Before Now

by Hope E. Davis

  “Me, neither,” she agrees dismally.

  “I’ve never seen a case with so many suspects and so many variables.”

  “I know. We have to be missing something.” Grady begins flipping through the papers again. If only something would jump off the page at her.

  “We are. It’s just a question of what. See you in a bit.” And with that, the line goes dead.

  Grady holds up the paper with the boyfriend’s information. Honestly, the boyfriend is always a suspect no matter what the crime. But John seems genuine. She doesn’t like to rule people out based on a hunch, but she sets his info page to the side regardless. She needs to narrow it down somehow.

  Next, she picks up John’s wife’s paper. She doesn’t want to rule her out, either; a jealous wife has the perfect motive. And she and John are each other’s alibis, how convenient. But did they work together to abduct the girlfriend? She doesn’t think so. John seems genuinely in love. She sets her page aside as well.

  She picks up the document with Daisy/Lena’s info on it. She updated it just moments ago from Brown’s notes. She doesn’t want to rule her out until they check her work references, but she has a nagging feeling that everything will check out. Plus, the roommate has no motive that she can see. Yeah, she’s operating under fake information, but Remi doesn’t seem like she would be a threat. She sets her page aside as well.

  Left in front of her are the three men she just interviewed, the drug dealing boyfriend of the twin, and the twin herself. The three men have the most clear motive: Remi caught them stealing. But then again, Remi also went missing the same day Zeki’s “stash” did. That’s also a motive. And the twin? Something is nagging Grady. She looked through the phone history of the victim, and she was shocked at how little the two talked. Rayna claims they’re close, but the signs all point to something different. She’s the last one to see her sister alive, and the timeline is wide open. Which leads to the question, is she really capable of killing her twin? And if she did, why did she do it?

  REMI

  NOW

  For some reason, hearing her sister’s name out of the mouth of the masked woman gives Remi strength.

  “What kind of plans?” she questions defiantly in her hoarse voice.

  The woman pulls her face back, as if she’s surprised, but Remi can’t be sure because of the mask obscuring her facial expression. Whatever happens, the woman snaps out of it quickly.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know…” she hisses, leaning in even closer than before.

  Remi thinks about trying to bite her, but as soon as the thought enters her head, the woman moves her face away from Remi’s.

  “You’ll pay for what you’ve done.” She rises to a standing position and walks towards the stairs.

  What has she done? Actually, what has Rayna done to piss this woman off so much?

  Another wave of bravery comes over her. “Care to remind me what I’m paying for?” It’s out of her mouth before she even considers the implications.

  Next thing she knows, there’s a stinging sensation in her face and the taste of blood in her mouth. She doesn’t know for sure what happened, but she assumes someone hit her. She surveys the three people in the room, her eyesight not as sharp as it was moments before. The woman is rubbing her hand and inspecting her nails. Then it hits her that her own hands are no longer being restrained.

  “I can’t believe I wasted a nail on you,” the woman seethes. Then she turns to the two men, whom Remi has started calling her henchmen. “Tie her to something. Tie her up tight. I don’t care if she bleeds.”

  “But you said no marks,” the chubbier of the two men protests.

  “That was before,” she snaps, motioning to Remi’s face.

  Wondering why, Remi hesitantly brings her hand up to her face and draws it back down. There’s blood. Not much, but it’s there. She’s also concerned there’s a piece of manicured nail in her face as well. The thought grosses her out.

  “Photograph everything. Someone will pay for her back.” She turns back to Remi. “You may think you are so smart miss Rayna…or should I say Leila? But look here, I don’t give a fuck what happens to you, and I don’t care how sad your parents are gonna be. Basically, I just don’t care. You’re nothing to me.” She pushes Remi down by her shoulders and walks up the stairs and out of eyesight.

  Although she said Rayna means nothing to her, it’s obvious that she does in the way she said it. If she didn’t really care, she wouldn’t bother addressing her at all. Remi doesn’t have to be a psychiatrist to know this woman is trying to get a rise out of her. It’s the same thing Rayna did all the time when they were kids. Speaking of Rayna, who is Leila? And why has her sister started going by a different name?

  She’s still going through various mental scenarios in her head, none of them seeming to fit, when the thinner of the two henchmen grabs her by the throat.

  Remi struggles to breath and get away, but his hand has a surprising vice-like grip. There’s something about the way he’s choking her that reminds her of something. But as the air leaves her lungs, so does her ability to string conscious thoughts together.

  Just as her vision is starting to go black, he lets go, and she collapses in a heap on the ground, gasping for air.

  “So…what was the point of that?” the other one asks from across the room, obviously not amused.

  “Shut up,” he replies, once again restraining her by the wrists. “Do you have any idea what to do with her?”

  “No, but listen, dude, something’s not right with this.”

  “Whadda you mean?” The one holding her wrists is obviously growing tired as he is no longer holding them as tight. Remi wonders what her chances are if she can get away and make it up the stairs. Is the woman still up there? Is she in the middle of nowhere?

  “She said we were gonna auction off the girl to the highest bidder. That’s how we are getting paid. If she doesn’t care about us marking her, that must mean she’s not planning to auction her off anymore.”

