Left to Harm by Blake Pierce

Author:Blake Pierce [Pierce, Blake]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blake Pierce
Published: 2022-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Adele wasn’t sure if one was supposed to reheat bags of already popped snacks, but she also didn’t have time to make a proper breakfast.

She blinked sleep from her eyes as she paced back and forth in her kitchen. John’s snores echoed from the couch in the living room, reverberating over the sound of the whirring microwave. The faint scent of stale popcorn lingered in the air.

She and John had managed to snatch a few hours of sleep. He’d been more than happy to sleep on the couch to keep an eye on her. To his credit, he hadn’t even asked to share the bed. The two of them had spent nights before, but this time the goal hadn’t been pleasure.

And John’s snoring would have prevented any amount of sleep.

Now, feeling somewhat rested, Adele clicked through the browser on her phone, frowning as she did. The first search term had seemed obvious enough.

Sheen and Splendor.

But the main result had led to a now-defunct web page of the once high-end jewelry brand. But the masthead of the site made it clear the site was now obsolete.

She reread the small band of text.

After three wonderful years of serving our clients, we are sorry to say S+S will be closing indefinitely.

That was it. No explanation. Nothing.

An up-and-coming jewelry brand had cratered for no apparent reason.

Adele tapped her foot against the ground as she paused by the microwave. Her nose wrinkled, and vaguely she thought she smelled burning. A faint wisp of smoke was wafting inside the appliance above the brown bag.

She reached out, clicking the door open and grabbing the reheated popcorn. John’s snoring continued to rumble from the living room.

She grabbed a mouthful of stale corn and butter and then returned her attention to her phone, cycling back to the first page of search results.

A few more links led to other items on the obsolete website. Customer service. Product pages. An About section which was now deleted…

She moved on to the second page of search results. A few blog posts in French were bemoaning the surprise end of their favorite brand. Some angry reviews mentioned how they hadn’t been able to return products that hadn’t met expectations.

But then, scanning the second page of results, Adele went still, frowning at a news article at the very bottom.

Adele tilted her head. The article wasn’t dated. It looked more like a hastily transcribed archive file. But what did stand out was the content of the article.

A missing person. Someone who’d, according to the small amount of text, once worked as a clerk at S+S.

Adele frowned. She tried searching for more information on the article, but clearly it hadn’t gained much internet traction. She found herself pages into results sorting through spam.

So instead, with a sigh, she grabbed another handful of popcorn and moved hastily over to where she’d left her laptop on the kitchen table.

She didn’t have to rely on the same search results as most did.

She opened up the DGSI database with her two-factor credentials and then quickly narrowed recent case history by a missing persons tag.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.