[Finish the Tale contest] D-Day

Here is the next part of my story. I don’t want to keep it long, so I hope I will write the last part tomorrow.

Here is a moment the previous part was finished at.

I looked at the clock. It was already 5 in the morning. I had been sitting at the computer for almost a whole day.

All night I had nightmares, and as a result, I woke up at 8 a.m., exhausted and drained. I took a shower, washed my face, made myself breakfast, and brewed a strong cup of coffee. Today, I was determined to examine the last folder on the memory card. All the documents were labeled with dates and a single letter. When I put all the letters together, they formed the word “Centaur.”

Each letter stood for the first letter of a city where children had gone missing. This had been happening over the course of five years. Dozens of children aged 5 to 13 had disappeared. And what was surprising - it wasn’t just in one country, but in different ones.

Cyprus, Edinburgh, Naples, Tashkent, Athens, Uppsala, Rome.

My husband and I had visited all these cities multiple times.

The last folder was labeled with the letter R. And the date was one day before my husband disappeared. Rome. The city where we’ve been living for the past 3 years. And in these past 3 years, there hadn’t been a single case of a missing child - at least, not one mentioned in the news.

That meant my husband had gotten close to uncovering the kidnappers? Could he be in danger now? All sorts of thoughts started racing through my mind. I tried sending a message to the email address the letters had come from - but suddenly, the messages stopped going through. The address no longer existed.

I waited. I hoped my husband would contact me himself. But one day passed, then another. Still no word from him.
I studied all the kindergartens, nurseries, and schools in our city. I tried to gather information about every child between the ages of 5 and 13. I even met some of the parents and casually hinted that they should keep a closer eye on their kids.

One day, I decided to examine the Centaur folder again. I went into my husband’s room, turned on his computer — but the folder was gone. The memory card was empty.

And then, a message came to my phone from that same email address:

“Tomorrow. It’s been 7 days. The Hungry Tiger.”

To be continued…

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