CHAPTER ONE

Unknown POV-

I watched as the scene unfolded, the police flooded the entire building, boarding off a few floors. I watched the so called “hot-shot” detective arrive at the “crime scene”. It was a female detective, I guess we don’t have much to worry unlike we initially expected, I scoffed.

I dialled my emergency contact, “Dejar saber al jefe, I don’t think the cops will be much off an issue” I pulled my hood back up and calmly walked out off the building through the back exit, I switched off the burner phone and threw it into the nearest drain.

Jessica Rush-

My hand was completely enveloped by his much larger ones but his touch had been so gentle, he brought my hand to his lips, placing a tender kiss on my hand “It’s a pleasure to meet you Jessica.” He spoke in a low gruff voice that made my heart leap into my throat. “I-“

TRINGGGG! TRINGGGG!! 

I was awoken by the horrible shrill of my cell phone, I squinted at the bright light that had been coming from the device created by the devil himself. I groaned loudly in annoyance when I saw the large bold letters spelling out my so called assistant’s name. “Hello? Justin? Do you have a damn death wish!?” No one disturbs my sleep, NO ONE!

“My apologies Detective Rush, Captain Braugher has given me strict instructions to continue calling you until you pick up. He needs you at The Vintage.” came Justin’s timid voice from the other end of this horrible technological device. What on earth could have happened, I groaned before jumping out of bed and pulling on a pair of jeans and zipping up my boots. It’s going to be a long night…

I parked my car across the main entrance of The Vintage, shaking my head at the crowd and unusual amount of reporters, swarming The Vintage. It’s an awfully chilly night although it’s the middle of summer, zipping up my black hoodie, I pocketed my keys before pushing through the swarm reporters and entering the large building.

As I had been walking through the entrance, I heard the reporters talking amongst themselves about the mysterious disappearance of the Hudson twins causing my eyes to widen. What the hell? The disappearance of the Hudson twins?

I met Captain Braugher and Lieutenant Jackson in the lobbywho I greeted with a sharp nod, before motioning for Justin to follow with a nod of my head, the moment he got closer to me I said to him in all seriousness “Let’s walk and talk, brief me on what we know so far and you can leave out the part of the Hudson men being missing, I’m aware of that from what I’veheard so far.” Damn reporters. I despised them almost as much as I despised being woken up from my sleep, I rolled my eyes before looking over at Justin, Justin was a tall lanky guy, three years my junior and completely obsessed with murders.

“Rush, it is an extremely high profile case and there’s a lot of second guessing going around, let’s face it the Hudson’s are not short of enemies. They’ve been crawling out from the shadows for some time now.” there was a brief pause where Justin and I gave each other a knowing look, only a person with our experience would know that a person who is missing, is a person of interest. “If a person has nothing to hide, why would they run?” I said to Justin while raising an arched eyebrow.

“My thoughts exactly Rush, there’s blood everywhere. This is definitely your scene” He pushed up his glasses before hittingthe button to head up to the Hudson’s pent house. I began pulling out my gloves and notebook as we rode the elevator in silence, it was not comfortable, I had to brace myself for the worst.

Their apartment was on the top floor, Justin and I pushed through the rest of the staff and hotel guests who had been peaking into the apartment but were being held back by officers who were boarding certain parts of the apartment using a bright red tape. I was not prepared for the way the Hudson’s dining room looked, in the middle of the room their huge glass table had been shattered, there was bloody handprints across the walls. On the far right of the room there was an unmoving lump covered with a white sheet that had red stains on various parts of it. The room was quite dark due to the lights flickering continuously; I guess it looked like a scene straight out of a horror movie.

I bent towards the body and lifted the white sheet of it, I was greeted by the sight of a man or what I should be saying is what was left of this man. He had a blunt force trauma to the head and only half of it was left behind, it looked like he had been repeatedly hit by a baseball bat. Jon Doe had deep lacerations across the other side off his face, I’m guessing from when he was thrown onto the glass table. I removed the white sheet further off his body to reveal a bread knife stuck in the middle of his chest. It didn’t even look like a struggle, more like a prey being hunted in the most gruesome and brutal manner. It looked like no mercy was given to this man.

The bread knife stuck in Jon doe’s chest had an unusual pattern, I grabbed a camera from the nearest person and clicked a few pictures of the design “Email them to me.” I said as I was handing the camera back to them. It looked ancient and rare, not the usual bread knifes you’d find at our local stores here in Seattle.

I looked up to find a detective watching my every move, it seemed that his one side of the face looked sunken in, similarly you only see this in people who don’t have teeth, which prompted me to look into his mouth, to find that all of his teeth had been pulled out. I sighed loudly and said “well, here goes our identification route of checking dental records, this body was left in the hopes that no identification will be made!”

Craning my neck to have a look at the coroner who had just arrived on scene, I recalled working with her once before on another case when I first started as a rookie, Dr Leslie Adams is an expert in her field and one of the most professional and efficient woman.  She looked down at me, and stated “Detective Rush you do know that the body you are looking at has been dead for more than 3 days, and also looks as if it was stored in a body freezer before being planted at this scene” I shook my head and realised that this is getting more intense by the second, “I hadn’t realised so Doc, that’s the reason we have you here, to help me solve the mystery “- I said whilst walking up to her, I held out my hand and gave her hand a firm handshake.

“We need an autopsy done as soon as possible, we might not be able to identify him but we can at least find out the cause of his death, anything that would help us figure out where the Hudson twins are or who has taken them.” I said to Dr Leslie, she looked up from her note pad and gave me a nod. I think the kidnappers jammed the knife in his chest to distract us from something else, something that we would find out from this corpse after all dead men tell no lies.

I looked up to see Justin watching Dr Leslie instead of investigating the crime scene, I shook my head before slapping both my hands together, Justin was the replica of a deer caught in headlights before he became extremely flustered knowing very well that I had caught him gawking at our doctor over here, in my opinion Justin didn’t stand a chance with Dr Leslie, I smirked at him before turning my attention back to the crime scene.

The captain walked into the apartment, “Captain” I said while nodding my head, “Detective, I assigned this case to you because I’m well aware of your capabilities, I want these men found before the end of the week.” Captain Braugher said in his usual detached tone, the Captain always spoke in a detached tone, never revealing any emotions, I admired that about him.  He has always been straight forward and truthful, along with Lieutenant Jackson, who had trained me when I first joined the force.

There had been gun residue near the entrance of the apartment, the forensic team had been all over the apartment, taking samples and notes. The strange thing was that the blood on the walls and the corpse had been fresh, strange considering that Jon Doe over here had been dead for a few days now.

It’s one of two things from what I can see, either the blood is fake or from a blood bank, the scuffle to the wall suggests that the Hudson brothers had tried to fight off someone in here.The Hudson brothers are two very large men, they must have put up quite the fight but in the end could have been out numbered.

Now this is starting to look more like a kidnapping rather than a murder and fled scene.