A professional criminal

After having dinner, Crystal dropped Jonathan at his home and drove toward hers. When she started the car, she saw him waving through the rear-view mirror. Automatically a smile appeared on her face. Jonathan have always been supportive of her and was one and only person in her life which she can call a family.

After about 30 minutes, she reached her home and as soon as she returned, she immersed herself into the case file of the abduction. Deeply studying the information so that she could find something.

"There must be some connection between the victims. They are all orphans, it won't be bad if I check around in some orphanages."

She also saw the CCTV footage of the night Simon was abducted. The only thing she saw was the side face of one of the abductors. Since the footage was of night and quality was also poor, his face was blurred. Simon was seen struggling while being held by those guys as one of them injected something into his neck.

"How come they did all those things without leaving a single evidence behind them",she slammed her palm on the table.

It seemed like the ones committing these crimes are professional. The whole thing was carefully planned. Thinking about what her next step should be, Crystal slept on the couch. The next day, she woke up by the sound of her ringing cell phone. It was Jonathan.

" Morning Jonathan." ,she said yawning.

"Morning dear, why are you sleeping till now?",he asked.

" It's 6 in the morning!!! What do you mean by still sleeping??" ,she said annoyingly.

"Okay okay. I just called you to tell you that I can't sleep at night so I went to Bob's place and found a photograph",he replied seriously.

" What photograph ?" ,she asked.

"It's a group photograph of a school. I've already mailed it to you. Have a look"

"Okay. I'll see it and today I'm going to some orphanages to find out if the victims lived there.",she told him.

" Actually I'm going to search for the school whose logo is printed on the students' blazers in the photograph. So we'll get to know about the orphanage eventually." ,he said.

"Fine then I'll continue with my routine investigations.", she stated.

After talking about 5 minutes, they hung up the call. Crystal saw the photograph, and from the logo it was clear that it wasn't of any school in the city. She did a quick online search and found out that the school was quite far from the city and because of a fire incident it was closed.

She then kept her phone aside and went to take a quick shower. After having breakfast she went to Mr. Nicholas and showed him the photograph.

" Do you know any of these children?" ,she asked.

He was shocked at first but he managed to hide his expressions quickly.

" No.. I haven't. I know Melissa from about a year only. And I didn't know anything about her childhood or past." ,he answered.

But Crystal noticed the change in his expressions. Narrowing her eyes, she said, " I never said thai I was asking about Melissa."

His face went pale. "I.. It's that I am Melissa's neighbour so I thought you'll ask me things related to her."

"You got some detective skills, sir", Crystal said with a sarcastic tone. " By the way, may I know what do you do for a living ?"

"I am a doctor at city hospital.", he said.

" Okay, doctor. I'll take my leave now." ,she returned to her car and took out her phone and called Chris, her junior.

"Chris, help me keep an eye on Mr. Nicholas; Melissa's neighbour. I'll send you hisl details."

"On it ma'm.", Chris replied enthusiastically.

" Make sure to notice his every single move and report me each and every detail", she instructed.

"And please don't get caught."

saying so, she disconnected the call. Now she drove straight to Shelby's home.

It was a well maintained apartment and there she was welcomed by Shelby's friend Teffie.

Crystal told her the purpose why she came and showed her the photograph.

As soon as she saw the photograph, Taffie pointed out a 6 year old girl saying it was Shelby's picture.

"What about the other children? Do you know them?", Crystal asked her.

" No, I have seen their picture on Shelby's phone but I don't know them.", Teffie replied.

"Do you know any of her friends from the orphanage?", Crystal asked again

" She didn't felt like talking about her childhood much. So I never asked her.", Teffie answered.

"I want to see Shelby's room. I know an officer had seen it once before but I want to see it again.", Crystal said.

Teffie showed Crystal Shelby's room and went to the kitchen.

While Crystal was looking around her room, she saw a rack full of books with dust on it. It seemed like they are untouched from a very long time but suddenly she noticed a blue file among the books which was less dusty unlike the books.

She took out the file and opened it to find numerous newspaper cut outs about organ donation surgery.

" She wanted to become a surgeon but because of her financial condition she couldn't.", Teffie's voice came from behind.