Girl Lost

by Kate Gable

  I don't have to tell him that we are not here in any official capacity. He knows that we're way out of our jurisdiction. So, I bite my tongue when the thought crosses my mind.

  "Any news or anything else since last time we spoke?" I ask.

  "Nope, unfortunately not. I had my deputies check a bunch of Nest cameras and recordings from the neighbors up and down the street, even around the corner. Everybody's been putting those up since we've been spotting black bears in the area, you know?"

  "Yeah, that's good," I say.

  "No luck. There was no recording of her getting dropped off or her getting into any car."

  "Wait. So, you think that Nancy Dillinger is lying? She didn't actually drop her off?"

  "Didn't say that. There's actually no camera that points directly at your house at the spot where she said she had dropped her off. Unfortunately," he says, licking the tip of his pen and looking through some more paperwork in the folder with my sister's name on top.

  That is the first time I've ever seen her name in this way, now missing officially. Even though she has been missing for a few days, this makes it real.

  The folder with her name on it is crinkled, used, licked. The sticker reads ‘Violet Carr.’ If we don't find her soon, this folder's going to grow to two, three, four, perhaps even a whole box.

  That would mean that she's either missing forever or likely dead.

  My mind starts to feel muddled so I exhale quickly.

  "We worked on organizing a search," I say.

  "Without us?"

  "It was last night when we got in, and I don't have much time. I have to go back to work. This is what we came up with." I pull out my phone and show him the pamphlet inviting people to the search party. "Who knows, maybe the guy who did this is going to show up and participate. Weirder things have happened."

  "You should not have done this without my authorization."

  "I didn't want to call you at ten in the evening while you were at home."

  "Why? Do you stop working at ten?" he asks, tilting his head in my direction. "I don't. Not when I have a little girl missing."

  "I'm sorry. I just wanted to do something last night. We posted this on a few Facebook groups and I got the map together. I made the grids. If we get enough volunteers, then we can check all of these places. I mean, of course I’ve already made my way around this grid a number of times, but it's good to have an official search party."

  "Of course it is. That's why usually these things are done working with the police."

  "I'm sorry, okay?” I apologize again. I'm not sure what else I can do.

  "Don't do it again," he snaps and then tells me to send my pamphlet over to him to print out.

  "I wanted to have this all organized for the news broadcast. I’m hoping maybe someone will join right after the press conference.”

  "Well, none of that stuff is going to air until noon tomorrow. So, if you want to use a press conference to spread the word, the earliest this thing can happen is in the afternoon."

  I hesitate.

  "You have a problem with that?"

  "I have to go back to LA. I have a case."

  "Well, we can always do one this afternoon and another one tomorrow morning. That will give people more time to get involved. You do realize you're going to need at least twenty or thirty people for this to be any sort of search party?"

  "Yeah," I say.

  "You do realize that it gets dark early now, and it's best to do it during the day."

  "Yes, of course.” He's lecturing me as if I'm a child, as if I have no idea what I'm talking about. I hate it, but there's nothing I can do about it. I need his help.

  "Okay. I'll get my deputies involved, assign someone to this job. Let's say three o’clock today and then noon tomorrow. Would that give you enough time to get back?"

  "Yes. Yes, it will.” I nod, even though I have no idea if I'm actually telling the truth. "Can I ask you about Natalie?" I ask when he nods toward the door for us to leave.

  "Natalie is missing as well," he says, shaking his head. "It's unclear what happened, same as your sister."

  “Did someone drop her off?"

  "Yeah. Her boyfriend Neil said that he dropped her off at nine p.m. We're going through the video cameras now. We should have a better view of what happened because a lot of people in that neighborhood have cameras set up, a lot more than in yours, and there are fewer trees and obstructions in the way. So, if at least a few of them are working, we should be able to tell if he's telling the truth."

  "When are you going to find out?"

  "We have deputies going to the houses as we speak. This just happened last night. So she didn't come back all night. Her mom was distraught, naturally."

  "Do you think the cases are connected?" I ask.

  "I don't know. It seems like a really odd coincidence, otherwise. Two girls, the same school who know each other, and who were acquaintances."

  "I'm not a big believer in coincidences," Sydney says and I immediately wish that she hadn't.

  "Me neither."

  Captain Talarico laughs, clearly taking it as a joke.

  "Are there cops who believe in coincidences? If anything, we're more of a conspiracy theory set, right?" He grabs his Big Gulp and sucks down a few mouthfuls of soda.

  We have a few minutes before the press conference. Sydney and I walk out to get some coffee and maybe breakfast. The vending machine doesn't offer much in terms of selection, but I still stand here staring at the options, trying to decide whether eight forty-five in the morning is an okay time to have a chocolate bar.

  Maybe it is.

  Maybe when your sister goes missing and then so does her friend.

  Maybe all bets are off at that point.

  9

  "You're going to be fine," Sydney says, rubbing in between my shoulder blades.

