Chapter 52 – Mitchell
MITCHELL
“It could be a one,” Charlie muses, his face so close to the monitor I can't see the screen. “Can you zoom in anymore?”
Sighing, I grab his shoulder and gently pull him back into his seat.
“I do that, and it gets even more blurry,” I explain as I retype the licence plate number into the search bar, replacing the ‘I’ with a one and hit enter.
The car that comes up still isn’t a blue commodore, this one a Volkswagen Golf in a silvery grey colour.
I rub my eyes but quickly look up the owner’s details and jot them down with the previous search results. So far, the partial matches that have come up are scattered in just about every direction and none of them are blue commodores.
It’s pretty clear that either the commodore was stolen, or the plates were. Or both. Whichever it is, they haven’t been reported stolen yet and they’ve been driving around town for a week before today.
We still have no idea who took them, why they did it orwhere they went.
“How about a seven?” I shake my head before typing it in anyway.
Grabbing my phone, I unlock it and open the app I use to check in with each of the people I’ve helped over the years. Scrolling through, I click on Billy’s contact and quickly type out a message.
One of the car’s owner lives in the same town as him, so if he could do a drive by on his way into work in the morning that would help narrow down whether their plates were stolen which could hopefully give me something to go off.
“That one isn’t too far from here,” Charlie says, pointing to the screen where I still have the Volkswagen owner’s details up. “We could check it out when Charlotte falls asleep?”
“You promised her she can sleep in our room tonight. Imagine how she’ll feel if she wakes up and we’re both gone?”
“Shit,” he curses under his breath. “I’m sorry, I should have asked before I said yes, I just couldn't-”
“Couldn’t tell her no? I know the feeling.” I smile.
“I’ll do it.” We both look over our shoulders to the person standing in the doorway. Eric leans against the doorframe, his hands in his pockets before he continues. “Charlotte won’t notice if I slip out now, let me just go tell Ari.”
He's gone before either of us can agree or disagree and we both stare at the empty doorway for a second before I shake my head and return to my search.
Charlie sighs, getting antsy in his seat as he starts to fidget, and I try to imagine myself in his shoes for a moment. Sitting there with nothing to do, unable to help.
“Pass me your laptop,” I tell him, digging through one of my drawers for a bridging cable. It takes me a couple minutes to set it up, but once it’s ready, I’m able to pull up my PC’s files on the laptop and use that to install the house’s security camera system on it.
While it installs, I transfer the doorbell camera recordings from town onto the laptop as well.
Once both are done, I walk him through how to use the program.
“Start with the cameras by the road, see if that commodore drove by this morning. Then move onto the recordings from town, see if you can get a clearer image of their plates.”
My phone chimes with a message from Billy saying he’ll do it and I quickly send through the address, car details and licence plate number before returning to my search.
Through it all, I can’t help but regret not giving Rissa and Charlotte the matching bracelets I had made when Charlotte started school.
If I’d have given them to them, I’d be able to pull Marissa’s exact location up right now.
Instead, I settled for sticking with the phone and car trackers, figuring it was a little too much and invasive to have a tracker on their person they couldn’t take off.
Something I'll be rectifying as soon as I get her back.
A gentle knock on the door has us turning, I expect Eric to be back but instead it’s one of twins carrying a sleeping Charlotte in his arms. “Sorry to interrupt, she made us promise to bring her up if she fell asleep.”
“Stick her in our room, we’ll be in soon.” He gives a nod, disappearing back into the hallway in the direction of our room.
“Uh, I should probably go check on him.” I frown at Charlie’s words. There’s less than ten steps between my doorway and the doorway to what has quickly become our bedroom. It’s not like he could get lost or confused by the layout. “Trust me,” he mutters before leaving the room.
A few seconds later, I hear him softly hiss through the open doorways. “Put the boxers back, Dad.”
Boxers? What kind of kleptomaniac steals men’s underwear?