The thought of going to stake out Theo's house doesn't thrill Patrick. He's exhausted and just wants to catch up on some sleep but was planning on heading out tomorrow night anyway. Seeing as his spirits are down, he thinks it's best to just go now.
The drive over to Theo's house is a quiet one. He tries to turn on the local radio station, but the DJs are discussing the case already. They aren't saying anything the public doesn’t already know, but he can't stand listening to amateur detective hour. He turns the radio off and just concentrates on getting to Theo's house.
He finds a nice secluded spot to park his car a couple of houses down from Theo's. The street his home is on is pretty empty most of the time, so this shouldn't be too hard. He relaxes his seat and turns off the car preparing himself for the long night ahead. Putting in his headphones and leaning back in the seat, his wait begins.
This stakeout won't be like the ones he's done in the past. He can't really do any investigating while he's watching the house. All he can do is sit outside and make sure no one leaves.
Theo is having those strange dreams again. This time he is outside of a 24/7 convenience store on some street. People are milling about outside the store. He approaches one and asks him what time it is. The man just stares at him and swears at him. He understands the words, but for some reason, they don't offend him. He then walks up to the glass door of the store and looks at his reflection. On his face are dark pieces of hair sticking out. Under his eyes, substantial black bags. His eyes look somehow sunken in, and his forehead protrudes out far more than it should. He touches his reflection and notices how dirty the window has become over time. He wakes up.
"Another dream."
He gets dressed and walks downstairs.
Detective Turner was listening to his favorite True Crime podcast, Casefile, when he noticed a light from inside Theo’s house come on. He grabs his binoculars, wondering what Theo is doing awake at 3:00 in the morning. He sees that Theo is awake, so he decides to call dispatch and see if there have been any calls for this area. Maybe Theo just got home without Turner noticing. He gets through to dispatch pretty quickly and asks for any calls for service around this area. The dispatcher reads her screen and says that a call came from this area at 2:30 am and mentions that the caller just wanted to report an attempted mugging at one of the 24/7 shops.
Turner hangs up and thinks about what to do next. He can either go back to his stakeout or investigate the mugging. He finally decides to put back in his headphones and keep watching the house.
The next hour goes by slowly, and nothing else happens, he is starting to regret his decision, but then something finally happens. He sees two figures a few houses down the street, they are trying to be as stealthy as possible, but they are clearly trying to sneak up on Theo's house.
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"Is this the house?" One of the kids asked.
"Yeah, dude, it's the one."
"It's 4am; the guy should be asleep right now".
"You realize that we are breaking and entering, right?"
"Yeah, so."
"We could go to jail for doing this."
"You a bitch or something?"
They continue to disagree about their plan for another five minutes before approaching the house. As they get closer, the Detective gets a better look at them. The kids are both in their early teens. Both wearing jackets labeled with their school's name. The first kid has shaggy blonde hair, and the other, dark brown curly hair.
"You realize we are going to get in so much trouble for this."
"Bro, no one will even know it was us."
"How do you know that?"
"Cuz we won't get caught dumbass, now come on."
They walk up to the back door and unsurprisingly find it locked. The dark-haired kid pulls out his smartphone and looks up lock picking techniques. 30 seconds later, the door is unlocked.
"You hear that?"
"Yeah, it sounds like someone is in the house."
The two kids freeze and get ready to leave when they hear footsteps upstairs. Theo hears them talking and knows he has mere seconds to hide before the intruders enter the room. He quickly looks around but realizes there is almost no place to hide. He looks under his bed and manages to get his whole body crammed under there, but it's only barely big enough for him to fit. The intruders have heard the creaking of the floorboards and decide to just leave.
Detective Turner is torn between what to do. Does he break his cover and risk getting a suspension for violating department rules, or does he let these kids do whatever they have planned? The dark-haired kid pulls out his phone and does some quick googling.
"Crazy how our phones can do basically anything nowadays, isn't it?" He says out loud only to himself. Then much louder, he says, "let's go meet up with the rest of the gang."
They leave the house and begin talking about their plans for the night. Detective Turner is about to get out of the car when he sees the kids leaving the house and getting into a car at the curb. He starts his own and follows them. They drive to a small cafe that is closed for business. Only one dim light on the front porch is lit, and the parking lot only has a few cars in it. The Detective can barely make out anything inside the darkened windows of the cafe.
The kids are moving quickly towards the front door, and it isn't until they turn towards the light that he can see their faces clearly. It takes a moment for him to place where he knows them from. He had seen their faces every day for the last week. They were the two kids who had been "murdered" in The Paperboy's video. Thinking about that video makes Turner's stomach turn. Why would a group of kids mock murders and put them on their TikTok just for fame? That kind of thing should never be trivialized.
The Detective sits in his car for a while, making sure no one is in the cafe, and no kids are lurking about. He turns on the ignition, but just when he is about to pull out of the parking lot, he notices a light coming from the back seat of his car in the rearview mirror. He gets out, and to his surprise, there is a puddle of gasoline leaking from the backseat, and right in the middle is a rag smoldering away. Turner quickly opens the door and pulls the rag from the fuel. He has just dropped it when the car goes up in a flash of heat and fire.
"Shit!" He yells as the car burns and snaps.
Turner gets engulfed in flames as the kids run over to try and help. One of the kids quickly dials 911 and explains there has been an explosion.
As the police and ambulance show up, Turner is taken to the hospital severely burned but will make a full recovery. Detective Edmond Gates is assigned to take over the Alice case and what he finds is much more than he could have expected.