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This is not a story about a hero. There are no more heroes here. This city... this city has swallowed up happiness like a leech in a mortuary. There are no good things left. Even the sky is crying tonight.

Emmett stands on the corner of an abandoned factory, its walls still covered in soot after years of use. He has been standing there so long his shadow must be part of the scenery now. A permanent mark of his passing. His face vaguely lights up as he takes another drag of his cigarette. The vile taste of it calms him down.

This is the place. It has to be. There is too much left to lose. He crumples the note in his hand, shoving it back in the pocket of his trenchcoat. Hidden from sight, but never from mind. The letters, roughly torn from the Sunday Papers by a maniac with no moral ground, are imprinted in his memory. The folded corner of the A. The pasty smell of the E. He knows he should feel angry, but there is no emotion left. When a man loses his daughter, only the emptiness howls.

This was the place. It had to be.

Dahl is usually the kind of person to arrive late, but in this situation, time was a luxury and every second counts. Every. second. counts. "Not an option.. He crouched again near the corpse for a more thorough inspection. (Maybe we should give them some intimacy.)

Two hours later, Emmett is sitting at his usual table. Far back in the corner. The table for lonely old men. Broken men. Like him. His cigarette is two puffs away from being smoked up. The golden liquor left in his glass indiquate he's been here for a while. Not enough to order a refill though. Let him wallow in his misery for a minute longer.

Under her tongue? Emmett took a napkin and used it to fold open the piece of paper. His eyes glanced over the writing. Did you go? He didn't spend two hours just checking a corpse, right?

A friend of mine — calling him a friend was a bit far-fetched, but Emmett had no time to get into it — in the police department owed me a favor. He looked into the girl for me. Found her in missing persons. He finally deigned to look at Dahl. She's been missing for 16 years. The ramifications were clear. If this girl had been missing for so long before showing up dead... then how long was that sicko intending to keep their children?

He frowned. No way that was a possibility, there was firm resolution in his eyes. But then it shifted to something more obscure.... "There's something else I found..." He slipped his hand into his jacket and pulled out his cellphone, and also the handkerchief which had a little bit amount of blood on it. He chose a picture and showed it to him. It was the metallic construction piece that almost killed them... bathed in blood from a side. "Fresh blood."

Isn't it from the corpse? It's true he did not remember any bloody scenes. The corpse had seemed to be dead for days. There is no way she'd have been covered with blood. Emmett was confused. The questions were painted on his face. This guy is sending us on a wild goose chase.

Dahl nodded. He looked at the handkerchief again, zoned out an instant then put it back in his pocket. "I'm keeping this for now." He leans better against the table. The kidnapper might have chosen them both for a reason. They might share the same pattern somehow... or a completely different one. If there is a pattern, that is. It's also possible that they aren't the first pair of dads that are sent into a wild goose chase. With heavy stare and slower words, he asked : "Single dad ?"

A strange question that he would not even have deigned to answer a short while ago. Emmett somehow sensed the question was loaded though. There was a reasoning behind it. He simply did not know which one. Divorced. He admitted with a grunt. So in a way. Every two weeks. Yes.

The young man takes out a small leather notebook from the inside of his jacket, opens it on a new page then detaches the pen that was already there. He notes "Single dad" in a surprisingly cursive writing. He raises his eyes again. "Ever used a gun ?" It would be more efficient to start with the real questions, the ones about his daughter, and what linked her to his own son. He didn't dare yet because it means he would have to talk about himself too...

HRP:

Emmett raised an eyebrow. Yes. He paused, looking at his interviewer with clear suspicion. Mind filling me in on why you're asking me these questions ?

HRP:

HRP:

He answers while writing down the information "Trying to figure out if we have something in common...that appealed to our freak." He paused a seconde, then asked while looking at him directly "Does your daughter have some kind a disability ?"

HRP:

Disability ? No. What could possibly have made him think that ? Does yours... ? These one-sided questions would have to stop. If Dahl wanted any more personal information out of him, he'd have to share some of his own. That  much was clear.

Emmett was silent. The guilt he had felt during the past few days came bubbling up all at once. 5 days ago. After school as well. His eyes were cast downwards. He looked at his trembling fingers and attempted to steady them. Tried not to think of how he had been late for the so-many-th time. His wife had always accused him of putting work before family, and for once, he had felt just how much.

He wrote it down slowly to ignore the obligation to say something ; he added the address of the school, time it would take him to get there, and when he received the infamous letter. He then slid the notebook to the other side of the table to let the man complete the information.

Emmett did the same. He assumed the gentleman was trying to set up a time table. Smart. The kidnapper must have a region where he prawls. He cannot simply kidnap children from left to right. Maybe they could narrow down the field where he "hunts". However... This is not enough data. It was just the two of them for now.

Dahl ignored the remark - he already had a second voice in his head that told him the exact same thing. Based on the information he has right now, the distance between the two schools is much bigger compared to the distance between where they both live. Could it be that they got kidnapped not near school but near their home ? Do you think he chose us based on our location, or based on our...likeness ? Or was he lucky enough to get both factors at the same time ?

I'd say it's definitely no coincidence that we have so much in common. But there was a bigger question to be asked here. I just wonder how one'd even go about finding us. He gestures between him and Dahl. How does he know ?

"Abductions are most likely committed by someone from your inner circle", he does take that probability in consideration. But Dahl doesn't know the guy in front of him ; so either one of them is a veil, or the criminal isn't someone they know at all. "...it could be a stalker." He hesitated, then added. "Or someone one of us know."

He'd have to be someone both of us know then, no ? How could they possibly check for this ? It's not like they could check whether they had any "friends in common" like on Facebook. Well, suppose they actually could but Emmett did not have a Facebook account (so there goes that idea : up in smoke).

Dahl agreed silently, thought not knowing himself how to check for something like that. They could go through their respective profiles and see how many things they have in common, but... He got up, tired of thinking instead of acting, and at the same time his phone rang. It was his friend, the one he sent 2 hours away, in Sen Diego. He sent him pictures of the orphanage. "Finally". He quickly opened the album, and leaned against the table so that his partner can see the pictures too. At the same time, a message notification from a weird number popped out " No friends I said. "

Emmett saw a message appear, but was unable to read its contents from where he was sitting. Even if he had, the pop-up only lasted for seconds. His gaze fell on Dahl's face, expecting him to share his information if it seemed pertinent. The pictures must have a meaning, but Emmett failed to understand what they meant.