Hey guys! I hope you had an amazing Thanksgiving! (〃＾▽＾〃)

Here's the new cover I made! Wattpad finally let me upload it!! :)

Thoughts??

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            “THIS IS IT. This is the place where that broadcast came from,” Johnson said as he pulled up the car.

             Dawn was the first to get out. Her eyes stared at the large white building that looked down at them. The windows were covered with dust. One of them was actually missing.

              “I can't believe it. A couple of months ago, this house was in its best condition,” She muttered more to herself than to the two investigators who shared a look.

               “I thought you said that Madison sold this house,” Perez mused, as they walked towards the door. The other police agents that Johnson had requested to come with them went on to surround the house while a few accompanied Perez, Johnson and Dawn.

                Everyone wore latex gloves for investigation. The squadron of police were the first to enter, to secure the place and ensure that it was safe. When Johnson was given the thumbs up signal, the three then entered.

                “That's what she told us,” Dawn replied, opening the door. “Bailey must have scared the owners away,”

                  Dawn turned out to be right. Once she pushed open the door, it gave way easily. It revealed a living room with black leather furniture and white pillows. There was a chimney, with firewood inside.

                As Johnson drew closer, he could see that most of the firewood had turned into ash, but there was a fiery red glow that it emitted. “They shouldn't have gone too far,”

                The television hang upstairs in the television room, with bean bag seats and large windows. Family pictures were hanging beside the television with two boys, their mother and their father. Dawn noted that this was where a window was missing from its place.

               The bean bags were lumpy, as if someone's weight had made it change its form. Perez walked into the kitchen, where the refrigerator, to her surprise was stocked with food.

               A discarded pizza box sat inside the trash can. “Must have made the owners order food for them and then gotten rid of them,”

              “Hey Dawn?” Johnson stood on the stairs. “This house doesn't seem as old as it looked from the exterior. Any ideas where the broadcast was filmed?”

               The beauteous blonde's eyebrows furrowed in thought. “Well, there is one place but I'm not sure,”

               “We might as well check it out,” Johnson shrugged his shoulders.

               “Where is it?” Perez called, as she tiptoed examining the cupboards. She slid her finger on the surface before looking at her glove to see if there was dust.

               “Well, before our father died, he had always dreamed of adding a library into this house. He was an avid reader and he cherished books with all his life. However, he died when it was midway in construction,” Dawn replied, climbing up the stairs to the second floor. “It's on the second floor. The second door to your right,”

               Following Dawn's instructions, they soon found themselves standing in a bare room. The dull, grey walls matched the ones seen in the footage. Water was seeping through the cracks, as seen on the television and the room smelt damp with water, sweat as well as what Dawn suspected to be blood.

             “This must be where it was filmed,” Dawn concluded. “This is the only unfinished room in the house. I can't believe the owners left it this way,”

             “What's this?” Perez walked slightly past Dawn, her eyes fixed on a red substance on the ground. Bending down low, she touched it, rubbing it between her fingers. “Blood,” She confirmed. “We need someone to get this. I'll be right back,”

               Johnson walked around the room. He stopped when he found a gismo at the corner of the room. After picking it up, he pressed on of the buttons.

            The voice that came from the speaker made Dawn freeze.

            “Jack, do you know what I hate most in the world?”

           “No. And I don't want to know, but I assume you are going to tell me anyway — Ow!”

          “Unless you don't want to become shredded beef, then I suggest you don't speak. It was a rhetorical question. You weren't meant to answer,”

             Silence.

            “Now you are learning. I hate your parents. Do you know why? Because they don't care enough about you to pay me a single dime! It has been weeks since I abducted you and made the ransom, but now I almost regret kidnapping you,”

             Silence.

            “Note, I said 'almost'. Even though you also have no value to me, I'm going to keep you around, for now because you were a good little actor. The last message you delivered before I cut the broadcast, why did you say it?”

            “An actor never reveals his secret — Ow! Stop digging that into my skin! I've lost enough blood as it already is. There's actually a pool of it underneath me,”

            “Fool! Actors and magicians should never be confused!”

