technology and looked at the object more closely. It was a plain, large, brown envelope. Ideal for sending something similar to a cassette with it.


"What do you want with that?" The young detective just asked and massaged his temples.

"That got the tape here. The address is on it," Sloan informed simply.

"You don't want to go there ?!"

He hoped he had misheard, but his partner's gaze spoke volumes.

"How so?"

"Because there is a possibility that children are at risk, Braden," she said calmly. "And if so, it is our duty to investigate."

Her partner snorted. "Yes, of course, and did you wonder why this was addressed to us of all people? It's a trap!"

"And if it does. That's our job!" Sloan crossed his arms adamantly over his chest.

Braden thought for a moment, then sighed resignedly. He hated himself for not being able to be stronger in her presence. "Okay. Come on. Let's give your career a nudge in the right direction."

Sloan looked at the other surprisingly before a beaming smile appeared on her face.


____________________________________________________________The drive had cost her a few minutes in winding streets and the destination address had turned out to be a half-abandoned and rotten old house. Now Braden watched his ambitious colleague, armed with a flashlight and her pistol, sneaking over the broken glass, which had long since ceased to be window panes, lying scattered about on the floor and making crunching noises whenever he accidentally hit one of them small pile kicked. Sloan winced slightly each time, and then sent him a look that should say something like "I'm warning you! I'm nervous enough already ...".


At first Braden had been surprised. Why had she been allowed to go alone? Wasn't that irresponsible? On the other hand, he suspected that they were not being taken seriously and that the tape was not enough as evidence. Besides, nothing seemed normal that day. It was a miracle he hadn't felt it when he entered the police station ...


Sloan signaled him with a show of hands that they should split up.


He agreed and watched the black-haired woman as she carefully pushed open the door in front of her and crept into the room at gunpoint before he himself headed for the passage to the right. There really didn't seem to be anything special about this building. The walls and windows were as dirty and broken as you would expect from any old building that you could ever get to know about vandalism.


When Braden reached the room the hallway led into, his eyes widened in shock. He wanted to call first before deciding against it. For some inexplicable reason his heart was pounding with excitement. The room was completely empty, but it was dark. And in the middle was a single chair ... The young detective shone his flashlight on the innocent furniture in the room before he searched the room. He wasn't exactly sure what he was looking for, but suddenly an unbelievably bad feeling crept into him. Like a premonition.


And just as the brown-haired man was about to call his partner over, a loud, fearful gasp came to his ears. Without hesitation, he set off and ran towards the room that Detective DeAngelis had just checked. Braden knew he couldn't even have heard that sound as far away from her ... But what was normal that day?


The brown-haired man wouldn't have missed much to kick the door down. He didn't like this place. It made him feel more than queasy. But Braden held back and instead pushed the door open with full force. In the light of his flashlight he could see Sloan, who had her back almost turned to him and was staring with a paralyzed look at a mirror that was anchored in the wall. A large shard had broken out so that the top half was missing, but something still seemed to have caught her attention ... For a moment Braden felt as if her long, black braid was blowing in a shallow wind, but he forced himself to do it again Reflection.It was completely calm. Maybe this room used to be a bathroom.


"Dear Children, don't worry about me," Sloan's mouth suddenly came out softly.


For a little while, Braden raised an eyebrow in irritation. His partner seemed out of her mind ... The uneasy feeling in his stomach only intensified and he wanted to get out of this house. He wanted to tell her that they were obviously wrong, even if he knew better, and that they both know that they are safe ...


And suddenly everything happened very quickly. Sloan took two steps towards the broken mirror and two hands, no, paws[/i]shot out, grabbed the black-haired woman, pulled her around and grabbed her by the throat. Feeling like his heart was about to skip, Detective Casey shot forward naturally and tried to grab his colleague's arm to pull her away from this thing, but Sloan did nothing to help him ... She held it out Hand not out and just looked at him with a listless look.


