“Not even your partner can save you now,” the voice echoed in Alex’s mind, over the roaring rapids, while the numbness in her body cocooned her.

As the voice spoke, Alex knew that her partner would never find her; that no one would. They probably thought she was dead. She might as well be, because at the rate that everything was going in, it was inevitable. She let her eyes slowly close, and any rational thoughts she might have had about what was medically right were now a distant memory. In the end, she finally gave up on trying to stay awake; to stay alive.

“Forgive me Tom,” she whispered as she slipped into the darkness.

**********

***4 Days Earlier***

Tom Hendricks was sitting at his desk, mindlessly throwing pencils at the ceiling. After tossing the last one, and seeing that it was securely lodged with the others, he turned his attention back to his desktop. He took a sip of his coffee, which had finally cooled down enough to drink. He then glanced at his clock and realised that his partner was late, which was something Alex never did. He wondered if she had a day off, but he could not recall her asking for one, let alone telling him about it. Perhaps he had missed it. She had often accused him of not listening to her, especially when he was letting his mind wander over a new case. After a while, he reached for his phone and dialled Alex’s number. It rang for what seemed like an eternity, before it went to voicemail.

“Alex, it’s me. Where are you?” Tom said, leaving a message in Alex’s voicemail box. He then sighed, and ended the call.

After ending the call, Tom let his head rest against the back of his chair, and his feet rest on his desk. He was exhausted. He hated not being able to sleep at night, and if Alex were there, she would chastise him for napping, saying that the case was what he should be focusing on. It was true, they had a good case on their hands, but she had all the crucial files for it, and he could not do anything without them, much less her. That was also another reason why he could not figure out why she had not arrived at work yet. The files were important, and the case was steaming hot, so where was she?

After wondering in his thoughts for a while, Tom jumped a good few centimetres off his chair as the phone rang, and his feet crashed to the floor soon after. He then grabbed it with a sense of urgency. “H-Hello?” he said, still feeling a little shaken from the scare.

“Has Sonjica arrived yet?” the Captain barked into the phone, skipping the niceties and getting straight to the point. “The two of you were supposed to be in my office ten minutes ago.”

Before answering, Tom mentally slapped himself for forgetting the meeting. Where was Alex when he needed her? “No sir,” he eventually replied to his Captain. “She hasn’t come in yet.”

“Have you called her?” the Captain asked.

“I tried to, but there was no answer,” Tom replied. “I’ll come up if you want, I’m sure she’ll be in soon, but she has the case files we need.”

“Then give her another ten minutes,” the Captain said. “And if she hasn’t come in yet, come up yourself.”

“Will do, sir,” Tom responded, then he disconnected the call and re-dialled his partner’s cell number, and like the first time, he got nothing but the voice mail again.

“Alex, it’s me,” Tom said, leaving another message. “Listen, we had a meeting with Nene this morning, and we’re late. You have ten minutes until he’s really pissed, so get here.”

After leaving the message, Tom ended the call and gathered his things in order to head upstairs. But, before leaving, he left a note on Alex’s desk, telling her where he had gone.

**********

“The case involves some new information we found about illegal mining,” Tom explained to the Captain.

“And where exactly did you find this information?” the Captain asked.

“An informant, someone on the inside,” Tome replied. “But we first want to check out the site featured in the pictures I was given.”

The captain glanced over the photos. “I don’t know, Hendricks. I mean, is this even worth our time and resources?”

“Well, besides this supposedly abandoned site, there are some key people we want to talk to,” Tom responded.

“I would really like to hear what your partner has to say about all of this,” the Captain said. “Where is she?”

It had been almost half an hour since Tom left Alex the last message, and he had been trying to stall for her ever since reaching the Captain’s office. “I really don’t know sir,” he replied. “But I was going to drive by her place when we were done discussing this.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” the Captain said. “So why don’t you go there now, because I’m not letting you go to those sites until I hear her side of the case.”

Tom gave his supervisor a look that made him seem like a wounded deer. “You don’t trust me, Cap?”

The captain sighed loudly. “Just go, Hendricks.”

**********

“Alex! Open up it’s me,” Tom called through the door to Alex’s flat. “Your car’s outside, so unless you took an Uber, you must still be in there.”

While Tom was knocking on Alex’s door, a thought crossed his mind that she might be sick, and he worried that she might be too ill to get out of bed. He then frantically dug into his pockets and tried to find the spare key that she had given to him. After finding it, he unlocked the door, hoping that she was alright, and that she was already on her way to work. He then opened the door to a silent flat, but after walking in, he noticed that nothing looked different in the sitting room, and that nothing was out of the ordinary.

“Alex?” Tom screamed.

There was no answer to his call, so he looked around and saw that there were clean dishes in the drainer from her supper the night before, but there were no breakfast dishes. He then walked further into the flat, towards her bedroom. The door was ajar, so he knocked gently. “Alex?” he called out, then he pushed the door open. Inside the bedroom, Alex’s bed was left un-made, and her pyjamas were tossed on the pillow. Her brief case was on the bed, and folders and manila envelopes were cluttered all over the covers.

As Tom was looking around, he realised that something was not right. He instinctively pulled out his weapon and swept the room with it and his eyes. There was nothing. He nudged the door to the en-suite bathroom open, but it was also empty. He then made his way over to the bed and looked at the folders. They were the case file folders, but they were all empty. There were a few pieces of paper with information on them scattered here and there, but they did not hold any real importance. After looking through the papers, Tom glanced at Alex’s night stand, and spotted her cell phones there. He instantly knew that something was defiantly not right, and when he realised it, he immediately took out his phone and called for backup.

***

Tell us: Do you think Alex’s disappearance has anything to do with the case that she and Tom are working on?