Chapter 1

Nadine Long heaved a sigh of relief as school let out. She loved being an English teacher at the local high school but sometimes, her students could be tiring.

She was even more elated by the prospect of going to spend the weekend with Dave; her boyfriend. She called him.

"Hi, babe." She said when he picked up.

"Hi, Nadine." He replied cheerfully.

"I just wanted to remind you that I'm coming over with some lingerie I bought some days ago. We could play again." Nadine said seductively.

Dave groaned and she laughed. Dave was so enamored by werewolves that he read books and watched movies about them. His fetish involved dressing in a werewolf mask and pretending to be one who had dragged Nadine off to his cave to pillage her. Personally, Nadine thought it was hogwash. Everyone knew that werewolves didn't exist. But she never said anything because Dave was better in bed whenever he got into his werewolf persona.

"So, what are you doing now?" Nadine asked Dave.

"Just applying some hair lotion on my skin." He replied and Nadine rolled her eyes. Dave wanted to get as hairy as a werewolf so he applied hair growth lotions on his body but with little success.

"Okay, I'm coming. I love you." Nadine said as she entered a bus.

"I'll count the hours, my love." Dave replied and cut the call.

After what seemed like an hour and a half, Nadine finally got to Dave's apartment. Although she had a key, she found the door unlocked. She frowned. That was strange because Dave never left his door unlocked. She pushed it in and entered.

The apartment was empty. "Hello, Dave are you here?" She asked but got no reply.

She went into his bedroom and met it in disarray. His hair lotion was all over the place, some furniture were torn to pieces and there were claw marks on the walls.

It looked like there had been a fight there.

It then hit her that whoever did this could be waiting around for an encore. Immediately, she hurried out and never looked back.

When she thought she was somewhere safe, Nadine took out her phone and dialed 911 with difficulty because her fingers where shaking.

When the operator picked up, Nadine said tearfully, "Please come over, I think my boyfriend has been kidnapped."

Nadine was so engrossed in giving Dave's address to the operator that she did not notice two people somewhere behind her, cloaked in the shadows.

"What should we do to her?" One asked coldly.

"Nothing." The other one replied, "I don't think she'll cause any trouble for us."

After saying this, they left inconspicuously.

*  *  *

Three months later,

Nadine arrived at the reception of the police station. The desk sergeant rolled her eyes. Nadine didn't blame her. She had been coming to the station everyday since Dave had disappeared to ask the detective in charge of his case if he had any leads. Everyone in the station knew and disliked her for bothering them.

"I'm here to see Detective Nick Law." Nadia said.

"He's not in yet." The desk sergeant said dismissively.

"I'll wait." Nadine said. It wasn't as if she had anywhere to go. She had been so obsessed with finding Dave that she'd called in sick numerous times to hand out missing person posters or to follow up on sightings of men that even remotely looked like him. The principal of the school was sympathetic but that didn't stop him from firing her. The students needed a reliable figure to emulate, he'd said.

Even her family despaired of her. Her mother had told her that she was wasting her life. Dave was gone and Nadine ought to date other men.

Nadine's friends even came up with nasty scenarios like suggesting that Dave had actually run away because he was too cowardly to break it off with her.

Truth to be told, Nadine felt like the only reason she was still fervently looking for Dave was so that she could prove her friends and her family wrong.

* * *

Detective Nick Law rubbed his forehead when the desk sergeant told him Nadine was coming up. His fellow detectives laughed. They knew how annoyed Nick got whenever Nadine was around.

Ordinarily, Nick wouldn't mind a beautiful woman like Nadine visiting him daily. Nadine had lustrous black hair, eyes that were as brown as coffee, elfin facial features, and a body that was lean and toned, just how Nick loved his women. But Nadine did nothing but harangue and berate him whenever she came to see him. Sometimes, she even tried to foist her opinions on him as if it was Nick's fault that her boyfriend was missing.

Sometimes, Nick was tempted to transfer this case to someone else but he couldn't. This case was important to him.

