24 Chal

The ride to the address was everything but smooth, the detectives that already knew a little information about their destination were in panic, Elizabeth, Dyson and Vans were not exceptions either. Their racing hearts were further amplified by the speed at which the cars travelled. Every turn they turned took further into Elizabeth's heart. At this point, she really wanted to call Layla but the young lady had resigned, so as a normal civilian, she couldn't be anywhere around the scene.

After a quick ride, they finally got to the address where the package was meant to be.

Elizabeth quickly hopped out of the car, but she didn't meet what she had expected. The whole area was eerily quiet, the location near the large water body felt desolate. The cold sea wind blew relentlessly, causing Elizabeth to shudder, from residing fear and from the biting chill that seeped into her bones. She felt a mixture of emotions, disappointment, fear and a deep sense of relief as she realised that this place held none of the scary gory things she had imagined.

"Inspector Elizabeth, would you mind explaining to us why you brought us here?" Dyson asked, he had his hands in his pockets and an annoyed look on his face. Elizabeth simply glanced at him before hugging herself, rubbing her palms against her arms to keep herself warm.

 The sergeants and detectives had been deployed to look for anything suspicious and search every nook and cranny of this area, but the officers slowly returned in pairs and groups, giving negative answers to anything that Vans asked, this meant that the coast was clear and she was just being muddle-headed.

Elizabeth stared at the message from the private number, trying to figure out any clue that she could have missed, but the address was still silent, devoid of people, only the whistling of wind and the crashing of waves on the shore could be heard.

"Elizabeth, there's nothing and no one here, are you sure it's not some kind of prank?" Cheif Inspector Vans placed his hand on her shoulders with worry but she jerked up and pushed his hand away.

"I know what I'm talking about, please believe me." She retorted and pulled at her hair in frustration. She couldn't bear to tell him more about Noel Cassius for the safety of her loved ones.

"How should I believe you when you won't even say how you met that 'supposed Lord' of Vandhill?!" Vans raised his voice in annoyance, he frowned and turned away.

"Are you trying to say I'm cra…"

Elizabeth words were interjected by Vans, "Look here, Inspector Brian, I left my little girl's birthday party just to be here, and you can't even tell me what's going on? Do you even know how my little girl would feel when her daddy didn't even stay for twenty minutes on her eight year birthday?" The fact that he called her by her title meant that he was really serious and disappointed. 

Elizabeth glanced at Dyson who was leaning on a car, watching them with indifference. 

He smiled wryly, "We shouldn't just act on information given to us when the information is not even complete." He said and walked up to them, "You can still meet up with your daughter's party, Chief." Patting Van's shoulder, he walked past them and ordered the officers to retreat.

Chief Inspector Vans glanced at her then walked into his car before driving off, the fleet of police cars drove away in line, leaving just Elizabeth there alone. Her blank eyes mirrored her pain and hatred for the one who had caused this. The moonlight shone in her, casting a long shadow on the ground, the dark shadow on the ground seemed to carry an endless void of negative emotions.

At that moment, the tranquil silence was interrupted by a ping from her phone, she glanced at the new notification and scoffed; it was the address of delivery.

Elizabeth quickly got into her car, deciding to face her fear head on and do this one on her own.

She turned on her GPS and drove to the address. After a few hours drive into the night, she finally got to the address; the place too was a desolate area with no houses and quite a few number of trees. A place she never really knew existed.

Elizabeth slowly got out of the car with her headlights still on. A message came into her phone again but this time with her cousin's number.

*You can't break a stone with an egg, the wise won't do such*

The message was brief and concise but carried a lot of meaning. Elizabeth knew very well that her cousin couldn't do or write this.

-Ping

*the package is in the trunk of your car, deal with it*

She almost dropped her phone at that message, she ran to the trunk of the car and pulled it open.

Her bowels churned, she covered her mouth with both hands at the sight of what was inside the trunk.

*I should have sent a message to your friends, or your sister, maybe your cousin…*

Elizabeth threw her phone into the trunk, she could not afford to read the messages anymore, now she had to deal with the 'package'.

It was a person, a man probably in his mid-thirties. She dragged his large body down and the string stench of alcohol almost made her push him away. The drunk man slowly opened his eyes after the impact of the sudden fall, Elizabeth jerked up and moved away, she had concluded that it was a corpse since he wasn't moving, she originally wanted to just leave him here and drive off.

"W-where am I? I want to party!" The drunk man stood up with wobbly legs and yelled at the top of his voice. Elizabeth in panic, struck his head with her fist, the man staggered back, he slowly touched his bruised lips and immediately tried to attack back but the young inspector was faster, ignoring his domineering stature, she banged his head on the car, forming a board-sized dent on it.

She dragged his large useless body by the collar and pushed him inside the car. Knocking him out was easy because he was to drunk to focus or keep his footing.

A message came in again after she had subdued the drunk man.

*deliver the package at____*

The address was one she was quite familiar with, Elizabeth didn't waste any time, she quickly got in the car and drove off in the direction of the bridge.

…

She finally got to the dark empty bridge, she got out to open the passage door but it was already open, the man who was supposed to be lying inside was gone too. Now, Elizabeth really panicked. A lot of thoughts crossed her mind, maybe the man jumped off on the way but that was impossible because she would have surely noticed.

Elizabeth opened the trunk and only a large black body bag was there but the bag was empty, she dragged the heavy bag that seemed to be made of hard leather and tossed it off the bridge, not wanting to leave any trace of that man even though she was still stupified. She walked around the car but there was no other sign of life except her.

-Ping

A video was sent this time, she slowly tapped on it and what she watched shocked her out of her wits.

It was her pulling a man out of her car, she knocked him out and pushed him back into the car before driving away, then another video of her throwing the a black figure over a bridge.

Her eyes widened, knowing fully well that the last part of the video could be easily misunderstood.

Under the video message a word and a smiley emoji was sent.

*chal:)*

Now that he had something like this against her, she knew she was done for…