The city mayor was a millionaire and his stepdaughter, Karla, got into some trouble. She was taken by Officer Alana Denison to the station, where she told the officer something strange before they let her go quickly due to the mayor’s influence, and Alana couldn’t get those words out of her mind.
“Why did you do that, sweetie? You can talk to me,” Officer Alana Denison told the teenage girl sitting in front of her at the station. After the neighbors reported her for throwing rocks at an apartment window in downtown New York, she had picked up the girl.
“No reason,” Karla shrugged and looked down. Suddenly, the local millionaire mayor along with the chief of police came into the station.
“Denison! Let this girl go immediately. This man is here to pick her up,” Police Chief Carlson demanded, and Alana looked at the girl, expecting to see happiness in her face now that her stepfather was in the building.
But instead, she saw pure fear in the young girl’s eyes. She didn’t want to go with him. But Alana had no choice. She took the handcuffs off Karla, and the girl grabbed her hands tightly for a few seconds, whispering in her ear, “Grab the angel’s wings.”
At the time, the officer thought it was a metaphor, but it might have been a direct message.
“What?” Alana whispered back, but the girl couldn’t answer because the mayor approached.
“Come on, girl. Let’s go home. I’m sorry they brought you here. They should know that you’re my daughter, and this kind of thing can’t get out,” Mayor Townsend said, rubbing his big belly and giving Alana a scathing look.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Townsend. This won’t happen ever again,” Chief Carlson expressed as they walked out of the station. But before they left, Karla gave Alana a pleading look.
That night, Alana couldn’t sleep. Something was off with that girl and her stepfather. She had to know the reason why Karla was ten times more fearful of leaving with him than being at the police station. In fact, when they picked her up in the squad car, she seemed pretty happy about it. It was odd. No teen would be glad that the cops caught them.
The following day, Alana decided to visit the building where Karla threw rocks. She realized that the girl had only targeted a particular apartment on the second floor. That was even odder. After asking around, the officer discovered that the apartment had been empty for a long time.
However, an older woman who lived right above that apartment told the officer that sometimes she would hear creaking sounds at night. “That why no one rents it. It’s haunted,” the lady told her.
Of course, Alana didn’t believe her, but there must be a reason why no one lived there and why Karla threw rocks at its window.
After talking with the neighbors, she investigated a little further and discovered that the apartment had an owner. It belonged to the mayor’s late wife, Karla’s mother. The mystery of Karla’s rock-throwing got more apparent, but there was still more to discover. She had to go there and investigate herself. She could lose her job for it, but she would break into the apartment and check things out.
The officer pushed the door forcefully but quietly, and it opened. It was empty. There was no furniture, and she saw several rocks on the floor close to the broken window. “At least, there’s nothing to steal,” she said aloud and kept walking.
Eventually, she reached the bedroom and saw an open closet. There was a figurine on one of the open shelves. It was an angel with a pair of extended wings.
That’s when Alana remembered the girl’s words, “Grab the angel’s wings.” At the time, the officer thought it was a metaphor, but it might have been a direct message. Therefore, she went right up to the figurine and discovered that she couldn’t move it from its position.
That’s odd, she thought, and decided to follow the girl’s advice, grabbing the wings and moving them. Suddenly, the wings folded, and a sound startled her. A hidden door right next to the closet was opening. And she saw something incredible in the newly-discovered room. It was filled with money, gold bars, and cabinets.
“Jesus…,” she whispered and trailed off. The chief of police needed to know about this because if the apartment belonged to the mayor’s dead wife, he must be the current owner. This money might be stolen money from the city.
“I told you to stay away from the mayor and his stepdaughter, Denison,” the chief said when Alana started to explain the situation over the phone.
“I know. But there’s something you must see at the apartment that the girl targeted with rocks. This is something that affects all of us,” Alana continued. The chief was skeptical about it, but he went there and was stunned by the amount of money stored in that room.
They went into a full-blown investigation and discovered that the mayor had embezzled so much money from the city, and only a part of it was hidden in that apartment. The FBI got involved too, and no one cared that Alana had initially broken into the apartment. They waived it as a follow-up on what Karla had done.
The day they arrested the mayor, Alana met Karla right outside their door as the rest of the officers raided their house. She thought the girl would be happy because she tried to tell them about the money. But she looked broken and Alana’s intuition pinged.
Alana took a look at the pictures, and she was stunned to see the mayor doing some horrible things to his poor stepdaughter in the photos. Everything made sense. Karla was abused in awful ways, and Alana had known something was off all along, so she went back to the girl.
“Don’t worry, girl. No one else will EVER be able to hurt you again,” Alana assured her. “He will never hurt anyone ever again!”
What can we learn from this story?
Follow your intuition. Alana knew she had to follow up on the girl’s actions because something in her gut told her to investigate further. She was right.
Teenagers and kids have ways of telling you things they can’t say out loud. Some can’t say things outright, so they communicate in other ways. You have to listen to them.
