The Secrets You Hide: A Mind-Blowing Thriller (The Psychosis Series) by Alex Crimson

would have to stop at a series of diners along the length of the highway to check if anybody remembered seeing Annie and Sarah.
    The first diner I found stood alongside a shop which sold memorabilia of some sort. As I got out of the car to enter the diner, I heard Jack’s voice inside my head, threatening me with a typical calm. I want you to follow their trail, doctor. I want you to grasp for them…and realize that how much ever you try…you won't be able to find them unless I want you to. I knew that the voice was an invention of my mind but in the moment it felt real as if Jack was accompanying me and speaking into my ears even as I walked.
    Once inside the diner, I followed the very steps and spoke the exact words which Jack had mentioned in his script. I walked up to the manager of the diner and showed him a picture of Annie and Sarah.
    “Umm...sir, my wife and daughter have been missing for two days. Do you remember seeing them here? Sometime in the evening, two days back?”
    The manager looked at the picture and shook his head. He looked at me sympathetically.
    “I don’t. But my employees might.”
    He called one of the waitresses who had been on duty at the time that I had mentioned. She looked at the picture and responded in the negative.
    “Are you sure?” I asked to confirm.
    “Yes,” she said, “I am very sure. I was the only one on duty the day before.”
    I nodded even as my heart sank. Then I looked back at the manager, “Would you know how many other diners there are in a twenty mile stretch starting here towards San Francisco?”
    He looked at me for a second, taken aback by the odd question. “Six,” he said, after spending some time trying to count every single competitor he could remember.
    I thanked him and got out of there without uttering a word. I drove down to the next diner and the next following the exact same process, using similar gestures and the very same words. Occasionally, I checked my cell phone, expecting a call or a message that I needed to respond to.
    At the fourth diner, I finally got an answer in the affirmative.
    “Yes, they were here,” one of the waiters said, confidently.
    I showed him a picture of Jack on my mobile phone. It was a snapshot I had extracted from the footage of the security cameras at the clinic. “What about him?”
    The image was unclear so the waiter took some time to process it and watch it closely. “Yes, I think I saw him too. But they were not together.”
    “Can I look at the feed of your security cameras?” I asked the manager. He looked at his employee and nodded. The latter walked away to serve customers, leaving me in a one on one conversation with his boss.
    The manager shook his head. “I am sorry. But I can’t. How can I be sure that the woman whose picture you have shown is actually your wife? I will have to see some ID before I give you access to the camera feed. Are you with law enforcement?”
    I pursed my lips, staring at him. I did not want to waste time convincing him. Jack’s script had not foreseen a situation like this. So I improvised.
    I looked around to make sure that no one was eavesdropping on us. I pulled out my wallet and placed a hundred dollar bill on the table before the manager. “Can I look at the feed of your security cameras?” I asked again.
    He looked down at my hand which hid the bill underneath it and nodded.
    As we went in, the manager called the waiter to join us. Somewhere in one of the back rooms of the diner, the manager sat down at a computer as the waiter and I stood behind him looking at the monitor.
    “They were here around 8.30 pm,” the waiter said. The manager nodded, more to himself than at us.
    He navigated through the video files and we were soon looking at the footage from two days earlier. I spotted Annie and Sarah sitting at one of the tables. My heart skipped a beat and for a second all I could see were their images moving on the screen.
    “Can you show me the footage from the