Hannah was at the scene of the crime, looking for clues. Not at the abduction scene, but at Steve’s grandparents’ house, where they’d been attacked. The crime itself stuck out as odd to her. For all intents and purposes, it looked like your average hate crime, which there was no shortage of. That was certainly a good motive. But if it was a hate crime, why hadn’t the two been attacked outside of their home? Mounting a full on home invasion wasn't the standard MO for those kinds of haters.

Moving from the living room to the kitchen, she noticed a red blinking light. It was a wall-mounted alarm system, which connected to the alarms at all the doors and windows. The light was blinking because there was something wrong with the system. She knew the alarm wasn’t activated, since Abdul and Fatima wouldn’t have thought about turning it on when they left. So the light should’ve been flashing orange to indicate it was ready to arm.

A quick inspection of the detectors throughout the house showed that the alarm had been deliberately sabotaged. The detectors were unresponsive to anything Hannah tried, even after rearming the system. She texted James to ask about the alarm’s brand to make sure she was doing it right before concluding that it really had been sabotaged.

Returning to the kitchen, she looked through some papers on the table. It wasn’t odd for older people to still receive snail mail, and that’s mostly what this was. There was an electric bill, a bunch of people asking for money, and some ads. One envelope had a nickel in it. “No clues here,” Hannah thought, replacing the mail. She snapped the base of her rubber gloves in irritation as she thought about what to do next. “This clearly was a deliberate attack disguised as a hate crime. The alarm proves that. The question is: what did they want?”

She headed to the bedroom in the back, and that’s when she noticed something odd. Fatima was a big neat freak, just like her daughter Ava, and the rest of the house was more or less spotless, apart from the place where the two had been attacked, the living room. At a glance, the bedroom seemed the same. However, one of the dresser drawers was slightly pulled out, not enough to see in, but enough to notice.

Hannah approached the drawer and pushed it in. It went in smoothly, so it wasn’t a problem with the mechanism. She whipped the drawer open and peered inside, but it was all socks. The socks had clearly been removed and shoved back into the drawer hastily. “Somebody was looking for something,” she realized. She had no clue what they would want, so she began searching the room earnestly for anything out of place.

In the closet, she got her first big break. There was a box of letters in the back, all postmarked from the Middle East. They were probably letters from family. The envelopes had all been neatly opened by a letter opener. However, while the first four envelopes had old cut marks, the rest were fresh. “Why would they go through their letters?” Hannah thought. She looked through the letters, but they didn't contain anything of note, other than that the fourth one had obviously caused a falling out between Fatima and her family. They were all addressed to her, not Abdul. One thing she did learn, though, was that the first seven letters were sent to Fatima in England, not America, where the two of them had met while attending university.

The fifth letter had something interesting, though. It mainly consisted of a long rant from her father about how Fatima had forsaken her family and was no longer welcome back home. However, it did drop one piece of useful information: in the letter, her father expressed satisfaction that Abdul and Fatima’s first child had been stillborn and that he was glad that child had been female. The letter was dated two years before Ava was born. The previous letter, the one that had caused the falling out, had been a response to finding out she was eight months pregnant and unmarried.

Hannah read through some of the other letters, but they were all rants, insults, and demands that Fatima come home. She quit after the first seven after learning nothing new. The only thing unique about the opened letters was the mention of the stillborn child. “That’s what they were looking for. But why?” Hannah thought. Furthermore, the two of them had been living in America for years with no problems. So why now?

She looked through the letters again for clues, but found nothing. The final letter in the box was dated just a few days earlier and was more of the same crap. One thing she did notice was that as time passed the letters’ delivery dates had grown more and more infrequent.

Hannah leaned back against the wall from where she’d been sitting on the floor and closed her eyes to help focus her thoughts. “These people, whoever they are, must’ve been triggered to search for them by something. They could’ve intercepted the letter and used it to get their address, but if that was the case they would’ve shown up around the same time as the letter. Why wait a few days? Moreover, why did they even need the letter? Couldn’t they just check public records or social media?”

