The sun was rising, bringing light to the city of Gryfton.
A new day meant another twenty-four hours of O'Daniel still missing and the more time went by, the lower the chances of ever finding him went down.
Ethan was already in the interrogation room that they were using to run the operation. Cole, Daniel, Jenna and Maya were already on their way to the room.
"How did it go with Alex Kane?" Maya inquired when she walked up to Jenna.
Turning to her, Maya already knew how it had gone down.
"Wait, don't tell me. Let me guess, no dice?" She added, looking at Jenna with an inquisitive look.
"Yeap. He's a real piece of work. Though I saw why some people regard him as one of the best," Jenna answered her as they were almost there.
"He did his thing to you? You know, study you then break you down like a psychic?" Maya pushed, wanting to know more.
Her eyes were beaming with excitement, Jenna started to have the feeling that Maya might have looked up to Kane.
"Yes he did. Is he psychic?" Jenna countered, asking in all honesty.
She didn't want to admit it but she knew that Alex's deduction of her sort of creeped her out. She was basically looking at him the entire time they were at his residence, he only glanced at her around three times.
If it took him that fast to figure her out, he could be one of the very best people she's ever come across. Well, that's according to Jenna of course.
"Of course not, he's not psychic. But he's been called that countless times in the past." Maya answered her as the finally got to the room.
"Boss, what time did you get here?" Cole asked as he walked into the room.
The rest followed him closely behind and realized that Ethan must've been in there for quite some time. Apart from the fact that Ethan didn't look like he had slept the entire night, the coffee mug and coffee pot on the table, and a whiteboard at the center of the room with everything that Ethan saw essential to the case, they knew that something was up.
Looking at them, Ethan was hoping to get something good from them. He had come up short in convincing Alex to join him, he needed something to work with and something good enough to start as a lead to the case.
His team could already tell that the case was one that would either make or break them in Gryfton P.D
Marcus was already on their necks from the start, telling them that he expected them to comply with what Mrs O'Daniel wanted. Who knows how hard the commissioner would be willing to press his foot on their necks as the case progressed.
"Maya, Daniel, please give me some good news," Ethan prompted them, wanting to hear what the had learnt about O'Daniel and his place of work.
"Well, we got there and the place is a high end research facility. You literally need key cards to get in an out of there.
According to records, O'Daniel swiped his card in the evening just like he usually did every evening before heading home. We asked around, nothing weird stood out about him in the past few days. No threats had been reported, no missing days from work. This guy walked out of work the day that his wife says she suspects he was taken," Maya responded, giving a summary on what they found out at his work.
"What about his car?" Jenna asked, " Did he take it?"
"His car wasn't at his place of work. He must've taken it," Daniel answered.
"Could it be that it was taken? Perhaps used to kidnap him?" Ethan questioned.
As the others were thinking it through, Cole was busy trying to recollect something. Something that he felt was connected O'Daniel's car.
"What kind of car was it?" Cole finally asked, waiting to hear from Maya or Daniel.
"His workmates said that it's an old school SUV. Tintend windows, blue in color. It has a---"
"---small dent on the side. Just above the fuel cap." Cole interjected Maya and all eyes turned to him.
"You've seen it?" Ethan asked, leaning forward from his seat.
"Yeah, I guess it's the same one. When I was pulling up to the O'Daniel house, I saw that car down the street. Just a few blocks over, parked next to a carwash. I only noticed it since you don't expect to see such an old car in The Heights," Cole answered.
Pulling a picture of the car from the case file, Cole confirmed that it was indeed the exact car that he had seen near the O'Daniel's residency.
"That car could be carrying crucial evidence in this case and it's just been sitting in the open for over two days. Make the call and get any nearby officer to man that car till we get there," Ethan instructed Cole who was already dialing his phone.
"For all we know, O'Daniel could be in that car and rotting away while we keep chasing our tails. Maya, I need you to run a digital footprint of O'Daniel. Go through his credit card transactions, check his emails, phone logs and everything else. Also make the call to where he worked, get them to send you the CCTV footage of the night that he disappeared. Jenna will help you," Ethan instructed as he was getting up and putting on his coat.
"What about us?" Cole asked.
"The three of us are going to see what's inside his vehicle. I just hope that we don't find out that he's been right under our noses this entire time." Ethan answered as Cole and Daniel followed closely behind him.
"If he isn't in the car, doesn't that mean we have to find him? That someone actually kidnapped someone from The Heights District." Cole stated as they were wait for the elevator.
Ethan paused and took in a deep breath. In as much as he wanted the case to be a false alarm, something deep down told him that it was just the beginning.