Chapter Text
It did not take the team long to arrive and just as they descended the basement stairs they heard Olivia call out, “I got it!”
They saw that she had managed to grip the corner of one of the panels and pull at it.
It came away with the light force that she used to pull at the edge of the panelling.
The wooden panel fell away from where it had been secured within the wall and Olivia let it fall to the floor with a crash.
She stepped closer to the wall again but all she could see was darkness.
Patricia, who had moved away when the wall began to fell started to move closer again.
“Hold her back, Amanda,” Olivia suggested indicating towards the dog not wanting her to get hurt.
Amanda stepped forward to get hold of Patricia’s leash but the dog ducked and ran through the open gap in the wall.
It was then that they heard it.
The sound of a singular groan.
Olivia’s eyes widened, “Get this wall opened up!”
Within moments the officers that had joined them were at the wall and yanking away even more panels so that they could get into the cavity behind it. The panel that Olivia had removed was big enough to get into but they would definitely struggle if they needed to get a stretcher through the hole that they had created. One of them also lifted the mirror off of the wall and placed it on the bed carefully in case it got damaged in any way.
Olivia grabbed hold of a flashlight whilst they were dismantling more of the panelling style wall and she flicked it on, shining it into the dark hole beside her.
“Found her, call a bus!” She called out as she stepped over the thresh hold and into the darkness.
Amanda was on the phone straight away whilst the officers opened up the wall a little more to make it double the size that it had been originally.
Olivia moved further into the room that was hidden behind the panelling, the room was unfurnished and it was not decorated at all. The walls were bare concrete and the wooden structure of the flooring above them was visible when she shone the torch upwards to the ceiling. The floor was also concrete and it made her wonder if at some point the room was used for storage or something.
As she shone the torch around, she saw a shoe laying on the floor. The dark blue shoe seemed to have been splattered with something red. Most likely blood.
“Andrea” She called out softly into the darkness of the room, trying to see if she was responsive at all.
A groan came in response just as Olivia’s torchlight scanned over her again.
In the corner of the ‘room’ behind the wall was Andrea. The woman was lying on the floor wearing the exact outfit that she had been kidnapped in and wearing only one of her designer shoes.
As Olivia moved forward, getting closer to the injured woman, Patricia gave a bark. “Yeah, girl, you did it,” Olivia said to the dog as she knelt down beside the Runway assistant.
Olivia leaned over to double-check the woman’s pulse, “Stay still, we’ll have you out of here soon, I promise.”
“M… Mir… Mira,” Andrea mumbled out, struggling to speak but attempting to say Miranda’s name.
“Miranda is upstairs, she’s safe,” Olivia reassured her as she reached out and gently put her hand on the other woman’s arm in order to help to keep her calm.
Meanwhile, upstairs, Miranda was sitting on the staircase with her girls either side of her. A liaison officer was standing nearby in order to assist them in any way that she could whilst Serena and Emily were in the kitchen to the doorway.
“Have they found her?” Miranda questioned the officer as she was forced to sit back and observe the activity that was going on in her own home.
“I believe so,” The liaison officer admitted to her as she looked over to where a couple of officers were huddled at the top of the staircase and two EMTs entered the house.
Miranda stood up, pulling herself out of the grip of both of her daughters and stepped towards the basement, “Then I’m going to her.”
The liaison officer put her hand out, “I’m sorry, Miranda, but I really can’t allow that right now, I’m sure you’ll be able to see her as soon as they bring her up.”
Miranda glared at the younger woman with a ferocity that the liaison officer had not had to face before in her early career, “That was not a question, nor was it a request. I was simply informing you that I am going down those stairs and I am going to see my Andrea. ”
The young blonde woman gulped and nodded as she then stepped back, moving away from the fierce women in front of her. She had been told to keep the woman upstairs and out of the way, however, she had not been warned about what that would entail. She was not willing to stand between the Editor-in-Chief and the recovered woman downstairs.
Downstairs, the EMT’s were very cautiously transferring the dark-haired woman onto the stretcher whilst Olivia stood back to keep her eye on the victim. She took a mental note of the state of the woman, a job that was made much easier by the numerous flashlights that the officers were using to light up the small space.
Andrea’s dress was torn, her heel was broken, her hair was a little messy, and there were blood splatters that had dried up within her locks which added to the matted texture of it. In addition to that, there was a wound on her forehead that seemed to be a direct result of blunt force trauma but without further examination, with much better lighting it would be impossible to tell.
They had already managed to untie the ropes that held the young woman there. There had been a set that was tightened around her wrists and another set that had tied up her ankles. The ones around her wrists had been so tight that they had caused rope burns on her pale skin. It would have been impossible to lay her on the stretcher however without undoing the knots that were holding her arms behind her.