Alice went to work groggy, with bags under her eyes. On the bright side, she’d been lucky enough to find an apartment within walking distance of the police station, making her commute simple. The walk helped wake her up, but that wouldn’t stop her from craving coffee once she got there. Flanked on either side by skyscrapers, Alice weaved around the hustle and bustle of others going to work as she walked on the sidewalk.

          Alice lived and worked in Saint Vivia, a bustling American city with a rich history. In addition to the more modern skyscrapers, one could find plenty of older stone buildings with classical, almost gothic designs. As Alice walked, she could see a couple of those older buildings with arched windows and decorative spires. A few even had stained glass windows. The closer she got to the police station, the more of these buildings appeared beside her. 

          Alice soon saw the Saint Vivia Police Department on her left. It was one of the older buildings in the city, almost resembling a smaller Notre Dame Cathedral, bearing huge arched windows, columns in front of the entrance, and stone gargoyles decorating the roof above. Whenever she looked up, Alice felt that the gargoyles seemed rather ominous for a place meant to project safety. Still, it had been built decades ago. Maybe monstrous forms seemed comforting back then.

          Inside the building, Alice found the lobby, with more columns holding up the roof and stone walls giving the place a medieval feeling, even as police officers went about their business. She said obligatory hellos to other officers she passed before finally reaching the common area with all the desks in it. Gary was at his computer already, which didn’t surprise Alice. He always got there early, and his presence always came with a familiar, comforting aroma.

          “Hey, Alice,” he said. “Coffee’s on your desk.”

          “Thanks,” she replied, breathing in that coffee smell.

          Alice sat down at a desk marked with her name and her title of ‘Missing Persons Detective.’ There she removed the thermal cover from her coffee mug, took a sip, and began her day. With their current case, they had already interviewed every person related over the past week, so Alice went over the witness testimonies while Gary reviewed footage from street cameras in the area. So far, they hadn’t turned anything up.

          They worked for a while, and a few hours passed. For a moment, Alice reflected on what she thought of this job as a child. She used to think the life of a police officer would be exciting and dangerous. It wasn’t until she became one that Alice learned just how mundane this work could be at times. The sheer amount of paperwork alone was staggering. Even the act of solving cases involved scanning documents, photos, and video footage for hours at a time. The job could be genuinely dangerous when they encountered a criminal who wouldn’t go quietly, but even so, a police detective’s job wasn’t without its share of monotony.

          “Hey,” said Gary. “I got something.”

          Alice stepped up from her desk to look over Gary’s shoulder.

          “Remember that car we saw?” Gary said, pointing at the screen.

          She did remember. Street cam footage showed a car going into a back alley at the time of Kenny Halsen’s disappearance. The car had tinted windows in the back, making it useful for kidnapping, but the pair had yet to find direct evidence that it was involved.

          “You found a shot of the driver?” asked Alice.

          “Oh yeah,” said Gary. “I found a shot, alright.”

          The camera angle Gary pulled up showed the driver, a man in a trench coat with a thick beard. They didn’t have a positive ID on him, nor did they have a clear view of the back seat. As the footage played, this man drove down the street for a moment, but then pulled back what proved to be a fake beard, scratching his chin aggressively. His real face was only visible for a moment, but Alice thought she recognized it.

          “Go back and freeze it.”

          Gary complied, and she took a good look at the man’s clean shaven face. Despite the small window of time in which he’d exposed himself, Alice recognized him.

          “Ron Halsen, the Uncle,” she said, an incredulous look on her face. “I can’t believe you caught that. He only took the fake beard off for a second.”

          “I almost missed it,” said Gary. “But it’s him. Clearly, he was lying about being on the other side of town, and he’s someone the boy might trust enough to get into a car with him.”

          “So,” said Alice. “That’s one count of lying to the police and probable cause to suspect him of kidnapping. I’ll call the judge’s office to see if we can get the necessary warrants.”

###

Once they got an arrest warrant and a search warrant, Gary and Alice drove to Ron Halsen’s home with several other police officers. Alice and Gary drove an unmarked sedan while the officers drove vehicles marked with S.V.P.D.. They also had a social worker who would wait in the car—a young woman in a suit who rode with Officers Johnson and Logan. It was standard procedure for kidnapping cases to have someone with proper training take care of the child and give them any support they might need.

          Of course, that depended on whether they found the child or not.

          Ron Halsen lived in a white, country style cottage with immaculate décor. It had possibly the longest driveway Alice had ever seen, just past a fence made of iron spokes topped with arrowheads. The land was decorated with lush trees, including a weeping willow to the left of the house. It was quite a lavish setup, Alice thought. The officers drove up, stepped out of their vehicles, and walked to the front gate.

          “Doesn't exactly scream kidnapper, does it?” said Gary.