            “I'll never tell,”

           “Fine. Don't tell. You can take it to the grave. Literally. Because I don't care about the money anymore. I'm aggravated that your parents didn't take my threat seriously, thus, I've lost interest in the ransom. However, I'm not letting them go off the hook. Each choice has a consequence, dear Jack and your parentd will soon face theirs if they or they do not return to Melrose in two days time,”

           “Let me guess. I'm the consequence,”

           “Do remember to say ‘hi’ to Isabella for me,”

           The recording finished, with Johnson and Dawn staring at the recorder, both speechless and stunned. Just then, Perez walked in with one of the officers.

           “There it is,” She pointed to the ground, before she lifted her gaze to Johnson. The brunette frowned as she saw his expression and the gismo in his hands. “What is going on?”

             She turned to Dawn for an explanation but she was surprised to see Dawn mirroring Perez's expression. “What happened?” Perez quizzed.

               The man briefly looked up to see the beauteous blonde and the male investigator as he collected the blood sample.

                Seeing the blood made Dawn snap out of her thoughts. “That blood belongs to Jack's. In Johnson's hands is a recording device and we just listened to one of the recordings where Bailey was with Jack,”

              “The recording proves that the blood is Jack's and Bailey is going to kill Jack whether or not his parents return,” Johnson added, staring at the recording device.

              “We should take that to Mr Cooper,” Perez suggested, before walking over to take a good look at it.

               Meanwhile, Dawn was pacing back and forth in the room. “What never changes, no matter how hard you try?” She chanted over and over again. Each time she repeated it, her frustration would grow by a fraction.

               “What?” Perez asked, turning to look at her.

               “The riddle Jack said. I know it was intended for me. Remember when I said that he, Jace, Parker and I made the riddles for Johnson? I'm sure he did this one for me because Bailey got rid of me,”

             “What's the riddle again? What never changes, no matter how hard you try?”

             “Yes,” Dawn nodded. She stared at the room. The policeman who was still collecting the blood sample, the gismo in Johnson's hand, the dull walls and the water.

             She turned to look at the gismo once more. “Your voice! Your voice never changes! Johnson, may I see that for one moment?” Dawn pointed at the recording machine.

          “Sure,” He handed it to her. 

          She held it carefully, brushing her fingers over the holes of the speaker, the metallic body, the five buttons — pause, play, stop forwards and replay — the microphone part of the device as well as the back.

             The back had small opening where the batteries were kept. After prying it open, all Dawn could see were the two double A batteries and nothing more. Flipping it once more, her fingers met the side of the device.

              There was a small opening and Dawn's heart began to beat twice as fast when she saw something white sticking out inside of it. Standing back, she threw the device on the ground, to Johnson and Perez's horror.

            “What the—” The man had finished collecting the sample, but his eyes were now on the beauteous blonde.

           “Dawn! What on earth are you doing?” Johnson screeched, his eyes widening.

          “You are destroying the evidence!” Perez cried, running to the device on the ground.

          Ignoring them both, Dawn picked up the device and decided to throw it against the wall. Fortunately for her, the device fell apart. She made her way to where it landed, separating the nuts and bolts.

            Under all the nuts and bolts was a note. “Here's our clue,” She said, opening it up. “Dawn, darling, if you are reading this, I knew you would be clever enough to figure out my riddle. I'm sorry about the location of the clue, though. I only had enough time to force it inside the recording device, before Bailey could catch me. She doesn't know that she left her recording device here. I didn't have enough time to think of another riddle and write it down though, so I'm just going to keep it brief,”

              Johnson, the police man, and Perez stood behind Dawn, also reading the note. Dawn continued to read. “Bailey is going to assassinate my parents and kill me in two days at the airport. They are going to keep me in the control room, in the meantime. Make sure you come prepared if you are going to rescue me. You know how skilled she and her fighters are. We are slowly dying, Dawn. Psychologically and mentally. Everyone else is happy that you were rescued out of all of us. You deserved it the most. Just in case you don't reach me in time, I'd like to let you know that I was always a better choice than that idiot, Jace, because I would have treated you better than he did,”

               Dawn folded the note very slowly after that. She cleared her throat, standing up. Her eyes remained void of emotion as she said to the three adults. “Well, we know what we have to do,”