Shadows: Short Thriller Book 3

"That's 5 girl's Frank," Mark sighs, running his fingers through his thinning hair. He'd been sweating and pacing his office for the last hour, since we got word of the last girl. "This has to be stopped! The kids are scared, parents are breathing down my neck. We've got a predator on the loose. And we have no answers!"

"You think I don't know that?" Frank ground his teeth in frustration. "We've been doing everything we can.... and they just disappear!"

Frank looks out the window into the precinct. Every cop in the building runnin' 'round like a chicken with its head cut off. The whole world is in commotion trying to come up with answers to this horrible tragedy. Fear and frustration are running high all over down town.

"We can't let this happen again. 5 college girls going missing in less than a month... all disappeared after taking a walk through those damn woods!" Mark snarls in frustration as he looks down at the photo of the latest missing girl, before slamming it on his desk with the rest.

Marie Garcia. Age 22. College student, studying art history. Only child of Mia and Jorge Garcia.

Why the hell did she decide to tempt Fate? The whole college has been warned not to step foot in those woods. We've been putting up fliers about the missing girls. Warnings. We had hoped that would be enough to stop them from going missing. But it was not enough...

"We've been chasing shadows for weeks, Mark! We need to do something before someone else gets taken to God knows where. I hate this! You know I've got a daughter just their age... If anything happened to her, I'd burn the world down to get her back," Frank growled.

He takes a look at all 5 photos. Each one of them looking back with haunting smiles of girls who used to be full of life, now they are just ghosts... Hopefully not literally. Frank really didn't want to think that they'd been murdered. It was much easier to think they were all just held up somewhere they couldn't find.

The first one was Sara Evans, age 19, happened just 3 weeks ago. So young. Pretty bond with blue eyes. She just wanted to go for a walk after spending hours studying for her test the next morning is what she told her roommate. But then she never came back.

No one was worried then. They just figured she left on her own. She'd broken up with her boyfriend earlier, and no one thought it would end like this.

Next was Beckah Reynolds, age 21. Brunette with green eyes and freckles. That one happened just 2 days after the first. Back when we didn't realize it was the woods they kept disappearing into. It was the weekend. She just wanted to go for a walk before she was taking off for a couple days to see her parents... She never got to see her family. The call didn't come in until her parents called her roommate and asked if she was still packing.

After Jamie Miller, age 20, a red-head with bright brown eyes and a sunny smile, they started warning the kids at school to stay out of the woods.

Jamie'd been on her way to meet her boyfriend, but when he called her friends, they hadn't seen her and told him she had left hours ago.

After that rumors and whispers spread across campus. Fear picked up, talking about stalkers and rapists. There were even a few who dropped the words serial killer. It hung like a dark cloud over town.

For a while we thought it had worked. The girls stopped going into the woods... and then they stopped being scared. No one knows why the hell Emma Sams took her chance to go into those cursed woods. Just that she did. That happened last week.

Once again, the local authorities warned the college kids don't go into the woods alone... especially the girls. So far they haven't had an issue with any of the males... Maybe the predator wasn't strong and liked to take on weaker prey... no one knows.

Each face was like a shot to the gut as Frank looked at them. He's been worried about the kids in this area even before the disappearances happened. As a parent, he could very well imagine what it would feel like to lose his child.

Every cop in the county has been busting his ass trying to search for those girls. Not only that, but we warned the neighboring counties about the disappearances. They've been on high alert just in case the predator moves locations.

But there have been no clues. No traces the predator even existed except for the missing girls. The young women just disappear like shadows. It's like that damn forest ate them up the moment they stepped on the path.

We've had tackers and a K-9 unit out looking for them, but we've still come up empty. How is that even possible? No one can just not exist. They have to be somewhere! We just need to come up with another idea.

Mark looks up at him like he was hit by lightning. Frank wasn't sure he liked that look. It meant he was desperate enough to do something reckless. Something that he wouldn't have even suggested if they weren't in dire straits.

"That's it, Frank. That's what we gotta do!" Mark says, rising from his worn out leather chair. He looks right at him with a manic smile on his face.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Frank huffed in annoyance, leaning back in his own chair, arms across his chest, staring at his boss with trepidation.