Braden felt as if the air lay like cotton wool on his ears, so that he could hear everything muffled. He couldn't utter a word. What did she do? Didn't she want to be saved? As if in slow motion, the brown-haired man stared at the hands that Sloan was choking. They were blue on the cuticles and generally pale ... Like a corpse. Like the hands of the dead. The nails themselves, however, were long and sharp ...


The policeman had no good suspicions when the roar of an engine sounded and fought persistently and loudly to his eardrum. Blood spurted from Sloan's throat as the paws dug into the pale skin. He couldn't hear the din, not even the tearing, that the fingers made ... He arbitrarily closed his eyes and put his hands in front of his face to protect himself from the speckles. When all of a sudden the background noise stopped and Braden felt how dizzy and sick he was, he took his hands down again. There was no trace of Sloan DeAngelis.


The brown-haired man no longer had any doubts. She had been lured into a cruel trap. He fell to his knees and didn't even try to fight the tears. One thing, however, preoccupied his sad mind; Sloan's reflection hadn't been there. What he had seen was a snow-white dress ...


_____________________________________________________



The now retired ex-cop, who went by the name of Braden Casey, woke up from his nightmare and ran his breath rattling through his thin hair, which was already beginning to turn gray before he sat up in bed. His heart ached terribly from the shock. And that wasn't good. He was old, but not so old that he could have been a candidate for a heart condition ... He held his chest puffing briefly before he got up and went down to his kitchen to get a glass of water from the refrigerator to fetch.


He wondered what the hell was he cobbling together?Of course he missed her. He always had. Probably would never change either. But had it never happened like this? Why did his mind even make him think about her again?


With heavy steps he went back up to convince himself of the truth again. Braden turned on the light in his study and walked to his desk. After opening his very personal drawer with the key he always carried with him, he pulled out an old yellowed newspaper article that he had had a frame. Less to celebrate what was written than to keep the words from fading and becoming illegible… The paper clearly proved that Sloan DeAngelis was killed in a serious car accident two weeks before officially entering the service. Hit and run was committed and the guy was never caught. She looked young in the photo. The black, straight, long hair flowed down her shoulders. Due to the black and white of the newspaper, however, these jade green eyes appeared pale and lifeless ...


Braden winced when the window in his bedroom closed with a loud bang. He playfully embraced himself, even though he knew that nobody could laugh about it because he was alone, and headed for his bedroom to close the window properly. He wouldn’t be getting old if he carried on like this and let himself be chased into the boxing horn by everyone and everything!


It was windy outside, and the draft might have closed the window so roughly.


Braden paused in the doorway, confused. His bedroom was bathed in moonlight and it was dark, but he could clearly see that his bed was made, even though he had left it rumpled ... And he could see that there was something light on the bedspread. The ex-policeman stalked suspiciously up to his bed, as if he were afraid it might eat him up.


It was photos. Three in number to be precise. He knew he should have felt threatened by now because someone had obviously broken into his house. But he grabbed the photos anyway like there was nothing more important. It was also a comforting thought to know that he had never surrendered his service weapon ...


It took him a while to see in the dim light that the First had eyes. They were completely black ... It was hard to tell if there was still a pupil somewhere ... The white eyebrows, barely showing against the porcelain-colored skin, were furiously drawn together. The skin around the eyes was wrinkled and ashen, like that of an old person ...


The second image made Braden suddenly bile up. A mouth could be seen. There were teeth in there. They looked like those of a shark, or as if they had been sharpened to a point. They weren't white, but yellowish, almost rotten and blood oozed out in some places. In shock, Braden held his hand over his mouth, as if this could suppress the gag reflex. Damn it, he even imagined he saw bits of meat hanging here and there.The mouth was wide open and gave the impression that he was laughing manically.


The ex-policeman looked at the last picture with trembling hands. It was the most peaceful. A young woman could be seen on it. She was sitting in a single chair, in an otherwise empty room, with her gloved hands on her lap. The picture was taken directly from the front.