Looking at the envelope in her hand, the answer hit her like a bag of rocks. She had been looking at the return address. “Of course, she changed her name!” she exclaimed aloud. Fatima’s original surname obviously changed when she married, and since she lived halfway across the world, she had dropped off the radar. They must’ve known her original surname, not her new one, so they had used her family to find her. She opened the final letter, the most recent, which confirmed her theory. The letter was complaining about how Ava was bringing in tramp girls from the street, an obvious reference to Nadine’s arrival. Then she read the final sentence, which she’d skimmed over the first time, and her eyes grew wide. “And keep out of New York City; I won’t have my family disgraced by that city of heathens!”

A lot of things suddenly made sense. Steve’s family had never been to New York, so the only thing he could’ve been referring to was the New York UFO incident. However, no one knew Steve and Rachel had been involved with that, so that the fact this guy did was very disturbing. That, plus the fact Eric had mentioned to her before that Fatima was estranged from her extended family and never spoke to her father indicated the guy was getting his info from someone else, someone who did know what had happened and was using him for the sole purpose of tracking his letters. There were still some holes in that theory, but Hannah was satisfied enough with it for the moment.

Hannah replaced the box of letters and started looking around for any other clues. She doubted she’d find anything about a stillborn child from 40+ years ago, so that wasn’t her priority. No, her search now was regarding why someone would come after this couple regarding the incident. It was a long shot, but she was searching for a clue either tying the two to a previous incident or something the culprits had left behind.

To that end, she thoroughly searched every nook and cranny of the room, but found nothing as the police had already gone over the house with a fine-toothed comb. The next room she tried was the living room. As the police had already gone over the scene, she wasn’t expecting to find anything obvious. She checked the couch cushions, looked under chairs, and even checked the media center. “Nothing,” she said, replacing the television with great difficulty. Then she noticed the television had a camera on top.

Grabbing the remote, she flipped the TV on and checked to see if it had recorded anything. Quickly, she rattled off a message to James, her new-found tech guru, on whether or not that model of TV could record while the screen was off. She included information on make and model of TV, as well as the serial number.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

To her surprise, James responded fairly quickly. “Yes, it can. That company is infamous for violating their customers' privacy. There's an ongoing lawsuit about it."

“Can you access the footage directly from the TV?” Hannah replied, her heart racing. Finally, she might have a lead.

“Not directly from the TV. You’d need to hook up a computer and get into the software files. I'll send you the tools needed to get in. Do you want me to walk you through it?”

“Yes, please,” Hannah replied, getting out her computer and syncing it up to the TV.

It didn’t take very long to get into the TV’s files with his help. Most of what she found was just software stuff for making sure it worked properly, but the local storage folder was indeed where he said it would be, and it was the gold mine she wanted. She thanked James and started digging through the files. Apparently recordings were kept in local storage on the TV until it ran out and older recordings were deleted. The TV’s cameras were motion-triggered, so they only recorded when something was in the room.

The recordings were time-stamped, so Hannah opened the first one from the time of the crime and watched carefully. It began with Abdul and Fatima sitting next to the east window in prayer. Then they were rudely interrupted by a loud banging from the front door. Fatima looked annoyed, but did not get up to answer it. Then there was a loud crash as the door was kicked in. Several men dressed in business suits and wearing ski masks swarmed into the room, all wielding baseball bats.

There were nine men in total. One went offscreen to disable the house’s alarm, which was chirping loudly. Another approached the couple, who had been forced onto the couch and were absolutely terrified. “Don’t worry, we won’t harm you,” the man said, removing his ski mask. He had light orange skin, almost yellow, with a tinge of black in it. His hair was golden and seemed to have a mind of its own, flowing freely despite the lack of airflow in the room. “You wouldn’t believe the trouble we had to go through to search for you,” he began.

“Who are you and how do you know us?” Abdul demanded.

The man pulled over an armchair and sat down. He had a very rigid, unflinching posture. “I am a god, my child. Have you ever seen any human that looks like me? Normally I leave house calls like these to my followers, but I have a personal interest in this matter. Not that I’d expect you to remember, of course. After all, history has changed since the last time I visited you. Normally the gods frown on the changing of history in such a large manner, but when we examined the changes, we determined why it was changed and decided not to intervene. Of course, we didn’t expect your surname to change with it, so we had to improvise to track you down.”

Fatima looked at Abdul with a look of shock in her eyes, then back at the guy. “What...what are you talking about?” she said quietly.

