waxes and a bunch of brand new floor mops were gathered in one corner of the dimly room.
The room stinks. No a good place to hang out. If it wasn't for Louise, he wouldn't be caught dead entering the God forsaken room.
Louise literally jumped unto his hormonally pumped up boyfriend. Dylan slipped his hands from under Louise's short skirt, caressing her supple buttocks in the process.
Both of them kissing each other passionately.
Only a flickering old light bulb illuminated the place. After a while, Louise broke free from kissing Dylan and just stared straight into his ocean blue eyes.
Suddenly, Dylan noticed a small drop of blood flowing down from Louise's right eye.
He furrowed his eyebrows. Dylan placed her back down on her feet and then brushed the drop of blood with his finger.
"You're bleeding." He commented, confused, checking the smudge of blood on his finger.
Louise was obviously stunned when he said that. She took a step backwards and touched the blood on her right cheek.
"Oh no!" Mumbled Louise. She blinked ones and felt hot tears escaping her eyes.
Turning around to face a small mirror on the wall, she found out that it's not just ordinary tears but tears of blood. Louise frantically brushed away the streams of blood and just managed to smear it even more.
As if seeing your girlfriend crying blood is not enough to shock a teenage guy, Dylan's body went completely numb when Louise turned around to face him and witnessed one of her eyes fall out from its socket.
The eye hits the floor with a squishing sound. He looked up at Louise and shivered at the sight of the dark and empty eye socket. She's only got one eye left.
Dylan backed off but Louise was quick and immediately pounced on him. She grabbed the collar of his letterman jacket and slammed him hard against the wall. Instantly, Dylan became unconscious. "Sorry baby." Louise uttered under her breath as she reached out and started to pull off one of Dylan's eyes. Blood squirted everywhere.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It didn't take long for the students to notice the smell of fresh blood coming from the janitor's room. They were mortified when a puddle of blood started to form on the floor outside.
The news reached the local Leesburg police department and without delay they sent their best investigators and police officers to the high school. Students gathered at the scene of the crime, watching the officers do their work.
From one side of the stairs, Louise Menken was sobbing really hard while being questioned for her boy friend's death. She claimed that she was in the girl's locker room taking a shower when she suddenly heard Dylan scream. Louise advised the investigators that it was only then that she found his dead body.
"Everything's under control." Informed one of the police officers to the crowd of students. "So everyone please vacate the area, now."
Principal Gregg Lisbon, a tall man on his fifties with grey hair and a wrinkled façade, prodded the students to leave the scene of the crime. The students walked away, still talking about the horrible fate that ended Dylan Jacobs' promising life.
"I can't believe he's dead." Linda Danvers muttered to her best friend Lucy Lane while they headed for their lockers. "We were talking on the bus this morning and the guy even asked for my number. Weird."
"Well, they didn't call Leesburg Bizarro Land for nothing." Lucy reminded as she stopped to open her locker. She dumped her bulky books inside and slammed the locker shut.
"Ever since those meteors got here twelve years ago, bad and weird things began happening in Leesburg." She added. Linda rolled her eyes when she heard that comment coming from her.
"Here you go again with that meteor theory Luce." She replied as they commenced walking through the corridor. "You know very well that the scientist dismissed that mutation hypothesis via the green meteor rocks."
"Oh yeah?" Lucy stopped on her tracks to face her friend. "Then how can you explain those supernatural occurrences?"
They were already out of the school building by this time.
"A seven year old boy that can lift a Volkswagen car, a man that can breathe fire? What about the girl that could enter your dreams and kill you? Mary Stevenson right?" Lucy mentioned some of the bizarre powers the town people of Leesburg are developing. "Then this happened to Dylan. How can you explain that?"
"I can't." Linda simply answered, sitting down on a small bench situated under a shady tree. Lucy crashed next to her.
"Poor Louise." Lucy expressed, giving out a sigh. Linda just nodded in response.
Silence filled the air between them for a while, thinking about the tragic end of Dylan Jacobs.
"I bet I can easily get into The Oracle if I could get any details about the crime." Lucy suddenly murmured with a far away look. All this time she was thinking about the ways she could join the school newspaper.
