It was only a matter of time for them to find Joseph because both Tyler and Kaiya knew that finding him was their only chance to finding Desi. They tried to get as much information on Andrea as possible, but there wasn’t anything about her that signified anything important. Actually, there was nothing on the internet about Andrea at all. It was like she was a complete mystery.

“We have to go to the police about this,” Kaiya said. “Maybe they’ll know something about this Joseph guy.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Tyler said. “I’m just concerned that they’ll get to him before we do.”

“But there is one thing we could do.”

“What is that?”

“We can try social media and try to see if she is on there. It’s a longshot, but it’s a possibility.”

“Can’t hurt to look, but I’m not sure that we’ll find anything on her.”

Kaiya pulled her laptop and scowled the internet to see if she could find anything on Andrea and maybe find out something about her boyfriend. She eventually stumbled upon what looked to be an old social media account that Andrea had a long time ago, and it showed that she had posted a picture of her and some random guy. The caption read, “Having a great time with a special guy!”. Surely, that had to mean something. The only thing was that it didn’t say what the guy’s name was, but the picture did show what the guy looked like.

“Does that look familiar to you at all?” Kaiya asked pointing at the guy in the picture.

Tyler examined the picture thoroughly to see if the guy in the picture looked like Joseph. He again backtracked through his memories of what little he remembered on Joseph and remembered catching a good glimpse of him.

“That’s not him, that’s someone else,” Tyler said disappointedly. “Based on her personality, it looked like she ran through boyfriends left and right.”

“Well, that is on lead gone up in flames. Now, what the fuck do we do?” Kaiya said frustratedly.

“We might have to go to the police. Maybe they’ll know something.”

They both grabbed what they had on Andrea and went to the police in the hopes that something good could come out of the situation. As they were driving, Tyler couldn’t help but remember that time that he was driving with Andrea and that they got into an accident. He remembered what happened, but also had some memory loss because he hit his head pretty hard in the accident. There wasn’t any specific reason why he was remembering the accident until he remembered seeing someone coming to help them after the accident. He recalled it to be Joseph, and it was safe to assume according to Tyler that they were in fact heading to Joseph’s house that night because Andrea wanted to show Tyler something, but he couldn’t remember what it was or why she wanted to personally take him out of everyone else.

After the accident was safe to assume that she called Joseph to pick them up, however, the ambulance had already been called and that they were on their way to get them. The ambulance rescued them from the accident and took them to the hospital and they were taken care of. After they spent some time in the hospital recovering from the accident, Joseph came and picked them up because Andrea’s car had been totaled from the accident. Tyler vaguely remembered the route or directions that they took to get to Joseph’s house because he was still partly shaken up for the accident, his head wasn’t entirely cleared from it. However, when he got there, he remembered seeing Desi, his mother, and Elise in the house. So, he assumed that they were picked up by Joseph and were taken to his house while Andrea and Tyler were in the hospital for those few days. Tyler couldn’t really remember what the house looked like because it was all a big blur and also, he wasn’t too concerned about what the house looked like because all he wanted to do was sleep off his pain.

Eventually, he got to look at Joseph while he was in his house for that time being. Since he had nothing to do besides heal from the injuries and go to school, he had plenty of time to gloss over what Joseph looked like. So, at that point it wasn’t starting to come back to Tyler, he had remembered what Joseph looked like, and he vaguely remembered what his house looked like. But that was it, that was all that he could remember.

Kaiya and Tyler arrived at the police station and went up to the front desk to speak to one of the officers. They said that they had important information about an abused child and that they needed the police and the child protective services’ help. At first, the officer was a little hesitant because he thought about why two young adults were coming into the precinct talking about an abused child out of nowhere since no one actually called the station to report one. But after a while, he relented and was escorted into one of the waiting areas and got on the phone to child protective services. However, Tyler was insistent on finding out who Joseph’s real identity was and where they could find him.

He walked up to the officer’s desk and knocked on the window to get his attention.

“Can I help you?” The officer asked

“Yes, hello. My name is Tyler Wilson, I was one of the people that mentioned to you about the abused child.”

“Yes, how can I help you?”

“I was wanting to know if you could help me identify a man who I think may be involved in the situation.”

“And who might this man be if I may ask?”

“Well, I don’t have a full name, but I do have a first name if that will help or mean something.”

“It won’t be much because I don’t have the last name, but I can read off the list of last names if that will help you.”

“That could work, however, as I said, I don’t know or remember his last name. But I do know what he looks like.”

The officer swung his chair around to face Tyler.

“You know what he looks like?” The officer asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, give me a first name and a description of what he looks like, and I’ll pull a list of people that fit that description and I’ll show them to you, and you tell me if you that person, will that work with you?”

“Yes, that will work perfectly. Thank you.”

Tyler gave the officer Joseph’s first name and a brief description of what Joseph looked like. The officer wrote down the information that Tyler gave, then he thanked him and swung his chair back to his computer to search for Joseph.

Tyler was somewhat relieved that the officer was so willing to help him, however, the distrust of the police still sat in the back of Tyler’s mind. He was still partly hesitant to trust the police, especially after what happened at the child protective services’ building just a few days prior. He was concerned that that same situation was going to happen again and that all the effort and work that he and Kaiya put into finding Andrea and Desi would have been for nothing if Tyler couldn’t get the help that he needed from the police.

