Out of My Body

Chapter 2: Tragedy

Next day at home, Charlie was teasing his brother: "Come on bro, get down of that cloud! Hahahaha I don't know what that girl did to you, but it looks like your feet are high far from the ground, wake up boy!!!"

"You said that to avoid the mess you made yesterday..."

"...and according to you what did I do? You weren't even there!! How could you possibly know? You just escaped with an unknown girl and didn't show up at all! I can't imagine who could have that effect on you?"

"She's not an unknown girl", Taylor replied.

"Mhh really? I don't know anyone that could bewitched you like that... I'm actually impressed that you have taken someone so seriously", he said that scratching his head in apparent confusion.

"If you had seen her... you'd know what I mean", said Taylor couldn't hide a smile.

"Mhh... mystery girl haaa, are you gonna see her again?"

"I hope so. I'm gonna call her later to see if I can meet her tonight."

"Ohh man you're so keen on seeing her... don't let her know that!", said Charlie at the time of hitting him softly with his left fist.

"Actually you know her well. She was your friend long ago in High School. She is a professional singer now..."

"No way!!!! Lea!!!!??? Your high school 'crush'?!" shouted Charlie visibly excited about his brother's answer.

While Taylor was just wishing he hasn't used that word: 'crush'...how embarrassing it sounded!

"Now I get it! Lucky you that finally found her! I've always knew there was something else there, but you never listened to me, you wasted a lot of time!"

"See what I mean? But I won't make the same mistakes this time"...

"I'm sure you won't bro, or I'll tell her by my own all I know..."

"You know? That's precisely what I'm gonna do", said Taylor as he reached his phone and typed a message: "Hi famous singer, how you doing?", a few minutes later he got his response:

"Hahaha 'famous' I think I know who are you. I'm ok, what about you?" Taylor couldn't believe she has responded so quickly to his message, and typed again:

"Great! I was wondering if you'd like to have a beer after work with me tonight", another couple of minutes passed, but they felt like hours to him, when he finally heard the blessed 'ding' of a new message again.

"Today I'm working late" he read the message and felt as if a cold water bucket was spilled on him. He thought that maybe she wasn't interested in going out with him... but if that was the case, she shouldn't have given him her correct phone number... it was funny how he could almost hear his thoughts arguing to himself when suddenly another 'ding' interrupted him.

"but we could have lunch...", he has just finished reading when automatically a smile was drawn in his face, she really wanted to go out with him!..

"Sure! Shall I pick you up?" he typed as fast as his fingers could.

"2:00 pm at my place will be fine", responded her.

"see you later then", he finally answered, he didn't know what else to say, so he just finished with a smiling emoji, and put his phone back in his pocket, just a few minutes before they got in the car heading to the place they were told to come.

Taylor started scrutinizing the crime scene, as Charlie began taking pictures of it.

"Have you identified her?" asked Taylor to Henry the other detective of the unit and his partner at work.

"Nope, looks like nobody in the neighborhood knew her".

Leslie another cop in service interrupted them: "hey guys come here, the stolen purse appeared a few blocks from here. Our good friend Manny,"said she, pointing to a policeman with a plastic bag in his hands "...brought it for us."

"Can I take a look at it?" asked Charlie while grabbing the purse in his hands with his forensic gloves, searching for prints, "not a single coin, that allows us to think that motive was robbery... mhh there's something else here, a driver's license, her name was Aimee Cortez, and the card was expedited in Reynosa, she was mexican."

"Well, that matches what the the clerk in the corner store said about her, that she was new in town, she used to come and buy groceries periodically, and that most of the times she asked questions about how to get to places or how to move around, sometimes in spanish," said Henry, before he shared his conclusion about the case: "It's definitely a robbery that went wrong", he added: "the old lady here didn't want to hand in her purse and was killed for it. It's a pity."

Taylor just added: "We must make the family aware of what happened", as soon as he started making some calls to investigate about the woman's family. The examination of the position of the body continued by his brother who was debating with the Medical specialist the possible circumstances surrounding the woman's death.

"Have you called her family?" asked Charlie while he was taking more pictures around.

"Yeah" said Taylor, and then he added: "she had no family here, her husband died three months ago in California in a car accident and he was mexican too. She also had a daughter but she went missing seven months ago...what a year for this poor woman."

"I bet that's why challenging death was not a problem to her, otherwise what would be as important to confront an armed thief? She would be happy now of getting what she wanted, a quick and certain death" said Henry.

"That's awful... It's so sad that she had lost all her family in less than a year. Do we know where she was staying? asked Taylor again.

"Nobody knew that", answered Henry.

"Look guys! I found something!" said Charlie as he was searching in the woman's sweater's pocket: "It's an entrance card: 'Blue Moon Inn', I saw that hotel in our way here, it's behind the street we are now."