          “Can you name one house we've been to that did scream kidnapper?” asked Alice.

          “No,” Gary admitted.

          They reached the front door after a long walk, and one of the uniformed officers knocked on the door. The door was opened by a middle aged man in a golf shirt and jeans. Up close, it was easier to discern his sharp chin, receding hairline, and the timid expression on his face. The man was completely distraught as he was arrested and vehemently denied kidnapping Kenny. Alice had to admit he didn’t look like the criminal type, but that remained to be seen.

          Soon Alice and Gary joined the other officers, and the search was underway. The inside of the house was as immaculate as the outside, with wood grain furniture and a full bar in the kitchen. A cursory examination of the house and all its rooms turned up no sign of Kenny, or any child for that matter. They checked the bedrooms, the bathrooms, the laundry room, the basement, and even the attic, but still found nothing. Either he wasn’t there, or the uncle had hidden him exceptionally well.

          After a few minutes of searching, they still hadn’t turned anything up. Ron Halsen didn’t own any other property, so Alice's gut was telling her that Kenny had to be in this house. Alice kept looking, going over rooms multiple times, but still found nothing. The more she checked, the more Alice's brow creased in frustration.

          And then, as she walked through a back hallway, Alice stopped suddenly. Something about the wall to her left felt off. She moved closer, taking a good look, and confirmed her suspicions. That wall was ever so slightly off color compared to the other walls in the house.

          “Hey! Detective Frasier!” Alice called.

          He was there a moment later. “What is it?”

          “Does this wall look freshly painted to you?”

          Gary, surprised, took a look at the wall.

          “You know what?” he said. “I think you're right.”

          Gary looked at the doors to their left and right. “That door is the bathroom, and the other is the study. Judging by the size of those rooms, it's very possible there could be another room right on the other side of this wall.”

          Alice nodded and put her ear to the wall, knocking carefully. Sure enough, the area beyond sounded hollow. Someone must have taken out the door, filled it in, and then painted over the evidence.

          “Should we get the fire department to tear it down?” asked Gary.

          “No," said Alice, shaking her head. “He’d need another way to get into the room, one that he could hide easily.”

          They looked around, and then Gary looked up.

          “Let’s take another look in the attic,” he said.

          Moments later, Alice and Gary stooped low as they walked carefully through the attic. Various things were littered around, like golf clubs, Christmas and Halloween decorations, old electronics that were probably broken, and more. They went to stand right over where a secret room would be if Alice’s theory was correct. They examined the wood there carefully, and after a minute or two, Gary found something. There was a little notch in the wood hidden behind a vertical support beam, easy to miss if you didn't know where to look. Slipping his finger into the notch, he pulled away a panel of wood to reveal a trapdoor underneath.

          “Just how long had he been planning this?” asked Gary.

          “Don’t ask me,” Alice replied.

          They opened the trapdoor and discovered stairs leading into a dark room, and it was then that they heard gagged breathing.

          “There,” said Alice quickly, rushing down the stairs. They found a light switch and turned it on. In that light, they found a bare room with no furnishings and a single bed. Kenny Halsen lay on the bed, tied and gagged. When he saw them, he struggled, his face filled with fear. Alice noted a few bruises on his face.

          “It’s okay,” said Alice, putting her hands up and approaching slowly. “We’re police.” She pulled her badge out to show him, keeping her movements slow. “We’re here to help. We’re going to untie you and reunite you with your mother real soon, okay?”

          The boy stopped struggling. Though he was obviously still afraid, he let Alice get close and begin untying him. They soon had him free and led him up the stairs, out of the attic, and then out of the house. As they took him to the police cars, Alice noticed that Kenny was shivering and took off her jacket, wrapping it around the boy’s shoulders. She also took a deep breath, grateful that they’d achieved the best possible outcome from this.

###

Soon they were back at the station, where Alice and Gary took turns interrogating Ron Halsen. When they mentioned that Kenny had been found, he got very quiet and wouldn’t answer many questions. They did figure out that the car he used was a rental. He simply removed the license plate during the kidnapping and returned it once the deed was done.

          As they got out of the interrogation, they began heading back to their desks.

          “I just don’t understand it,” said Gary as they moved through the building. “What makes a person do that to their own family?”

          “Honestly,” said Alice. “I don’t care. Let him give his excuse to a jury if he ever comes up with one. The kid’s safe now. That’s what matters.”

          “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

          As Alice and Gary approached the desks, they saw the social worker taking care of Kenny as they sat by the wall. The young woman spoke to Kenny in a calm, soothing voice as Alice and Gary sat down to begin the more mundane aspect of their job. A part of Alice wanted to look after the kid herself rather than fill out paperwork, but that just wasn't how things worked.

