Short Story
Leo had been in Seattle long enough to stop feeling like a visitor.
The city had begun to feel like home.
It wasn’t perfect, but then Leo had never expected perfection.
He had spent the first few weeks living out of hotels, but after dealing with the kappa beneath the building, he’d been offered the perfect opportunity to change that.
He’d taken it.
And then he’d proceeded to make a considerable number of changes.
The second floor had become his personal living space. The ground floor was now his office, complete with a large desk, several computers and enough equipment to make it clear that the business was considerably more than your average private investigation firm.
The building also had two basements.
Officially, it had one.
Leo knew better.
The first hidden basement had been the kappa’s home.
After dealing with the creature, he’d reinforced the walls, added wards to the entrances and transformed the space into something considerably more useful.
An armory.
A research room.
A place to store the things that shouldn’t be left lying around where ordinary people could find them.
Weapons occupied one wall.
Books and artefacts another.
Several locked cabinets contained objects Leo had yet to identify.
The second secret basement remained largely untouched.
For now, it was little more than a dumping ground.
Boxes.
Old furniture.
Equipment he hadn’t found a use for.
Things he had told himself he would organise eventually.
He wouldn’t.
At least not until something forced him to.
Leo was sitting behind his desk when his computer chimed.
Another email.
His business had started to grow.
Word had spread.
He had handled a few supernatural cases since arriving in Seattle, but most of his work had been considerably more mundane.
Locating missing people.
Finding cheating spouses.
Tracking down stolen property.
The sort of work that paid the bills.
He opened the latest message.
The subject line was short.
Woman Missing.
Leo sat forward.
He read the email once.
Then again.
Our daughter is missing. She’s twenty-four. She went into Seattle with friends on Friday night and never came home. The police have been looking for her, but we haven’t heard anything. It’s been more than forty-eight hours. Please help us.
There was a telephone number at the bottom.
Leo picked up his phone.
This one felt different.
He called immediately.
The girl’s parents arrived at his office later that afternoon.
Leo could tell they hadn’t slept.
Her mother looked exhausted, her eyes red and swollen from crying. She was a woman in her early fifties, with shoulder-length brown hair that had clearly received very little attention over the previous few days. She kept twisting a wedding ring around her finger whenever she became nervous.
Her father was taller, broad-shouldered and grey-haired, with the sort of tired expression that came from trying desperately to remain calm for someone else’s sake.
Neither of them sat comfortably.
They looked like people who had spent the last three days expecting the phone to ring.
And every time it hadn’t, the fear had grown.
Leo placed two cups of coffee on the desk.
“Tell me about your daughter.”
Her mother swallowed.
“Emily.”
“Emily what?”
“Emily Carter. She’s twenty-four.”
Leo opened a notebook.
“Where does she live?”
“With us.”
“Job?”
“Marketing assistant. She works for a company in Seattle.”
“Friends?”
“Several. She went into the city with three of them on Friday.”
“Which bar?”
Her father gave him the name.
Leo wrote it down.
“Did she leave with anyone?”
“We don’t know.”
“The police?”
“They’ve been investigating.”
“How long?”
“Since Saturday morning.”
Leo looked up.
“And they’ve found nothing?”
“Nothing.”
Her mother leaned forward.
“Please.”
Her voice cracked.
“Everyone keeps telling us to wait. The police are doing what they can, but she’s been gone for three days.”
Leo closed the notebook.
“I’ll find her.”
The words came easily.
Not because he was certain.
Because he knew they needed certainty more than reassurance.
Her father looked at him.
“Can you really?”
Leo smiled faintly.
“I have a good track record.”
Emily Carter had been twenty-four years old.
Five foot six.
Slim, with long dark-blonde hair that fell just past her shoulders and green eyes that stood out against her fair complexion. Her friends described her as confident, outgoing and stubborn when she thought she was right.
Leo had spent several hours piecing together her last known movements.
She had arrived at the bar shortly after nine.
She’d been with three friends.
They’d stayed for several hours.
There were photographs from inside the bar.
Messages.
Social media posts.
Security footage.
And eventually, Leo found something interesting.
Emily had left alone.
At 1:17 a.m.
She had ordered a taxi.
The taxi had never arrived.
Leo stared at the screen.
“That’s odd.”
He picked up his phone.
The screen displayed a collection of applications that most people would never have access to.
His sister Izzy had installed most of them.
Some were legitimate.
Some existed in the murky territory between legitimate and questionable.
And some were definitely illegal.
Leo had never asked where Izzy had acquired them.
He preferred plausible deniability.
He entered Emily’s details.
The phone number.
Her email.
The information her parents had provided.
The system began searching.
Leo waited.
A location appeared.
Then another.
His eyes narrowed.
“Come on...”
The phone had been turned off at some point.
But not immediately.
There was a final location.
A few streets away from the bar.
Leo pulled up a map.
The location wasn’t a house.
It wasn’t a hotel.
It was a car park.
He sat back.
Someone had followed her.
Leo returned to the bar.
He spoke to the staff.
Checked the exterior cameras.
Reviewed footage from surrounding businesses.
And eventually, he found him.
The man appeared in the background of one camera several times.
At first, Leo thought nothing of it.
A man in his early thirties.
Average height.
Average build.
Brown hair.
Dark jacket.
Nothing memorable.
Then Leo noticed the pattern.
He appeared outside the bar before Emily left.
He appeared across the street when she came out.
