She ran to the voice to find a skinny young man looking helpless, and she knew her hunch was right, a beaming smirk flew across her face for a second.
“Are you ok sir?” Janet said as she scrambled through her pocket, finding a bagel she was going to finish later, but thought he needed it more.
“I-I’m fine,” The man said, taking small nibbles of the bagel every so often.
“My n-name is C-Charles,” He said before Janet started to calmly interrogate him.
“How did you get here?” Janet asked.
“I-I was walking home from my job at the museum when suddenly a-a wrinkled hand grabbed and pulled me into a dark alleyway. A man was yelling at me with a voice full of rage and t-threatened to k-kill me…if I said anything about w-what he did,” Charles said and took a nibble of the bagel.
“I knew he was the one who snatched the painting from the museum and I had plans to report it to the h-head of my department as soon as I got home but the m-man had other plans. I was shivering due to the cold and his b-belligerent tone,” Charles continued, eating more of the bagel.
“The next morning as I stepped outside my apartment a hand cupped my mouth and my vision went b-black. Once I woke up, I was t-trapped in a dark, cramped space and was being jerked around when suddenly everything stopped. L-light flashed my face as I was v-violently picked up and t-thrown onto the beach,” Charles said, having enough courage to bite the bagel now.
“The boat sped away and now here I am. I don’t know how long I’ve been stuck here b-but I was praying that someone would find me and w-wouldn’t d-die here,” Charles said, before putting the last bite of bagel in his mouth.
“Thank you,” Charles mumbled with his mouth full.
“You’re welcome,” Janet said as she stood up, helping Charles to bony feet.
The pair walked to Janet’s boat she rented, and rode back to the mainland, as Charles refueled with an extra water bottle Janet had.
***
Once back at the station, Janet explained her findings from witness Charles and the case was back on the road. Her coworker, Carrey congratulated her before working on finding the thief of the exquisite painting of “Starry Night”.
After weeks of working with the new information, the culprit was found. The name Gregory II would be on everyone’s mind and hit list for the next century, and unless he was killed or locked up, no one was gonna let this sleep.
