Chapter Thirty-Eight

In no time at all, we arrive at the apartment that Brooke shares with her mother. She had tried to move out on her own a few years ago, but her father passed away and she didn't want her mother to be alone, so she moved back in. I get out of the car scanning my surroundings, I've become accustomed to doing that since Markus has turned up on scene. Jacob sends me a smile as we both make our way towards the old metal steps. 'You know, you and I could be partners once all of this is done" Jacob tells me as we reach the front door, I look up at him sending him a weird look with a smile, I mean we have done some mini mission together. 'But now that I'm thinking about it, it couldn't happen as you already have two other men fighting over you" he says placing his hands in his pockets, this didn't make any sense to me which makes me send him another confused look. 'I know Roman and Austin are currently fighting over your hand, at least you're keeping your options open" he says in a weird accent, I just shake my head at him turning my attention back to the task at hand, but I knew he was 100% correct in what he was saying. 'We should probably knock first, just in case someone is in and we scare them to death" Jacob says finally also concentrating on the task at hand, I nod my head brining my hand up to knock twice before stepping back to wait. When we get no answer, I move away from the door and head over to see if I can see anyone or anything in the window. To my surprise, the curtain was open, and I could see straight in their window but found no one. I say to my surprise, as Brooke's mother always closes the curtains whenever she leaves the house, even when she will only be away for 5 minutes. 'I can't see anyone 'I inform Jacob who as I turn back around to see where he was, I found him knelling down by the front door looking in the letter box, oh that's not going to scare the life out of someone if they are in the house! 'We should just go in, we don't want to be outside too long just in case Markus springs out from somewhere" he tells me standing up straight, I smile nodding my head whilst walking over to the potted plants. 'Why didn't we think of looking in there, everyone hides their spare keys under the plant pot" Jacob says with a smile, I knew the next thing I was about to do would shock him to his core. I pick up the top of the plant and pull it from the pot, to reveal the very real looking fake plant. I move the pot over to a very shocked looking Jacob, who reaches over and takes the key out pot the bottom of the plant pot. 'Well, I wasn't expecting that" he says looking down at the key which does make me laugh, whilst he walks back to the door to unlock it, I place the plant back on the window seal where it was before. I was soon following Jacob into the house, where something sticks out to me straight away. 'This is weird right off the bat, Brooke and her mum are OCD about keeping their surroundings clean" I tell him as I step into the trashed house, there were more things laying on the floor than there were put away, this scared me as I look around. Jacob walks into the living room while I head to the kitchen, where things were tipped over like someone had just gone through the house and decided they wanted to play tip all the furniture up! There were pots, pans and plates just littered around the floor. I move over to the fridge where a post it note sat, it was from Brooke's mum telling her she has gone to visit her boyfriend and wouldn't be back for a week. Well at least I know Markus didn't get her mother, but we still had to work out where Brooke was. Perhaps she wanted a break and went to stay with her mother, but I knew that was probably not the case as Brooke would have informed work. I start to scan the room and I see something that makes my heart sin, Brook's phone and purse were laying on the floor. 'Jacob! I call into him where in a few seconds, he was behind me looking at what I was looking at. I point over to her purse and phone on the floor where I knew he was thinking what I was. 'From the looks of the house, it seems like there was a struggle, but Brooke must have let the person in" Jacob explains which did make the mess of the house make sense, but how did he know about the last thing? 'How did you know Brooke let them in?" I ask turning around to look at him, I guess this is why he is the police officer one of us and I'm just me! 'When we first came into the home, I checked the door to see if the lock was messed with in some way or it was kicked in, but there were no signs of any of that" he explains whilst going into his pocket and pulling a pair of gloves out, I knew this meant he was going to start looking for anymore clues. I begin to scan my surroundings once again as he knells down and picks something up from the floor. 'This defiantly has something to do with Markus" he says which makes me look away from the wall and down to him, but I didn't understand how he knew that information. 'How do you know that for sure?" I ask moving away from what I was looking at, he holds some sort of card in the air, it was a black card with yellow writing. 'Markus likes to leave these little cards in places he has done some illegal activities in, he does this as he knows my team is trying to find him so he enjoys leaving us a sort of breadcrumb trail" he explains whilst looking back down at the card, I guess we can rule out anything which doesn't involve Markus. 'Could he have targeted her because of what she said at the restaurant?" I ask as he places the card back down on the floor to take a photo, he sighs looking up at me whilst placing his phone back into his pocket. 'Almost definitely, he'd see her doing that as her trying to turn you against Markus" he explains standing back up to look for anymore clues, I hope he don't find anything that would tell us Brooke was hurt somehow. 'Now Markus has met you, he sees you as something he needs to keep in his possession, which is why he told you he'd deal with anyone that tries to hurt you" he says which did make freight flow through my body, why does Markus want to keep me?! 'Do you think Brooke will be okay?" I ask this being the question that I needed to know the answer for, I don't know what I would do if Brooke somehow got hurt because of this. 'We don't know at this point" he says which I could tell he was holding things back in his answer, but most of me didn't mind that he wasn't telling me what he actually thought has happened to Brooke. 'How far has Austin actually got us in?" I ask which does make Jacob stop what he was doing for a second, he slowly turns his head to look at me with an unreadable expression. 'It's lucky you're working with us" is all he tells me before getting back to work, which tells me alone how bad this situation may get.