"Brooklyn. She could be the key to this thing!" Mark says excitedly, looking at Frank like he was slow.

"What are you saying? Why would my daughter be involved the disappearances of other college girls?" Frank growled in indignation. He did not like that his boss was placing blame on his daughter, when she obviously had nothing do with the whole damn thing?!

"No, no, no! You got me all wrong! We need her!" Mark insists, trying to placate his subordinate. He needed him on this. It wouldn't work without Frank's help. He's the only one who could talk his daughter into this whole thing.

"I don't understand," Frank admitted. "Why do we need Brook?"

Okay, so maybe Mark jumped the gun. He needed to spell it out for him before he jumped to any more crazy conclusions. Plus, Mark was sure this was the prefect solution to this whole damn problem. He's been getting pressure from parents and the school and the Mayor... He can't take it anymore! He needs a break! And this could be it.

"We need her as bate!" Mark states like it's the most obvious solution to the problem.

"ABSOLUTELY NOT!" Frank snarls. "YOU CAN'T USE MY DAUGHTER WHILE SOME CREEP IS STEALING GIRLS IN THE WOODS!"

Mark huffed and folded his arms just looking at the irate father. He doesn't have have time for this. He needs to get a move on and make this happen! He can't do that if Frank is being irrational!

"Listen to me for a minute! She won't be in any harm... We will be monitoring her the entire time. We'll have a tracking device on her, and the moment she's snatched, we'll close in and capture the bastard behind all this," Mark says, sounding remarkably level headed.

That just made Frank even more upset, because it sounded like a good plan. But how was he supposed to give up his daughter to an investigation? Wasn't there some other way to go about this? What about a female officer?

Unfortunately, all the female officers he can think of are all older than college students. They would never work to bait the trap. Not the way Brooklyn would.

What would Mary say? She'd probably hang him and throw his bones out for the dogs. And if she let him live, he'd most definitely be in the dog house for the rest of his life... His wife was not someone you wanted to mess around with!

He looked down at the faces of all the missing girls, staring back at him with condemning stares. They all had fathers and mothers too. They were all someone's little girls. Parents who would do just about anything to just know what happened to their babies.

What would happen if he give up his daughter and she ended up gone too? He could never forgive himself for that. However, if he didn't take the chance and they never found the girls? There was a good chance Mark was right. They could use Brooklyn and find the culprit.

He didn't want to let his daughter get involved with this... However, she's 21. Maybe it would be best to give her the option. If she says no, then that's it! But if she says yes, well... he'll just pray she's safe and trust her judgement.

"Okay, I'll call her," Frank sighed in resignation, pulling out his phone. This was not what he wanted to do, but he knew that if there was even a small chance to give the other parents some sort of closure he would owe it to them to at least be open to the idea. His girl was an adult after all... And most likely would want to help... And that was the problem. He knew his daughter would do anything to help. She had a strong sense of justice... Just like her daddy.

"Good," Mark said with a satisfied look on his face. He sat back and watched as Frank dialed his daughter, knowing exactly how this would play out. Brooklyn was a good girl and she would see the rightness of this.

"Hi daddy," his daughter's voice answered on the second ring. She sounded happy to hear from him, which just made him feel even more guilty. It's not like he never calls his daughter, but he likes to keep her out of the hard parts of his job.

"Hey, Brook, baby. You mind coming down to the station for a bit? I got somethin' to ask you," Frank responded, trying like hell to sound casual, but he was pretty sure he missed is mark, because he heard her gasp.

"Is there something wrong?" She asks, fear lacing her words. He wanted to reassure her, but he didn't think it would help to do it over the phone. He needed to see her, then he'd have Mark explain his crazy idea, and he would leave it up to her.

"Just come down for a bit. We'll talk when you get here," Frank said, looking right at Mark's face. The bastard was smirking right back at him like he'd already won.

"Okay, I'll be there in a few minutes," she promised.

"Thank you, baby girl."

Then he hung up.

"You'd better be right about this!" Frank huffed. He really didn't feel right about using his daughter like this. It twisted his gut thinking of all things that could go wrong. What if they lost her? What is she was the next shadow they couldn't trace?

"I am. You'll see. She'll be perfectly safe!" Mark promises.