He appeared again when she walked towards the taxi rank.
And then he disappeared.
Leo paused the footage.
The man turned slightly.
His face became visible.
Leo zoomed in.
Thirty-two, perhaps.
Short brown hair.
Pale skin.
A narrow face.
Deep-set hazel eyes.
A thin scar ran from the corner of his left eyebrow towards his temple.
He was clean-shaven, but his appearance was otherwise unremarkable.
That was probably intentional.
The kind of face that disappeared into a crowd.
Leo watched the footage again.
Then he smiled without humour.
“You’re not very good at this.”
The man’s name was Daniel Mercer.
He worked at the same company as Emily.
Leo discovered that within twenty minutes.
The rest took longer.
Daniel had become obsessed with her.
Messages.
Emails.
Unwanted gifts.
Following her home.
Showing up at places she visited.
Emily had complained about him.
Her employer had apparently spoken to him.
But Daniel hadn’t stopped.
He’d simply become more careful.
Until Friday night.
Leo found the address.
An apartment outside the city.
Then another piece of information.
Daniel owned a second property.
A small house on the outskirts of Seattle.
Leo looked at the address.
He knew where he was going.
The house was dark.
Leo parked several streets away and walked the rest.
There were no lights visible.
No cars in the driveway.
No obvious signs that anyone was home.
He approached the front door.
Locked.
Of course.
Leo crouched.
There were scratches around the lock.
Recently made.
He stood.
Then he heard something.
A faint sound.
Three knocks.
Then silence.
Leo moved around the side of the house.
A basement window had been covered from the inside.
He looked through the gap.
Darkness.
Then movement.
Leo’s expression hardened.
He broke the window.
Emily was sitting on the floor.
Her hands were tied.
Her hair was messy, her face pale and exhausted.
There was a bruise along one cheek and another around her wrist where she’d struggled against the restraints.
But she was alive.
Her green eyes widened when she saw him.
“Who are you?”
“Leo.”
He moved quickly.
“Are you hurt?”
She shook her head.
“Not badly.”
“Can you walk?”
She nodded.
“Good.”
He cut the restraints.
Emily stood, unsteady.
Then a voice came from behind him.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Leo turned.
Daniel stood at the bottom of the stairs.
Up close, he looked even less threatening than he had on camera.
Average height.
Average build.
Brown hair.
Hazel eyes.
The scar over his eyebrow.
He was wearing the same dark jacket Leo had seen in the footage.
In one hand was a knife.
Leo looked at it.
Then at Daniel.
“You really should have chosen a better hiding place.”
Daniel’s expression twisted.
“She was going to leave me.”
“She doesn’t know you.”
“She would have.”
Leo shook his head.
“No.”
Daniel stepped forward.
“She would have.”
Leo positioned himself between him and Emily.
“Daniel.”
The man froze.
“How do you know my name?”
“Because you aren’t nearly as clever as you think you are.”
Daniel lunged.
Leo moved aside.
The knife passed inches from him.
Leo caught Daniel’s wrist and twisted.
The knife clattered onto the floor.
Daniel swung with his other hand.
Leo blocked it.
Then drove his shoulder into Daniel’s chest.
The two men crashed into the wall.
Daniel fought desperately.
Leo didn’t.
There was a difference.
Desperation made people reckless.
Training made people predictable.
Leo caught him again and forced him to the floor.
Daniel struggled.
Leo held him there.
“Stay down.”
“You don’t understand!”
“I understand perfectly.”
Leo tightened his grip.
“You stalked a woman.”
Daniel stopped struggling.
“You followed her.”
A pause.
“You kidnapped her.”
Leo’s voice hardened.
“And now you’re going to explain all of that to the police.”
The police arrived fifteen minutes later.
Emily was taken outside first.
She stood wrapped in a blanket, speaking quietly with one of the officers.
Leo watched from the doorway.
She looked frightened.
But alive.
That was enough.
One of the officers approached.
“You found her?”
Leo nodded.
“And him?”
Leo looked towards the basement.
Daniel was being led upstairs in handcuffs.
“Found him too.”
The officer shook his head.
“How did you know where to look?”
Leo smiled.
“Good detective work.”
The officer laughed.
“Right.”
Leo glanced back towards Emily.
“She needs someone with her.”
“We’ll make sure she gets home.”
“Good.”
Leo turned away.
"Mr Winterhold.”
He stopped.
The officer looked at him.
“You ever think about working with us?”
Leo smiled.
“Not particularly.”
“Why?”
Leo looked towards the Seattle skyline.
“Too much paperwork.”
It was nearly midnight when Leo returned home.
He entered the building through the office.
The place was quiet.
He switched on the lights.
His eyes fell on the stairs leading down towards the hidden basement.
For a moment, he considered going down.
Instead, he poured himself a drink.
He had come to Seattle expecting monsters.
Creatures from old myths.
Things that shouldn’t exist.
Things that belonged in the dark.
But the truth was that some of the worst things in the world didn’t need magic.
They didn’t need claws.
They didn’t need fangs.
Sometimes they simply needed a human face.
Leo looked out through the office window.
Rain ran down the glass.
Seattle glittered beyond it.
He had been here only a short while.
Already, he had dealt with a creature from Japanese mythology and a human monster.
Something told him that wouldn’t be the last of either.
Leo took another drink.
Then his phone vibrated.
Another email.
Another case.
He opened it.
Read the first line.
And smiled.
Seattle was beginning to keep him busy.
