Chapter 2 - The Yellow Dress
Chief Evans stood on the other side of the reinforced glass doors with a dead, unblinking stare.
I immediately drew my weapon and ordered the toxicologist to lock the laboratory from the inside.
I realized with pure horror that our own precinct had just become a lethal trap.
I needed to find out who the woman in the yellow dress was before the Chief breached the basement.
I bypassed the local servers and hacked into the state missing persons database.
I searched for any woman wearing a yellow dress who had vanished in the last forty-eight hours.
Only one single match appeared on the glowing monitor.
Her name was Madeline Vance, a wealthy socialite and prominent whistleblower for a local chemical company.
She was also the younger sister of the city's current Mayor.
I printed Madeline's home address and shoved the paper into my tactical vest.
I knew I could not fight the Chief and his loyal officers inside this concrete bunker.
I smashed the emergency fire window in the basement and crawled out into the muddy alleyway.
I stole an unmarked cruiser and drove recklessly through the pouring rain toward Madeline's massive estate.
The beautiful mansion was completely dark and eerily silent when I arrived.
I broke through the back patio door and drew my flashlight to search the premises.
The living room was perfectly clean, but the smell of heavy bleach hung thickly in the air.
I walked out into the massive garden and noticed an area where the rose bushes had been freshly dug up.
I grabbed a shovel from the shed and dug frantically into the wet earth.
My shovel hit a plastic tarp buried exactly three feet below the surface.
I ripped the dark plastic away, fully expecting to find Madeline's dead body.
Instead, I found a pristine yellow dress entirely soaked in dark red blood.
I checked the designer tag on the collar and froze in complete shock.
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The name written on the tag did not belong to Madeline Vance.
It belonged to my own mother, who had supposedly died of a heart attack ten years ago.