"We should go there to see what we can get", said Taylor showing his curiosity.

"Do you think is truly necessary?" asked Henry, "I thought the crime scene was pretty clear about what happened."

"I think so too, but we must be sure there's nothing or nobody else behind this", Taylor insisted.

"You guys go and have fun, I'll do the same at the lab examining the evidence we have so far", said Charlie enthusiastically.

"Welcome to the Blue Moon Inn, how can I help you?" asked the receptionist at the front desk, the place wasn't fancy or modern, but it looked neat and comfortable, just what a traveler passing by the city will need.

"I'm detective Taylor Beckett and this is Henry Thompson from The Chicago Police Department, we were wondering if Ms. Cortez was hosted here..."

"Yeah, she is, she paid the whole week ahead", the receptionist hasn't finished talking before Taylor interrupted:

"You mean she was, she was shot this morning in the corner of Main and Veteran's Street".

"Oh man! That's terrible!.. She seemed to be such a nice lady" the receptionist seem to be genuinely affected by the detectives news: "She didn't speak English very well but she tried hard, she arrived here on February 18th, it's been almost three weeks since she came here, she always paid the week in advance, and said that if necessary she would pay more weeks, depending on how long her family issues were fixed."

"Family issues?" asked Taylor "Did she mentioned any details on the matter that brought her here?"

"Not at all, she just said that it was something related to a family conflict, that's all I know", answered the receptionist.

"Have you noticed anything strange related to her residence here?"

"Well she used to have our continental breakfast and spend out almost all day... Oh! I remember last week she had a visitor, his last name was Mendez or Melendez, I don't remember very well, he claimed to be her friend, she received him in her room, and I think he stayed about an hour and then he left."

"May we take a look at her room?" asked Taylor.

"Sure, you'll need an entrance card, wait a minute so that I can give it to you", said the receptionist and started typing something on his computer.

"It's ok man, we already have it" said Henry interrupting the process of making a new card.

"All right then, it's the room 205, second floor it's on the left from the stairs".

They followed the receptionist directions and opened the door, the first thing they saw was a laptop on the table, surrounded by papers, photographs, among other folders and documents.

Henry looked around as Taylor reached the computer and saw a usb device that was connected to the laptop, he tried to unlock the computer to see what the woman was working on, when he realized he needed a password, made a smirk and took away the usb, which finally put it inside his leather jacket pocket, thinking that maybe later he could open it in his own computer.

Henry then came to the table and found his partner looking at the pictures, they were girls, missing girls actually as they found later papers of amber alerts with their names and pictures, one of the girls in the pictures was Ana Maria Cortez, the recently deceased's missing daughter, there was also another girl with a last name they have just heard a few minutes ago, Marina Melendez, among other 3 girls, all of them mexican and as the papers implied they were abducted in different locations near the border, Reynosa, Rio Bravo, Piedras Negras, and all of them occurred in the same month.

"She was investigating her daughter disappearance, and at least four more! This could certainly be a motive to be killed, and it could only be it if she was close to find them! We must take all the evidence we have and inform Sargent Crow about all this!" said Taylor couldn't hide his excitement about what they've found.

"For sure, but I think we'll need a warrant to take all this stuff with us to the precinct", replied Henry.

"But the woman is death, nobody will claim all this! Let's take all of it with us and arrange that warrant later!" said Taylor as he began gathering all the papers and collecting whatever he thought will be useful, Henry helped him with the computer, then they rushed to the car on their way to the precinct.

Henry typed a few text messages while Taylor was getting in the car. He began driving and Taylor was still looking at the papers trying to organize all the documents in the folder when he saw his friend making an unexpected turn two blocks before the 90 express, "I just need to stop ahead at the gas station", said Henry when Taylor noticed that he came out of the route.

He kept reading documents, while Henry came inside the shop, a few minutes have passed when a dark van passed by and began shooting at the cars parked in the gas station, Taylor knew that the people in the van were dangerous, at the time he saw the guns they were holding in their hands just before they began shooting, he barely could avoid the first gunshots, and quickly got off the car, just a few seconds before it exploded, Henry came out as soon as he heard the gunshots and hid behind another car trying to fight back the criminals that continued their way at high speed after shooting at the whole station, letting it in flames after several explosions caused by the mixture of gasoline and bullets, leaving a toll of two dead people and three more severely injured, one of them was Taylor, who the last thing he could see was his partner's face a little blurry as he heard: "Hold on buddy!...The ambulance is near! Don't give up!".

At this point he couldn't even speak any more, he closed his eyes and his brother was the first person that came to his mind, what would he do if he died?..and then he saw her again, the vivid memory of that night at the restaurant.

"No way!! This can't be true!! This can't be happening! My brother!... Lea!.. I've got to see her!! Please! ...Not today!! Not now that I've found her!".