(Continued from
Virginia)
Katrina’s parents and butler arrived in New York City after a very quiet car ride. Hans pulled the limo up in front of the mansion in the same circular driveway he had parked in the day before.
Claire gasped as she got out of the car. The school couldn’t have looked more different. The entire yard was torn up, almost every window was broken, and there was debris scattered across the lawn. There was a hastily tacked up tape that said ‘Do Not Cross’, but there were no police in sight. Claire grasped Jean’s hand as they made their way over the lawn and through the broken front door.
“Let’s check her room first, it’s upstairs,” Claire said. Jean paused for a moment to examine one of the walls. “It’s blood. It’s like there was a war here,” Jean muttered. “Those…. mutants… such violence… my little Katrina…”
“Come along, Sir,” Hans said as he steered his employer up the stairs, still muttering in shock.
Claire strode up the stairs, a woman on a mission to find her daughter. She wasn’t going to stop and gawk. “It’s this one,” she said, mostly to herself.
Inside the bedroom, nothing had changed from the previous night. This room at least looked like it had seen no signs of fighting. Katrina wasn’t here, but due to the state of the rest of the grounds, Claire wasn’t surprised. She looked around the room, searching for clues – anything that might tell her something about where her daughter might have gone.
Jean sat down on the bed, still muttering to himself. Hans stood in the doorway. Claire addressed Hans, it was clear her husband was quite useless for the moment. “Her suitcase and her clothes are still here. She unpacked, apparently, but her oboe is gone. That means she left in a hurry, but of her own free will. Did they have time to evacuate the children or did she hide on he own and escape afterwards?” Claire thought silently for a moment, then pulled the suitcase out of the closet and set it on the bed next to Jean. “We’ll take her clothes home, I don’t think she’ll be able to come back here for them.”
“I will stay here with Mr. Dumonde and pack the clothes Ma’am,” Hans intoned, “if you would like to look around the rest of the mansion.
“Thank you, Hans.” Claire would have smiled at him under normal circumstances, but she couldn’t smile when her daughter was missing.
Checking the rest of the mansion didn’t take long. It was pretty obvious that the school was deserted. Claire did pause at the desk where she had left Katrina’s paperwork the night before. She took the page that had Katrina’s name and personal information and folded it up and put it in her purse. She took a new cover sheet from the stack of blank forms and quickly filled it out again, this time substituting “Rachel McDonald” for “Katrina Dumonde”. She also changed the number of street address from “1104” to “1108”.
Claire replaced the papers and went back up the stairs. The next logical step was to contact the police. It was their job to find missing persons and they had been on the scene at the time. Maybe they had seen something. Even if it was there fault Katrina was missing. It would have to be handled delicately, which meant she’d have to figure out what to do with Jean while she visited with the lovely mutant hating men in blue.
Hans was ready with the suitcase. Jean was looking more like himself. He stood and hugged Claire. “I’m sorry,” he told her. She didn’t ask him to elaborate.
“She obviously isn’t here, so I think the next step is to hire a detective to find out what happened and maybe the police will know something. I could try talking to them to see if they know what happened here.”
Jean nodded. “I know of a private detective that works up here.” Claire, of course, knew this. “I’ll see if he can do anything. I know he’s helped out Senator Douglas a fair few times.” Claire could tell Jean was perking up at the thought of being useful. Jean continued, “How about we drop you off at the police station, and Hans and I will go visit with ‘Private Eye McFly’.” Claire nodded in accordance.
(Continued in
The police station)