  “Hmm…” The guy behind her is obviously about to agree with him.

  “So think about it. If we aren’t auctioning her, how are we gonna get paid? She definitely doesn’t have any money.”

  “You’re right.” The guy holding her hands loosens his grip even more, obviously dejected at the thought of not getting paid. “I risked everything for this.”

  “Me, too.” Both men are quiet for a minute as they weigh their options. Remi tries to estimate how fast she can run. As soon as she’s about to do it, the man holding her wrists speaks up.

  “I have an idea.”

  “Yeah?” his buddy asks.

  “Let’s double cross her. She obviously wants the girl. Let’s say you and me take her to another location and ransom her back for what we are owed?”

  The other man stands and fist pumps the air. “Perfect! Let’s wait until she leaves…but wait, where will we take her?” He motions to Remi with his chin. She has to admit she’s getting really tired of being treated like a possession rather than a human.

  “I have an idea for that, too. What’s the last place anyone will ever look for her?”

  Remi doesn’t like the gleam that comes into the men’s eyes.

  RAYNA

  NOW

  She stands outside the building, willing her body to go inside, but she just can’t do it. Instead, she spends the duration of the meeting sitting outside on the curb.

  Rayna isn’t sure what the feeling is that’s currently consuming her, but she has to assume it’s something akin to guilt. She should have been there for her sister. She should have never picked Zeki over her. Remi would still be here.

  After another half hour pity party, Rayna picks herself up off the sidewalk and begins to walk down the street. She decides she’ll go into the first bar she sees, no matter how divey it is. She’s in luck, the first one she passes is an upscale handcrafted cocktail place that the millennials love. She pushes open the too-wide door and
heads inside.

  It’s mostly empty, except for the female bartender and a young couple across the bar.

  “Evening, sweetheart, what can I get for ya?” the bartender asks in a sultry southern drawl.

  Rayna feels like burying her head in a hole and never coming out—which only means one thing. “Tequila. Straight. Chilled, please.”

  “Woah.” The bartender leans back. “Someone’s looking to get trashed.” She cracks a light laugh at the end, obviously making a joke.

  Rayna isn’t in the mood. She tosses the shot back as soon as it’s placed in front of her. “Another,” she says as she slams it down, her voice hoarse from the onslaught of the alcohol.

  “You better slow down,” the bartender warns, but she pours her another regardless. Once again, Rayna tosses it straight back. But this time, she doesn’t ask for another. She simply fiddles with the glass in her hand.

  The bartender must notice she isn’t in the mood for conversation, because she’s soon across the bar, addressing the young couple. Rayna doesn’t care, she likes it better this way anyway.

  Soon, she’s six or seven shots deep. She really can’t remember how many she’s had. The world is starting to blur. But she does feel better. She finds herself laughing and joking with the other couple at the bar. And as it turns out, the bartender is actually pretty funny. She finds herself questioning whether she moved down the bar to be closer to the couple, or if they moved to be closer to her.

  She has no idea how long they joke for, or even what they talk about, but before she knows it she’s sitting by herself staring at the bottom of another empty shot glass.

  “It’s almost time for me to close,” the bartender says with a smile, sliding her a water. “But I have to clean up so you have a few minutes to sober up.”

  Rayna smiles at the water glass. It’s going to take her way more than a few minutes to sober up. She opens her mouth to tell the bartender and instead lets out a large hiccup.

  “Need me to call you a ride?” she asks.

  Rayna shakes her head. Who would she even call? Her parents? She doesn’t have any friends. Remi comes to the front of her mind again, accompanied by another wash of guilt. Great, all that alcohol was for nothing.

  She’s still debating how she’s going to get home when the bell above the door jingles. Rayna continues to stare at her water.

  “Sorry, we’re clo—” the bartender starts to say, but stops abruptly mid sentence. Rayna looks up to see why, instantly regretting it.

  It’s Detective Brown, standing in the doorway, his arms across his chest. “I just came to give her a ride.” He motions to Rayna.

  She tries to stand up defiantly to say she’s fine walking, but instead she stumbles into an unceremonious heap on the floor. Then she starts laughing.

  The bartender shakes her head. “I’m glad someone’s giving her a ride.”

  Rayna tries again to stand, but ends up half collapsed over a barstool. Detective Brown walks over and helps her get into a standing position where she’s leaning slightly on his shoulder. “Alright, I’ve got you. Let’s go.”

  They walk awkwardly to the car, reminding Rayna of a three legged race, which makes her start laughing once again. Detective Brown doesn’t say anything.

  He helps her into the front of his car.

  “Please don’t puke up here and make me regret not putting you in the back,” he says as he buckles her in. She’s about to respond that she’s fine when he shuts the door and walks around the front of the car.

  “How—” she hiccups again as he slides into the driver seat, “—did you know where I was?”

  He shrugs. “You weren’t at the meeting so I began to check all the bars. Didn’t take me long.”

  “How did you know I would go into a bar?” She furrows her brow in confusion. She can’t tell if it’s because she’s drunk, but his words don’t seem to make much sense.

