Page 50 of Securing His Obsession

Damon carefully opened the back door, stepped out and looked around the area. Again, all clear. He kept close to the wall, and as he turned the corner, the first thing he saw was the washing basket on the ground, along with a lone earbud.

He glanced up at the camera and saw that it had been ripped off, and it was probably something Margot didn’t even notice.

“Where is she?” he murmured, looking around. Again, there was nothing to suggest she’d been dragged away against her will. “There’s no way she could get out of the yard without one of her cameras catching her.”

He was talking out loud, knowing Steve was listening and cataloguing it all away. He would be assessing everything they’d found out in the last ten minutes.

“Right, so the unit is clear, no disturbances to suggest a struggle. The front is the same. All we’ve got to go on is the broken camera and the washing basket. Reed, Andy, do you have anything?”

“Negative, no one appears to be home,” Andy came back.

“I’ve checked, and the camera has been down a week,” Wilt interjected. “Looks like it happened in the middle of the night. Person came from around the side of the house. Wearing all black with a ski mask. Identification is impossible.”

“Fuck, what the hell is going on here?” Damon all but shouted. Fear that something awful was about to happen to Margot if he didn’t get to her soon, consumed him. “She can’t have just disappeared into thin air.”

“I’m checking the other cameras on the night the back one was taken out. One of them should’ve caught the asshole coming through the garage.” Wilt tapped on his keyboard, the sound muffled in their ears.

“Andy, Reed, can you get around to the back of the neighbor’s unit?” Steve asked.

“Not without drawing attention, as it looks similar to Margot’s place in that we’d have to go through the garage to get to it,” Reed responded. “We’re coming back to you.”

“Cameras are clear. No one coming in or going out on that night,” Wilt said.

“But you said he came from around the side of the house?” Damon stated trying to piece everything together. He was missing something, he felt it in his bones.

“Affirmative.”

Damon needed to break it down so that he could get a clear picture. The facts were there, and so was the answer. He’d thought he’d locked down his emotions and was able to look at it objectively. He hadn’t done as good a job as he thought.

“Okay, so here’s what we know,” Damon started, once Andy and Reed had joined them in the backyard. “The tracker was placed by Ivan, Margot’s neighbor. He was acting a little off when we came and got Margot’s stuff. I didn’t think much of it, and Margot didn’t say anything to me about him. There was a girl with him, but I don’t have her name, so we can’t find her to ask her if she knows anything. The camera was taken out a week ago, and the guy appeared out of nowhere. We have to assume that it’s Ivan, it’s the only logical explanation, which means...”

“He’s got access to Margot’s place that she doesn’t know about,” Andy finished for him.

Damon looked over at his friend. “Yes. We need to check the fence from the locked carport to the back border. There has to be something there.”

The four men spread out along the side fence, touching each panel to look for anything that looked out of place.

“I’ve got something here,” Reed called out after about five minutes. “There’s something odd about this panel.”

Damon was by his side in a second, looking at it, trying to see what Reed was seeing. It appeared to fit seamlessly into the next panel, but there was a faint line running from top to bottom. A line that no one would notice unless they were examining it as closely as they all were.

Damon pushed the panel, and it shifted a fraction. “This is definitely not right.”

The fence wasn’t much taller than him, so it was something he could easily get over. Reaching up, he gripped the top casing and hoisted himself up until he was straddling it and staring into Ivan’s backyard. It was full of weeds, and what grass had been there, was long dead.

“See anything?” Steve called out, after he landed with a soft thud on the other side.

“Not yet.” There was nothing visible on the panel, but everything in him was screaming that the answer was right in front of him.

He felt along the base of the panel, beneath the casing, noting that it was clear of cobwebs, which surprised him, as every other panel had indications of spiders making their homes in the dark.

He came across a little bump that shouldn’t be there. He ran his finger over it again, pressing as he did so, and he heard a little click, as the panel came ajar. “What the fuck?” He gave it another push, and it opened like a gate.

“Now we know how he got through,” Andy whistled. “This is impressive.”

Any other time, Damon would agree with him, because it was very clever how Ivan had created a gate, but had hidden the mechanics of it behind the bottom and side casings of the fence, where no one would see them. He looked at the dark unit behind him, seeing no sign of anyone there. He walked over and cupped his eyes as he looked through the grimy window. There were dishes scattered across a coffee table, along with papers. The place was a mess.

“Where the fuck did he take Margot?”