Finding the serial killer

Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Jake's POV

“Come on,” Stella came to pull me to the table. She elastic strap a silly birthday cap on my head. “Now we’re all ready.” It’s almost hard to remember Stella used to be my closest friend all through school. She and I had similar life goals, not caring about a thing in the world, unlike Jerry so we get along. Now, she is also my family and a person I cherish not as a sister-in-law but really as a sister.

She clicked my pictures which I usually detest and pushed me to slice the cake.

“This is from dad.” Jerry slides a box to my side. I haven’t seen dad in seven years, no, one day less in seven years. Ever since the day he kicked me out of his life, he told me to choose, I can be his son, or I can be myself. since I chose to be myself, I can no longer be his son.

I wanted to know what’s in that box, but I'm too weak. The reason I never tried to see him was only so he won't know that I regret making that choice. That I regret choosing the hard path of life. I regret it. he will see right through me if he sees me. I never met him, just occasional phone calls on holidays was my filial duties as the elder son.

“You should really see it.” I actually want to know what’s in it. I nodded before flicking the top open.

It was a watch, it was his watch. Pocket watch. He cherished it with more love than he cherished us. It is a heirloom, one that belonged to my great grandfather.

“Why’d he—” I'm so weird, when I don’t feel much, I talk like a wavered child, but now, when I'm being drenched with emotions, I have no idea how to put them into words.

“He wants you to come back home.”

“I can't go back, until I prove myself first.” Emily was watching me with so much humility in her eyes, I don’t know if she understand why I don’t want to lose this job, but her eyes says she understand. That was just enough to provide me with a sense of ease.

“What were you guys doing, by the way?” Stella said while stuffing a towering slice of cake in my mouth.

“We need to sort through a few evidences. See if we can find something useful. It’s important.”

“Then we can help, can't we Jerry?”

“Of course. Unless it is confidential.”

“It’s off the record, we just seized it illegally, so I don’t think it’s confidential.” I didn’t meddle, we really needed as many hands as we can and who is better than the fellow humans I can trust.

We cleaned the table and sat on all four of its chairs. I had my laptop, Stella had hers, Jerry worked with his iPad and Emily sorted through the financial documents I printed out.

I've been thirty-two for three hours now and we are playing all the footages into 10X speed. So many windows running consecutives all fast forward. My eyes are giving up, brain is almost paralysed, I don’t think these CCTV footages will have anything. Jerry was the one sorting through the SD cards.

“Guys, I think you should check it out.” He called us to his side of the table and it wasn’t like the last time when he thought he spotted someone stealing, I can tell just by his face.

“Did you get—”

The night which was dark is suddenly bleeding red. I fear read and I'm barely holding on. I shouldn’t have asked for that favor, I shouldn’t have let them witness the reality most people are better kept away from. I know it was my idea, my stupid f*****g idea to let them help us sort through the hours-long footage on all the tapes and SD cards. I don’t believe my intellect never warned me one, it never slipped my mind that we might actually find something on those tapes they could not watch, or should not. And could not.

“Jake?” I felt a hand on my shoulder, my eyes didn’t move away from the screen. “Jake,” Emily shakes my body and I feel so numb, I forget I had to react to her calls. “We really find it.”

We all are disgusted by just the first five minutes of the footage and Emily seems to be too comfortable to be happy that we really find a woman being dragged in this strange room. She is bounded and gagged and she looks so young.