Page 3 of Pitbull
There had to be more to life than this.
There was no judgment on Anke’s part since her building wasn’t any better. Life hadn’t been easy for either of them. Life was made up of one depressing story after another and Anke knew them well.
It wasn’t hard to gain access to the building—all she had to do was lean her shoulder into the entrance door hard enough and it slipped open. There were cameras but she knew for a fact they were only there for show. She was pretty sure anyone who visited knew the cameras didn’t work. After a while, Anke began wondering who believed that tired story. They couldn’t afford to fix the unground garage door how could they afford state of the art cameras.
The building was nice once—once.
Taking the stairs up to the second floor, because of course, the elevators were out, she headed left and stopped by Claudia’s door. A newspaper was sitting just to the left of the door so Anke picked it up. Before knocking, she pressed her ear to it and listened. She couldn’t hear anything from the other side so she knocked. “Claudia?”
No reply.
“Claudia, it’s Anke. Claudia, are you there?”
When she received no answer, Anke rummaged through her purse for Claudia’s spare key and let herself in. The moment she stepped in she knew something was wrong. Though she had a mind to run and call the police, she figured whoever had broken in had to be long gone. Her shift had been nine hours and she’d worked the day before. Anke worked through the math and frowned—it all added up to Claudia being missing for at least sixteen hours. That was definitely not something Claudia would have done—ever.
Further encouraged to investigate, Anke closed and locked the door behind her and continued further into the apartment. Though she knew nothing of law enforcement, she avoided touching anything.
The window in the living room was standing open. The blue curtain danced in the early evening breeze. Claudia would never leave it open—Anke couldn’t even remember a time she’d visited and it’d been open.
Secondly, it was as if a tornado had blown through. The sofa cushions were yanked from the seating, the DVDs and CDs were all on the floor. Someone had toppled the big screen television and Claudia’s laptop was crushed and sitting against a wall.
The bedroom was no better. The sheets were all ripped and sitting in a messy pile on the bed and a picture of Claudia was smashed but still on the bedside table. The kitchen hadn’t escaped the person’s wrath—every cup, plate, bowl, glass pot cover had been smashed to pieces on the floor. Coffee was dumped all over the table and cupboard doors hung off their hinges.
As she surveyed the damage, Anke’s pulse quickened.
What in the hell happened here?
She was further confused when she opened Claudia’s closet and found not clothes but a memorial—pictures taken without the person knowing, newspaper clippings, internet searches, more newspaper articles printed off websites. She leaned in to read a couple of them.
Daniel Hunt has been chosen to be a part of Germany’s CIRO, A GSG 9 elite team.
GSG 9 CIRO saves the day with Daniel Hunt leading the charge.
“Claudia has a brother?” Anke asked in a loud whisper. “A cop brother? Who are you, Claudia Hunt? And what are you into?”
But as she continued looking around, no answers came. As time passed by, she kept being drawn back to the newspaper articles and photos taped to the closet wall. Some of them were old going as far back as a ten years and as recent as six months before. There was something about GSG 9 and a neo nazi but Anke didn’t read the whole article. It didn’t help with what she was trying to do. Why waste the time?
There was the outside cover of a newspaper sitting on the floor at the foot of the bed. She picked it up and her heart almost stopped. The article was about a car explosion that happened in Metro Valley, beneath the overpass. Though there hadn’t been a picture, from the description, the car was eerily familiar.
With her heart slamming inside her chest, Anke gave in and used Claudia’s phone to call the police.
Anke spent the next hour on the phone to different police departments. One told her it wasn’t their jurisdiction, another explained Claudia was an adult and could go away if she wanted to without telling anyone. That answer was given to her after she told them she had no clue how long Claudia had been missing.
“But you are not sure if it was indeed her car,” the police officer from a third station asked in a bored tone.
“No. I’d have to see the real thing!” Anke was exasperated. “There weren’t exactly any pictures. Can I see the vehicle?”
“That’s not possible.”
“Fine.” She tossed her free hand up. “If I can’t look at it, can you at least go look at it and tell me if it’s her car? I don’t think—”
The officer hung up on her.
Anke growled. “That fucker!”
She’d called two other precincts and it was the same as the three before—a whole lot of nothing. “Did I mention her place was tossed?”
“You said the door was locked?”
