About A Flame Ch. 6

     "He received another text." Damien said as he handed the phone to Kirkland. "It came in about three this morning."
     Kirkland tapped the screen and went into Dominic's texts. It wasn't hard to find the one Damien was speaking of. The detective tapped the first message in the inbox and scanned over it.
     "Its good that he's receiving these." Kirkland said, "We don't have much to go on. All the leads we had gathered from people who live around the club went cold, quite quickly, I'd like to add."
     "If I'm getting these texts, can't you trace them?" Dominic asked. He slowly walked into the front room of the house. The effects of what he had been going through were apparent. He had dark circles under his eyes. He looked older. He didn't look like Damien's 22 year old twin. Instead he looked as if he was in his late twenties, maybe even early thirties. For the first time Damien was astonished at how much Dominic had appeared to age over the last few weeks.
      "Maybe I'm grasping at straws here, but I saw them do that once on Castle... because of tracing the text, they were able to catch the kid's kidnapper."
      Kirkland looked up from Dominic's phone. "Well then, you also know that they were unable to trace the call when the battery of the phone was out." He answered, "Look, we're doing everything we can to find her. We just haven't gotten any solid leads."
     "What about the text then?" Dominic asked as he sat down in a chair. "I mean, it told me to stay put in New York. Doesn't that sort of imply that she isn't here? That she's been taken somewhere else?"
     "Possibly." Kirkland answered. He put the phone down on the table and reached up and scratched his angular face. Dominic stared Kirkland in the eye, tension rising in the room. "The kidnapper could be attempting to plant false leads, which is not unlikely at all."
      Dominic set his jaw, the muscles in his jaw were working furiously as he ground his teeth, a habit that he had developed recently. What was Kirkland doing exactly? He didn't seem to be doing all he could, like he claimed... or at least that's how Dominic had been perceiving what was going on. Kirkland always gave him the same answer after all. For all Dominic knew, Kirkland was just sitting around doughnut shops drinking coffee while eating some double chocolate fudge cake doughnut.
     A buzzing noise interrupted Dominic's mental tirade.
    Kirkland reached down and pulled his phone of his belt. He looked at the screen and then back up at Dominic. "If you get any more texts, let me know as soon as possible." He pushed the accept button and held the Blackberry to his ear. "Kirkland." He answered. He stood up and headed for the front door.
      Dominic watched and waited until the detective had exited the house, closing the door behind him. Immediately, he moved for the front door.
     "Where are you going?" Damien asked.
     Dominic held up his hand, silencing his brother. Slowly he reached the front door. He placed his hand on the knob and twisted it. Slowly he opened it just a crack.
     "Look," Kirkland said into his phone. The detective stood on the front step of the house, oblivious to Dominic eve's dropping. "I need to convince them that I'm on their side... Yes, I know it's taking longer then we originally thought, but... don't take that tone of voice with me! I don't care if you are family, you do not have the right to talk to me in that manner!... Yes, I'll keep you posted."
      Dominic felt his jaw drop. He was right about not being able to trust this guy. He slowly closed the door before Kirkland could catch on. He felt his stomach roil and bile rise up in his throat. He wanted to vomit. He wanted to punch a wall, he wanted to punch Kirkland's face. How could this guy call himself a detective? How could he just waltz in and claim he was doing everything he could to track down Brenda and her kidnapper? How could he just lie to Dominic the way he was?
     The young man shook his head in disbelief as he moved to the stairs. One thing was for sure now, he knew that he could not trust Kirkland now. He reached the top of the staircase and turned down the hall for his room. He was not going to sit around now and wait. He was going to proactive and go after her on his own.