  “Because that’s exactly what I did.”

  There’s silence in the car as Rayna begins to process his words. What he did? Does that mean…

  He must be reading her mind, because before she can say anything, he answers her unspoken question. “Yes, my mother went missing when I was in college.”

  “Did they find her?” she asks in a quiet voice. The tone of the conversation is sobering her up quite nicely. Or maybe it’s the fact that she hasn’t had another shot in probably over an hour.

  “Not alive.”

  A thick silence fills the car and Rayna considers the implications of his words. Before she can say anything else, he speaks up again.

  “Am I taking you to your parents’ home?”

  She shakes her head. “I would prefer not.”

  “Then where?” he asks.

  She considers for a moment where else she can even go and then shrugs.

  “If you don’t have anywhere else, you can sober up in the drunk tank?”

  She doesn’t like the idea of spending the night at the station, but she doesn’t like the idea of her parents seeing her this intoxicated either. “Good enough, I guess.”

  “If you’re sure,” he says before turning toward the station. Rayna doesn’t say anything in protest. After another period of silence she feels a burning question she just has to ask.

  “Do you…” she starts and then trails off, not recognizing the scratchy sound of her own voice. He waits patiently as she takes a deep breath and starts again. “Do you ever feel guilty? Like maybe you should have been taken instead?”

  “Yes and no.” He looks over at her with a somber look in his eyes. “Yes I feel guilty. I think every day if there was something I could have done so that she wouldn’t have been taken. But my circumstances are different than yours. My mom was taken by a…sexual predator. They wouldn’t have taken me instead. I just wish I would’ve prevented it.”

  Rayna nods in quiet understanding. “I just keep thinking that maybe if we still lived together, maybe it would have been me that was grabbed instead.”

  Detective Brown shakes his head. “You said yourself that you put her to bed in the guest room. She was either taken from there or after she left the house. The same thing could’ve happened if you had lived together.”

  She feels the tears trailing down her cheeks as they talk about her sister. Rayna can’t remember the last time she was this emotional about anything. It has to be the alcohol. “Still…” She trails off, looking out the window as they pull into the police station parking lot. “She was taken after leaving my house. I feel like it’s my fault.”

  “Hmm,” Detective Brown says as he helps her out of the car and up the few steps to the station door. She’s more steady on her feet than before, but definitely couldn’t walk a straight line if asked.

  He leads her into the waiting room where she waited before with John. He’s no longer here and she wonders where he went.

  “Technically,” Detective Brown says with a smile, “I should make you stay in the actual drunk tank, but I think you’ve sobered up enough to wait in here. Try to get a couple hours of sleep.” He helps her over to the couch, and Rayna closes her eyes almost immediately. She’s much more tired than she thought. So tired, she doesn’t even hear Detective Brown close the door.

  DETECTIVE GRADY

  NOW

  She’s so deep into the case, she barely even notices when the clock passes midnight and heads for one. She knows she should probably go home at some point, but something is bothering her about the case, and she feels like if she leaves now she’ll lose her train of thought.

  She sits there, staring at the pictures of the evidence and possible abduction scenes. But none of them make sense. She’s just flipped to the picture of the shoes when her partner walks in with Rayna and leads her to the waiting room. She watches quietly, wondering what’s up.

  As he closes the door to the waiting room, Detective Brown notices his workaholic partner is still at work and she’s looking at him with an inquisitive look. “She was drunk, to
o much to drive, but not enough for the drunk tank.” He shrugs sheepishly, a little embarrassed.

  “Why the special treatment?” Detective Grady raises an eyebrow. She’s always known her partner to be quite the hard ass, even when it comes to victims.

  “I feel for her, you know.”

  Grady holds up her hand. “Don’t peddle that bullshit with me. You’ve been my partner for four years and we have handled numerous missing person cases. I don’t remember you ever giving a family member special treatment in any other instance.” She leans back in her chair waiting for him to answer.

  He looks back at the closed door, wondering for himself why he bothered to help Rayna. “I don’t know. I guess she seems more…alone than most.”

  “She has her parents.”

  “I know.” Brown walks over to his desk across from Grady’s and sits down in his chair, looking at the photo she has sitting on her desk. “I didn’t come back to experience the Spanish inquisition.”

  “I can’t help it, I’m a woman, we’re nosy.” Grady chuckles as she picks up the photo that’s caught her partner’s eye. “It’s the shoes.”

  “I know,” he replies, reaching to take the photo from her. “Something Rayna said in the car is bugging me.”

  “Care to share?” Grady prods, leaning her head on her hand, elbow on her desk. She’s tired, but has a feeling she definitely won’t be leaving now.

  He studies the photo for a minute. “We were talking about guilt and how Rayna felt it was her fault.” He hands it back to Grady. “I told her it wasn’t, but then she said, ‘she was taken after leaving my house,’ and it made me think, what if whoever took Remi literally took her right after she left Rayna’s house?”

  Grady practically jumps out of her chair as she comes to the realization. “You mean right after, as in, as she stepped out the door, wearing her sisters shoes, so someone would think that Remi was Rayna?”