Nathan was released about a week later and was given the picture of the scene of the accident due to him requesting it.

Alone at his house once more, he went through the pictures and something was off about them… It wasn’t the first time Nathan drove down this damn tunnel… Wait… Nathan focused on one of the specific pictures. In one of the tunnels, something was missing… the damn sign that tells the drivers about the sharp turn. Looking through the other pictures, it was clear that the person who took them knew more than the others… There was almost a careful attention put to the fact that the sign was missing… More than half of the pictures were taken from an angle so that the sign would be visible, and in all of them, the sign was not.

Nathan sighed…He was overthinking this…he wasn’t even a detective it was not his job to do these kinds of research… unless he worked with one…Nathan pulled out the piece of paper he had ripped out of the wall from the hospital and composed the number that was written on it. (248)434-5508 was the number… I’m sure if the readers call it they might have a nice surprise :P. But the phone never picked up. Ugh…Nathan pulled at the paper and realized someone had put another phone number on top of the real one…Goddamn jokers, always pulling pranks on random people that did nothing…Whatever it didn’t matter. Ashcroft only wanted one thing, to talk to Gabriel Brooks. He called the actual number, and it answered. A feminine voice? Probably just Brooks’s secretary; the woman on the other side of the phone was almost too quick to propose a rendezvous… But maybe they just had a thin waitlist

Nathan had been scheduled to meet with Detective Brooks for an in-person interview to simply see if Nathan had what it took to work with Brooks.

5 days before the interview

Nathan had gone back to college to go back to studying for his program. He was a fifth-year art student… He never took it as seriously as he should… always missing class… always failing just because he didn’t study… Just a bad student, you know. But now that his wife had been kidnapped…oh boy… he was an even worse student now. Instead of listening in class, he was always focused on his damn pictures. It was understandable…but it really wasn’t the time for that… A lot of teachers didn’t even bother bringing him back to attention. He was just a random student after all. Why would the teachers care for him? He was an old guy. If he didn’t pay attention, then that was his damn problem.

Nathan failed to notice that the class had been over for more than 20 minutes now, again. He glanced up from his images and looked so confused. Like a deer in headlights. You should had seen his face… He quickly put his stuff back into his bag and walked out the door, nodding to the teacher, who let out a small chuckle as she watched him leave in a hurry to get to his next class.

God, did he hate that next class. Philosophy. he always gave the wrong answers, or at least the answers that the teacher did not want to hear… But that wouldn’t matter; he arrived way too late to the class, and the door was already shut in his face. Who did that surprise? He always was late to stuff.

When he noticed that the teacher wouldn’t even open the door for him, he let out a soft sigh, closing his only left working eye before walking up to the small diner area that was made for the student to enjoy a meal during their break. He sat down and pulled out his salad out of his bag before going back to looking at his damn pictures. He was so obsessed with them it was almost funny to the passerby, simply because they did not understand the meaning behind them.

Nathan wasn’t a popular guy; no one really paid attention to him. The only one who did before was now missing.

Nathan never saw the time go by; it felt like he had spent only twenty minutes looking at the pictures but when he took a moment to look away from them, it was already dark outside… Just how long did he spend looking at those damn pictures?

He let out a small sigh, packing his stuff up once more before leaving the college to go take a bus to go back home since his car had been totaled and he did not have enough money to get another. While on the bus, he listened to podcasts about serial killers and kidnapping. He was deeply obsessed with his situation, which, like said before, is more than normal for someone in his situation. He was trying to find the truth before even meeting with the detective. In a way, he wanted to prove to himself he did not need a detective, that he could do it alone.

He arrived home about 20 minutes later, and even though he was deadly tired, he still decided it was better for him to keep himself focused on those damn pictures. Was he trying to go crazy? Jeez… He worked himself until he passed out.

The next four days were almost all the same… But something different happened on the day that Nathan was going to meet Brooks. Instead of going to school, he decided to go back to the bar and ask around to the regular customers if they had seen anything weird happen while he was here with his wife, and to his surprise, one man had seen something. But before the man could even finish speaking about what he had seen, his mouth started to foam up, which made Nathan stumble back in confusion and surprise. Was this man having a seizure? No, Nathan, he had been poisoned. How stupid were you?

Nathan once more failed to notice time go by, but not from his obsession this time, but from the shock of seeing someone choke themselves to death right in front of him while they had crucial information that could have helped him find his wife.

A large hand pressed against his shoulder, seemingly trying to bring him back to reality. Nathan snapped back and glanced over at who it could possibly be… Oh right… He was in Gabriel Brooks’s office…to explain why he had came to meet him… Did the shock of the event stun him even while recalling it…

Brooks did not seem to pity Nathan with the way he looked at him…no, it was fascination…not a dark and twisted one… A fascination for skills that even Nathan did not realize he had. His obsession and attention to details was definitely something that Brooks needed for his investigations. After finishing the useless paperwork that was really annoying to watch happen, Brooks offered to drive Nathan back home.

The drive was pretty silent, too silent. Nathan felt off about Brooks. He was being too nice… Who the hell just employs someone as a private detective’s right hand without any kind of background in that domain… but whatever… Brooks knew what he needed more than Ashcroft.

As Ashcroft left the car to go enter his home, Brooks asked him one last question about the case.

He said the word “cop” before dying, didn’t he?

That sentence made Nathan freeze in his steps as he glanced back at Brooks, who was clearly analyzing his eyes and let out a small reflective hum before driving off, not even waiting for an answer. Because he had already gotten it from Nathan’s eyes.