Nadine felt the stares when she got to Nick's workspace. She guessed his coworkers made fun of him because of her daily visits but she didn't care. She needed to find Dave.

Nadine didn't like Nick although he was really good looking. Nick had arresting brown eyes, a full head of wavy hair and a thick but well-groomed beard. He was burly and hairy. But not so hairy that he looked disgusting. Nadine didn't like Nick because she didn't think he was dedicated to finding Dave. Something about the detective made her uneasy but she couldn't place her finger on it.

"Ms. Long, I'm glad to see you." Nick said sarcastically.

"I'm afraid I can't say the same." Nadine replied as she plopped down on an empty chair. "So, any new leads?" 

"You and I know that I haven't found anything. If I do, I'll give you a call." Nick said, dismissing her.

"You might find something if you were good at your job." Nadine taunted.

"You think my job is easy? Then by all means, do it! Sometimes, I think your boyfriend left you on purpose." Nick taunted.

"Think what you like, Detective. Just find my boyfriend!" Nadine shouted.

"And you think hounding me and breathing down my neck will help? For the past three months, you've been here everyday except on weekends and holidays. You're not helping. You're only hindering me." Nick accused.

"I can't believe you're blaming me for your incompetence! You know what? I'm done coming here. You're a poor detective! In fact, I'm leaving here to go hire a private detective!" Nadine said as she stood up to leave.

"Goodluck and goodbye!" Nick replied, unbothered as she left. When she was out of earshot, his colleagues began whistling and clapping.

"What an Oscar-worthy performance." One said.

"More interesting than TV." Another laughed.

Nick ignored them and looked down. He smacked his forehead with his palm. For some reason, whenever he argued with Nadine, he got a hard-on. He put his hands in his pants and adjusted himself. This was another reason he hated her coming to see him.

Nadine angrily descended to the reception. She was thinking about how Nick had embarrassed her in front of his colleagues. Nadine told herself the truth, she didn't have enough money to hire a private investigator. Not a good one anyway. She was hardly getting by as things were. Being unemployed sucked.

The desk sergeant called her over.

"So, did he have any leads?" She asked.

"No." Nadine replied fiercely.

"That's strange." The desk sergeant replied, "Detective Law is usually very good."

"I find that hard to believe." At the moment, Nadine couldn't let any opportunity to disparage the son of a bitch pass her by.

"Look, when I was little, my cousin was playing in the woods and got lost. The police couldn't help, so our family went to see a seer." The desk sergeant confided.

"A seer?" Nadine asked skeptically.

"Yes. This woman practices Obea. Dark magic. She can see things which no ordinary human can see." The desk sergeant explained.

Nadine snorted within her. She didn't believe in seers and card readers, psychics and mediums. They were just charlatans wishing to make people part with their money.

"Your cousin was found?" Nadine asked.

"Yes. Thanks to Madame Yvonne. She led us to where he was. He'd fallen into a ditch. If she hadn't helped us, he'd have died." The desk sergeant said reverently. She wrote something down and handed it to Nadine.

"This is her address. Visit her." She instructed.

Nadine took the paper strictly out of courtesy. She was going to throw it into the nearest waste bin she saw.

Nadine got into her car and her phone rang. It was her mother calling.

"Hey, Mom!" She said.

"Nadine. Where are you?"

"I'm just coming out of the police station." She replied. There was silence on the other end before her mother said, "You're still going there?"

"Yes, Mom." Nadine replied. She could hear the disapproval in her mother's voice.

"I called you to inform you that I want you to join your father and I for dinner. Jeanine, my friend and her son are coming over. You'll like him, he's such a good man." Nadine's mother said.

Nadine rolled her eyes at her mother's matchmaking efforts. "I'm sorry, I can't come."

Nadine's response tipped her mother into a rage. "Nadine, that boy is gone! Get over him! Look at yourself; no job, no life. That's just pathetic!"

Nadine fumed, "Goodbye Mom!" She said and cut the call.

No life eh? She'd show her. Nadine picked up the paper and looked at the address. She decided to visit this seer. After all, what did she have to lose?