Tyler went back to Kaiya was and sat down next to her.

“You alright?” She said rubbing his shoulder.

“Yeah, I’m alright I guess.” He said. “I’m just a little stressed out.”

“About what?”

“About the fact that I just gave the police officer and brief description of Joseph and that he said that he’ll look into it and give me a picture of multiple people that have the name Joseph and that fit the description that I gave him.”

“Okay, so what’s the problem?”

“I don’t know if the officer just thinks I’m talking out of my ass and just wasting his time, or if he is going to through with what he says and will look up Joseph’s name and description.”

“I’m sure that he’ll do it. I don’t why he wouldn’t.”

She reached over and proceeded to kiss him on the cheek. Something that she wanted to do for a while, but she just didn’t have the confidence to do so. She wasn’t even sure why she did what she did; especially in a public setting like the police station, but she felt like it was necessary and that maybe it would sort of relax Tyler or ease his stress.

“Why did you do that?” Tyler said blushing.

“Umm… I don’t know, it was an urge, I guess. I’ve been meaning to do it for a while now, but I just didn’t have the confidence to do so until now. Probably because I was scared that you would find me weird or something or proceed to judge me harshly because of something as extreme and intimate as that.” She said laughing nervously.

She too was also starting to blush very much, also like a bright red. But she was just as nervous as Tyler, but she knew that she couldn’t show because it was time for her to be strong for him and herself.

Tyler noticed that she was blushing and was slowly starting to tear a little. He moved her hair from the side of her face and tilted her head so that she was looking at him. He could see that her eyes were slowly turning red because she was starting to cry. But he couldn’t hear her because she was slowly weeping to herself.

“Why are you crying?” He said concerned.

“Because you’re probably judging me right now.” She said with her voice breaking. “Imagine it, a girl kissing a guy on the cheek, and she is the one that ends up crying. Can you believe that? I’m sorry that you have to see me like this, I’m usually better in situations that aren’t this. Do you think that I’m wei—”

Tyler interrupted her with a kiss on the lips, he knew that he needed to comfort her, and he felt that that was the way to do that. He just like her was afraid to make the first move because of the potential judgment and sheer embarrassment if the opposite party pulled away if the first move was made. And Tyler knew that, but he still tried it anyway and hoped for the best. And to his surprise, she was very receptive to the kiss. She caressed the side of his face with a soft touch, something that she had been waiting to do for the longest time with someone that she cared about. And she felt that she somewhat cared about the person kissing her at that moment.

Tyler pulled away and looked into Kaiya’s eyes to see that she was still crying softly, but she was smiling after the fact.

“In case you’re wondering, no, I don’t think you’re weird.” He said brushing her hair.

She smiled and started to feel better about herself.

“What compelled you to do that?” She said.

“Well, you said that it felt like the necessary thing to do. And well, I felt that what I did was the necessary thing to do, so I went for it and got something in return.”

At that moment, there was some kind of happiness. However, there was still an important matter at hand. Desi was still missing, and Andrea still had her, and she was missing as well.

The officer came out to where Tyler and Kaiya were and asked them to come with him.

They followed him into a room where he sat them down and discussed with them what he found.

“So, I did some searching and I found a few people that represent Joseph based on the description you gave me.” He said. “What I have here are a few pictures of Josephs fitting the description. What I need for you to do is to look at them and then identify the one that you remembered from your memories.”

“Alright, I can do that,” Tyler said nervously.

“Alright, here we go. Take your time looking at these.”

The officer laid out five pictures of Josephs that fitted the description that Tyler gave him. Each of them resembling different small features about themselves.

Tyler looked long and hard at the pictures. Examining each one very carefully as well as trying to backtrack to see if the description that he gave the officer was the correct one.

After about five minutes of recollection and looking at the pictures, Tyler put his finger on the one that he thought was Andrea’s boyfriend.

“Is this the guy?” The officer asked.

“Yes, that’s him.” He said.

“Alright, give me a moment to let the other officers know.”

“Do you think you can do one thing for us if you don’t mind?”

“What’s that?”

“Do you think you could give us the location of that Joseph if that’s possible?”

“Why do you need his location?”

“I was concerned that my sister was there, and we wanted to see if she was there, my mother also.”

“If I find the address, I’ll give it to you.”

“Alright, thank you so much,”

The officer walked out of the room and went to go back to his computer to put the information about Joseph into the database and to alert the other officers about him and the situation.

“Do you think that he’ll actually give us the address?” Kaiya asked concerned.

“I hope so,” Tyler said. “We’re already so close, so he might as well.”

A few minutes passed and the officer walked back into the room that Tyler and Kaiya were sitting in.

“Alright, I got the address for Joseph.” He said handing them a piece of paper with an address on it.

“Great! Thank you!” Tyler said.

“I also called a few officers to head to that location to speak to Joseph and whoever is at the location. If you do happen to go there for any reason, proceed with caution, and if you see anything or get there before the police do; you wait for them to show up.”

“Alright, we can do that.”

“Alright, you’re free to go.”

The officer opened the door and walked them out into the common area.

“Well, we need to hurry. Hopefully, we can get there before the police can.”

“Right.”