          Before long, their busy work was interrupted as Kenny’s mother was escorted into the building. The middle aged woman looked around worriedly for her son, and upon seeing her, Kenny shouted, “Mommy!” and ran into her arms. Soon, the two were embracing and sobbing with joy. For a moment, Alice looked up at the pair, and the barest hint of a smile showed at the corner of her mouth.

          “Kind of makes the job worthwhile, doesn’t it?” said Gary.

          As she saw Kenny leave with his mother, the pair of them still crying with happiness, Alice smiled in earnest.

          “Yeah, she said. “It kind of does. Nice job today, Officer Frasier.”

          “Not so bad yourself,” he replied with a grin. “Officer Hayes.”

###

As Alice got home that night, she entered her apartment and stretched out to work out the knots in her arms. She was feeling pretty good tonight, for obvious reasons. As Alice walked through her living room, she spotted the family pictures she had on the wall. She saw her father in his military uniform with a pleasant smile. Her brother Arthur was there, with a big dopey grin on his face. Finally, her mother was there as well, with kindness in her eyes. These pictures brought forth both happy memories and sad ones.

          Feeling a sudden urge, she took out her phone and scrolled through her contacts for her mother, listed simply as mom.

          Putting the phone to her ear, she got voicemail, and it occurred to her that her mother went to her book club that night. She went ahead with the call anyway.

          “Hey, mom,” said Alice after the beep. “It’s Alice. I know I don’t call much, but I thought we could meet up later. You know, have a mother daughter day when I have time off? I know you’ll probably have something to say about not calling and about how I haven’t been to church in a while. I know you worry about me. I just…wanted you to know that I’m doing alright. We found a missing child today. You should have seen when he was reunited with his mother. It was...it was something alright. Anyway, we can meet up later. Love you.”

          She hung up.

###

The next day, Alice got to the office and immediately had a new case. This time it was a particularly gruesome one, with both a kidnapping and a homicide. As she and Gary drove to the crime scene, Alice was grateful she didn’t have to work in cases like this very often. Saint Vivia City had a typically low crime rate, and most of the murder cases were handled by homicide.  Having both a murder and a kidnapping in the same case was rare, though not unheard of.

          In this case, a man was found dead in a cabin outside Saint Vivia. Alice and Gary drove through the woods to find patrol officers already at the scene. The cabin itself was old, built from unpainted wood, and lacked any decorations. It almost blended in with the trees around it. This was the kind of place where one lived to just be in nature, which Alice found charming in its own way.

          “What have we got?” asked Gary.

          One of the officers, Officer Johnson, to be specific, answered. He was a chubby man with a thick beard, and he had a serious look on his face as he spoke.

          “Adult male, found alone in his house. Been there for at least a day. He’s been I.D.’ed as Frederick Benjamin, married to Maggie Benjamin. It was Maggie’s sister who found the body. Apparently, Maggie had stopped contacting her or even posting on social media, and after a week of radio silence, she finally stopped by with her emergency key. Homicide's already interviewing her. It’s a weird one, sir. Someone cut power to the house. The funny thing is, I can’t figure out why. I don’t see any signs of a struggle.”

          Alice caught that. There was something familiar about a crime scene with the power cut and no signs of a struggle, but she couldn't place what it was.

          “And the victim,” he continued. “He’s unnaturally pale, even for a dead body.”

          That sounded even more familiar.

          “And this is the really weird part," Officer Johnson was reluctant to say. “He's got two pricks at the base of his neck."

          Alice felt her blood run cold. It couldn't be.

          “Two pricks?” asked Gary, confused.

          “Show me,” said Alice.

          The officer led them into the cabin. Inside, it was dark, and true to the officer’s word, the lights were out. Alice could just make out the stuffed animal heads decorating the walls. Hunting trophies, no doubt.

          She also noticed that there were black curtains everywhere and brushing next to one confirmed that they’d been installed recently. They were just a little too clean. The other officers probably hadn’t given them much thought. Why would they? To Alice, though, they were very significant.

          “Detective Hayes?” asked Gary, noticing her studying the curtains.

          “I’m coming,” said Alice.

          Then they reached the kitchen, where the body was located. It was an older man with graying hair wearing a hunting jacket and jeans. A camo baseball cap lay above his head, where it had fallen off. He was eerily pale, a sight Alice found disturbingly familiar. Flies buzzed around the poor man’s head, and she could just see the first signs of decay beginning. Despite how pale his skin was, she couldn’t see a single blood vessel in his skin, which was another detail that stuck out. Alice got some rubber gloves from one of the other officers, knelt, and pulled back the collar of his hunting jacket.

          And as expected, there were two bloodless puncture wounds right at the corner of his neck. There was no mistaking it. It was the same type of wound that the Baxter family had worn all those years ago.

          It’s him, Alice thought. It’s the one who took my brother.

          Her hand clenched into a fist.