“Search the house for some evidence,” the god commanded two of his men, who left. To the couple, he continued, “I understand this is a lot to take in, and you might not believe me. I’m not really concerned whether you do or not. What I am concerned about is that a large magical event occurred recently, and it concerned a very familiar DNA signature. I presume you are aware of the UFO sighting in New York City last year?”

“It was all over the news. What does that have to do with us?”

“There were three DNA signatures on the UFO, one of which was one we are very familiar with. He is a terrorist on a massive scale, although you’ll never have heard of him because, as I mentioned, history has changed. The large terrorist acts he previously committed have been erased, for one simple reason. That reason is…”

The god was interrupted by the two men re-entering the room with the letters Hannah had found earlier. “Your proof, my lord,” one said, as they handed over the letters. The god looked through them with inhuman speed, until he stopped on one. Silently, he passed it over to Fatima, who looked at it aghast.

“Do you see what I mean about history having changed? Among other changes, some minor, some major, one of the most important changes is that your first born child did not live.”

Fatima started to cry uncontrollably and Abdul glared at the god with fury in his eyes. “Why are you reminding her of this? She was depressed for years afterwards!”

“My condolences for your loss, but this is necessary for my explanation. Did you have a name picked out for your child?”

Abdul still looked furious, but Fatima nodded quickly, still sobbing into her hands. “Well, as definitive proof that I am speaking the truth I will tell you your child’s full name, which you never shared with anyone, not family, friends, or the hospital. Are you ready?” Fatima continued to sob, and the god said, “However, I must ask that you be silent and stop crying.” Fatima ignored him, so he took an ink pen out of his breast pocket, and said “Silence!” Instantly, Fatima went quiet. Unfortunately, this also killed the sound on the recording Hannah was watching. She continued to watch, but other than the people finishing their conversation, lightly beating the couple and locking them in the closet before trashing the room, there was nothing important to see.

“Well, at least I got some useful information out of that,” Hannah muttered to herself, saving all copies of the appropriate recordings to her computer and packing her stuff up. She could probably get James to work on the wrecked audio, or find someone good at lip-reading to decipher it if that didn’t work. Armed with new knowledge, she knew exactly where she was going next.

XXX

When Hannah entered the hospital room, she found that the two occupants were busy praying, which they had to do frequently as Muslims. Therefore, she waited out in the hall for a few minutes until she was sure they were done. “Oh, hello!” Fatima greeted her as she entered. “Are you a friend of our grandson?”

“Yes, I am,” Hannah replied.

“I heard from Ava that something happened,” she continued. “Is everything OK?”

Hannah hesitated, then lied to not worry them further. “It’s nothing we can’t handle. Anyways, I thought I’d ask you about what happened to you again.”

Abdul scowled. “A bunch of punks broke into our home on a dare. What more do you want to know?” He said this in a very sarcastic tone.

Hannah was shocked to hear them deny what had happened. “What did they look like?” she asked, deciding to press for information rather than confront them over it. She wanted to see if they'd say anything different to her than they had to Alec.

“They were wearing ski masks, so we don’t know,” Fatima responded. “We went and hid as soon as Abdul distracted them. He used his phone to make the voice assistant in the kitchen start playing our grocery list to draw them away.” She looked at her husband with the most loving expression.

“Well, we’d just made the list, so of course it was the first thing I thought of,” Abdul replied, looking embarrassed.

“So no one took off their mask or said anything incriminating?” Hannah asked.

The two shared a look. “Nothing we remember,” Fatima replied eventually. “Although…” she hesitated a moment, “...I did hear them say something odd right before they left. I remember it as clear as day, ‘The day your daughter contacts you is the day we’ll be back.”

Abdul looked stunned. “I thought they said, ‘You two are cute together. Don’t let anyone break it up. Otherwise we’ll be back.”

Fatima looked stunned this time. “What? How’d you hear that?”

They started to bicker about what they’d heard, but Hannah tuned them out, lost in her thoughts. She had no reason to doubt their word, especially since they were arguing, but the fact they had different memories and they didn’t remember what had happened was alarming. She couldn’t really think with all the arguing, so she got up to leave. Neither of them noticed her leaving.