"I think I can help you in that department." Replied Linda with a wink.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Have doughnuts!" Linda announced as she entered the Leesburg Police Station that same afternoon.
A chubby female police officer in the front desk greeted her with a warm smile. She placed down the phone and leaned forward the desk.
"Oh Lyn! You're a life saver!" Officer Jane Austin declared. "I'm starving!"
Linda flashed her back a smile. She opened up the doughnut box, took out pieces of tissue papers and spread them on Officer Austin's table then she put down 2 pieces of her favorite doughnuts.
"So Jane," Linda started to muttered, licking off the excess doughnut icing on her fingers. "Is my dad in there?"
Jane nodded as she took a huge bite off the delicious doughnut. She was enjoying every bit of it.
"I heard about what happened in your school." Officer Austin said with her mouth full of semi grinded food. "Terrible."
"Yeah." She retorted with a saddened tone in her voice. "I actually came here to talk about that incident with my dad."
"Oh. Go right in." The female officer advised Linda as she gestured her to the entrance with her free hand.
"Thanks Jane." Linda picked up the box of doughnut and entered the office.
"Thanks for the treat, sweetie!" Jane called out to her.
When her father first took her to the police station at the age of six, Linda was mortified at the sight of handcuffed criminals and policemen with guns on their sides. But when Mr. Danvers explained everything to her, she quickly understood the need for the guns and handcuffs.
"Men of Justice. Protector of the oppressed and the weak." She could still remember those words by her father when she asked what a police officer does.
Linda sensed a tingling feeling at the back of her neck whenever those words echoed inside her head. Little did she know that she would also live by this description and oath in the future. She headed straight to her father's table, her eyes scanning the entire station. She went passed Officer Byrne's table and he immediately acknowledged her with a smile. A Latin looking man in his late twenties sat on a chair before his table with his hands cuffed at his back.
The man gave him an evil look when he realized that Linda was staring at him. Immediately, she took off her gaze and proceeded.
Officer Danvers sat on his mahogany colored office table. Folders, manila envelopes and papers piled up at one side, while a framed picture of him, his wife and their daughter, Linda, rested on the other side of the table.
Fred was currently reading some autopsy report from the bureau about the mysterious death of Dylan Jacobs at the local high school. Just like the other police officers who checked the crime scene, he was baffled. What kind of monster would harvest eyes from people?
Dylan is not the only one victimized by this monster, for the past 3 weeks the station has received at least four incidents of people being robbed of their eyes. Unfortunately for the police, the suspect doesn't seem to have any finger prints.
Fred took off his glasses then massaged his aching temples. He looked up and from a far he spotted his young daughter coming towards him with a big smile on her lips.
"Hi." Linda greeted leaning over the table to kiss her father on the cheek. "I have doughnuts."
"Ok," Mr. Danvers began to say, resting his elbows on the surface of the table. "How much is it?"
She placed down the box of doughnuts and gave her father a stunned look. "So I look like a price tag to you now? I'm not gonna ask you to buy me clothes."
Linda settled on the chair before Officer Danvers' table and continued, "Can't a daughter ever visit her father at work?"
Her father slowly shook his head, beaming Linda a smile. He apologized and explained that he's been trying to figure out the mystery surrounding Dylan Jacobs' death.
"Do you have any suspects yet?" She asked curiously tapping her fingers on the table.
"Well, yes we do. We have several. According to the information we gathered Miss Bla-." Fred's voice trailed off, realizing what his daughter's trying to do. She's fishing for some information.
"Yes?" Linda waited anxiously for her father to go on.
"And here I thought you came to the station motive free." Mr. Danvers pointed out.
"I'm totally motive free daddy!"
Fred tucked the autopsy report in one of the folders and stood up from his chair heading for the file room. Linda also stood up.
"Alright, so I wanted to know some stuff about the murder." Confessed a flushed Linda, following her father around the office. "I wanted to feel safe-or something."
"I'm sorry hon, but we're not allowed to divulge any information about these types of cases."
"Even if-."
"Even if we're family." Fred finished for her daughter. He vanished into the file room of the station as Linda was left outside, thinking.
