Mary, Conal's mother, and Lucy, Logan's one, were walking down the street with severe looks. Ten days passed since the three boys' disappearance, but the duo's hopes never wavered.
The two women didn't believe the police, even though it was likely that people on the street saw them and later robbed, killed, or did something even worse to them.
Since they couldn't accept this outcome and that their son's killers would get away with it, they decided to take matters into their own hands. They were currently going to the private investigator Mary talked about, hoping he could shed light on their son's disappearance.
The duo was currently in an unfamiliar part of the eastern district, which the two women deemed unsafe. The place had many beggars and drug addicts at every corner. The streets were crowded, and as they walked along the busy streets, the two mothers noticed an unusual number of policemen around, so many as if this part of town were under siege by them. This made both ladies uneasy, though neither said anything about it since they were too scared to talk.
"Where the hell is this guy's office?" Lucy asked.
"It's close, don't worry..." Mary replied.
They continued to walk through the crowds until finally reaching what seemed like an alleyway between buildings.
There were no windows on either side except for small ones starting from the third level. The place appeared deserted, and the two women felt nervous. In the middle of the alley was a single metallic black door covered in graffiti paintings.
It was painted over with all manner of strange symbols, mainly those associated with occultism. Still, the two had no idea what they were.
"Are you sure this is the place?" Lucy asked.
"Yes."
"What do we do now?" Lucy muttered nervously.
"We will go in..." Mary answered. She stepped forward towards the entrance and went in with no fear.
She turned back to look at Lucy and then said. "It's okay, there are only some stairs here..."
Finally, after having gone up several stairs, the two found themselves in front of a black wooden door with a small metallic door plate reading "Martin Hais, Private Investigator."
"What kind of Investigator places his office in a place like this?" Lucy wondered aloud.
Mary shrugged her shoulders; she too was confused and had Lucy's same questions. The woman then began knocking loudly on the door, trying to get someone to open it. After a minute without any response, the two women started worrying that her trip was just wasted time.
"Didn't you say he is always here?" Lucy said.
"That's what my friend told me!"
Mary tried again. She knocked on the door one last time, but as she did so, the entrance suddenly opened, revealing a man dressed in dark clothing, wearing sunglasses inside, with short brown hair and a mustache; he was probably somewhere in his fifties.
"Can't you at least give me the time to get dressed?" The man said.
Lucy got instantly irked by the man, but she couldn't say anything fearing that he wasn't right in his head. She wanted to avoid any possibly dangerous situation.
"I'm sorry," Lucy said. "We came here because we need your assistance..." she added.
The man went back into his office and said, "Come in," to the two women. As the two entered, they first noticed the scent of vomit all around the room, especially near the desk.
The walls were also stained by something, but they could not figure out what it was. All around the room, alcohol bottles, old newspapers, ashtrays filled with cigarette butts, and other trash littered the floor.
The trash was even on the couches, in the form of uneaten pizza slices left on the furniture to mold.
"You can sit down," Martin said, but the two women had no intention of getting contaminated in that biohazard.
"We are good," Mary replied. "Look, we came here because we want to hire you..."
"What for, what happened?"
"Our sons went missing..." the two women replied. "We went to the police, but they were no help at all..."
"AH! The police! That bunch of morons wouldn't be able to find a beer in a fridge full of them..." Martin exclaimed.
"And you can?" Mary asked by referring to his investigative abilities.
"I could even tell you who put the beer on the store shelf when it was taken out from its packaging..." Martin replied.
"You seem to be very confident in your abilities," Lucy said.
"I am. I've been doing this job for almost thirty years."
"So the police..." Mary said.
"Yes, but I'm not like them," he firmly said.
"Why so?"
"Are you kidding me? Everyone with a functioning brain could tell that the police are corrupt, and I actually have proof of it."
The two women looked at themselves; this was precisely what they were thinking. In a city where every hundred meters, one or two police officers were patrolling the streets, it was impossible none of them saw anything.
Whoever kidnapped or killed their sons had deep connections with the police, or so they thought. Besides, they assumed that this was all the work of a gang but what if that wasn't true?
The two women could not understand why they rooted out the possibility that another student, or more than one, did kill their sons. It made no sense! Was it possible they knew what happened to them but that they covered the real culprit?
If so, was the school related? Was the principal hiding something? The two women didn't want to leave things as they were.
"Okay, Okay. Let's say we believe you. Would you be able to find out what happened to our sons?"
"I can't tell much if I don't have at least a general overview of what happened."
The two women then started explaining what they knew, what the police told them, and their sons' personalities. Slowly the investigator started to have a clearer picture of the situation, and after a while, he interrupted the two women.
"So, are you implying that a student did this? As much as it pains me to say this, the police could be right, they could have been kidnapped, and their organs sold off. This is not a rare occurrence here in New Alexandria," Martin said.
"It could be, but we want to be sure that it wasn't a student! If it has been done by a gang, then fine, we can't do anything about it, but if it was a student or multiple of them, then we can at least bring them to justice!"
"HAHAHAHAHAH!" Martin started laughing out loud. "There is no justice in Frant! Much less in New Alexandria!" he said, laughing out loud. He was starting to irk the two women, who could now barely bear the stench of vomit inside the room. "All right, all right, I will help you, but know this, my services are not cheap..."