Just when Linda almost gave her hopes up, she heard someone call her name. It was Officer Ashley Morgan. A junior police officer in training with killer looks. Ashley's tall, he's got warm caramel eyes bordered by long dark lashes and a nice thick brow, cropped brown hair and a great athletic physique.
"Hey!" She said beaming back his smile, lagging behind him as he walked for his table. She noticed that he was holding a cup of steaming coffee in one hand.
"Haven't seen you here in a while." Ashley retorted, placing down the cup of coffee on his neat looking table.
"Yeah, you know, school."
"Sucks?" He queried.
"Big Time!" Linda concluded sitting back on a vacant chair beside Ashley's table.
He gave out an adorable laugh which made Linda's heart melt almost instantly. Growing up, Linda imagined his prince charming to look exactly like this guy. A true gentleman, funny and he looked so good that it hurts sometimes. He's got that heroic aura going on.
Linda used to tease him that he was born to be a police officer. Ashley would then reply that Linda's destined to do great things someday in the future.
"By the way, how's Grandma Morgan?" She mumbled softly.
"She's good." Ashley replied after taking a sip from his cup of coffee. He drummed his fingers on the table, pressing his lips together. "Which reminds me,"
He opened the drawer of his table and retrieved a small rose colored sealed envelope. Ashley handed it to Linda. It was a greeting card from Ashley's grandmother addressed to Lyn Danvers.
A smile formed at Linda's lips again. She looked up at Ashley and found him to be smiling too.
"Thank you for taking care of her, Lyn."
"No biggie. You have to go to work that night. Duty calls." She reminded Ashley tracing the name Lyn Danvers at the back of the envelope with her slender finger.
"I had fun spending time with her. She's a little peevish at first but ones you knocked down her defenses you'll realize how amazing she is. A hardcore chatterbox." She continued with a giggle.
"She couldn't stop talking about you. She kept on asking me when will you be back to visit her." He said.
"Oh, I can drop by your place this weekend."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. Positive." She answered with a nod.
"Great." Muttered Ashley with a tone of excitement in his voice.
Linda's eyes darted to Ashley's table, scanning for something. The framed picture of Ashley and his girlfriend of 2 months, Meredith Kingston's nowhere to be found. Only the picture of his grandmother's present.
Ashley noticed Linda and he followed her gaze.
"We broke up." Ashley told her, his beautiful face growing sad.
Linda was just quiet.
"About a week ago." He added, looking down on the floor.
"Good." She blurted out.
Ashley looked at her funny at the sound of that.
"I mean I'm sorry to hear that!" Linda cleared with her face blushing furiously. She gave herself a mental kick in the head for that embarrassing remark.
"Really smooth Linda!" She thought to herself.
The man of her dreams looked amused at her with a smirk on his face.
"So-whatcha doing?" Linda started to say with hopes to change the subject as quickly as possible.
"Uh, just currently reviewing reports for your dad." Ashley informed resting his hands on the mountain of plain white folders on his desk.
Something clicked inside Linda's head upon hearing that. She recalled that Ashley was being trained as an assistant to Officer Danvers, which meant that Ashley's handling the same cases as her father.
And somewhere in that pile of folders are the autopsies and police report on Dylan Jacobs.
"Shoot!" Ashley spoke out. "I forgot my wallet in the men's room."
He got up and said, "I'll be right back."
With that Ashley started off, leaving Linda alone. She noted how lucky she is that day. Slowly she proceeded to Ashley's table. She looked around to see if anyone's looking at her. When the coast was clear, Linda began rummaging through the file folders. Using her super speed in reading she was able to find the file she was looking for.
He hurriedly browsed through every detail on the report from the police investigators. It says that Dylan's girlfriend Louise Menken was off the hook since the police didn't find any of her finger prints. A name popped at the upper right corner of the second page, Ms. Angela Black. Then beside the name was an address. Linda easily memorized the details.
The third page revealed a body sketch of the victim. Dylan didn't acquire any wounds on his body. It says that a strong blow at the back of his head might have caused his instant death.
"Eyes had been forcefully extirpated from the sockets." It says on the bottom page.
Linda winced, thinking of how painful it would be to experience that. Questions began forming in her mind.
Why would anyone pull out somebody's eyes?
What for?
What kind of creature would do such a thing?