  I take a few heavy breaths in and let them out very slowly, trying to find that calming breath that my yoga teacher's always talking about. Damn it, I should've gone there more often. There's no way you can get rid of all of this tension after just a few sessions.

  "I just need to get through this," I say, pressing A3 for the pack of M&M's. Sydney buys me a small cup of coffee and dumps a bunch of cream into it, which I hate, but I don't bother telling her this. I take a few swigs and then pop a handful of M&M’s into my mouth to make the taste go away.

  I told Sydney about the videos last night. I had her promise not to tell my mom, but I had to tell someone. Violet and Natalie are involved in something. The cops know this, of course.

  Are they gone because of those videos that she made? Is that the reason? They're keeping that under wraps. No one would care about a girl like her if the news people let all of that get out. No, she has to look innocent and unmarred in order for this to make the news.

  Mom comes in about ten minutes before the start of the news conference looking terrible. Her hair is disheveled. Her makeup looks like it has been put on and then removed with some sort of abrasive substance. Even her top and her skirt are mismatched.

  "Mom, what's going on? Why do you... Why are you like this?"

  "I don't know. I just couldn't handle it. I was crying so much. I can't talk to them. I don't know what you mean by making her look human. I'm just so distraught."

  My jaw clenches up, distraught is an odd word to use for someone who is actually distraught. That's a descriptive noun, not a word that someone who is lost and actually distraught uses.

  "Mom, you're going to do this interview. You have to. You're her mother."

  "No, I can't. I can't. I've been watching those interviews of the parents of the missing children and they always look so put together, so perfect. I'm just not like that. You know that I don’t really speak well in public."

  "Like I do?" I hiss at her.

  "What are you even talking about?"

  This isn't the right time to remind her of the fact that I once threw up because I had to do a presentation in tenth gr
ade or the fact that I froze on stage when she forced me to participate in some pageant in elementary school. If I have to go there, I will.

  "Listen, I know that you have problems, but you make these sorts of speeches all the time,” Mom says. “I mean, I saw you on the news. Reading off a piece of paper reporting what you found.”

  "This is my sister."

  "Exactly. This is why you will be so much better at it," Mom says. "I mean, look at me. I can't go up there like this. I look like a homeless person."

  One side of her hair is pressed tightly against her head, but the other looks like it has been brushed out and now it's frizzy as a result. She's not wearing even a little bit of foundation, making all her age spots and the oily parts of her face completely visible. If she were to go on camera right now, no one would care. There's a fine line between looking like you’re grieving and looking like you have lost it completely.

  Sydney pulls me aside.

  "You can't let her do this," she says, as if I don't know this already. "She's going to blow this and they're not going to report on your sister. You have to do it."

  "Oh my God," I say. It comes out more like a growl of desperation. "I'm not even here. I don't even live here."

  "It doesn't matter. People have a family member who usually speaks and everyone else just stands there. That's what you have to do."

  "I have some makeup with me. I can clean her up and put a jacket on her to cover that atrocious blouse."

  "You can't trust her to do the talking, okay? Please?"

  I give her a nod. I know that everything she's saying is true, but I also know that I don't want all of this pressure laying on my shoulders. Then again, who else would take care of it?

  Hasn’t it always been this way?

  Mom being too distraught and overwhelmed by her feelings to deal with anything. I have always been the one who filled in the holes, who made sure that the family was fine.

  After my father's death, my mom was a wreck, as you can imagine. She was so much of a wreck that she didn't even stop me from finding his body; and then she was too upset to say anything at the funeral. She didn't care that I was terrified of speaking in public. On top of that, I didn't even know anything good to say.

  I didn't know what to say in an eulogy. I didn't know how to make my father, who I was desperately angry with, sound like a decent person after all of the years of awfulness that he had put me through. She didn't care though. She said she just couldn't do it and that was it.

  Right now, it's the same thing all over again. Yes, it's her daughter who's missing and she's my sister, but Mom has been utterly helpless since the beginning of this debacle.

  So, why would she be any different now?

  I go to the bathroom, check my makeup, use the toilet, and reapply my lipstick.

  I walk out with a stony expression on my face. As soon as I greet the reporters and get behind the podium, I soften it to look pleasant, beautiful, and welcoming. It's an overt decision. I can feel my lips relaxing. I let my eyelids rest a little bit, despite the fact that there are blinding lights in my face.

  I look at the camera. I plead. I pretend that there's one person on the other end who's holding her hostage and I plead for him to let Violet go.

  "Please, whatever you want, just tell us, with no questions asked. We need her. I need my sister back. She's just thirteen years old. If you know anything about her or her whereabouts, you have to come forward. Please." This is my part of the job, to be the family, to be the one in grief, in a public manner so that people believe us.

  The other part of the job belongs to the captain and the director of communications from the sheriff’s department who had previously gone over the details about her disappearance. It was a conscious decision not to bring up her disappearance in conjunction with Natalie's quite yet, since it just happened, and the deputies weren't able to go through all of the cameras and interview all of the neighbors.

  The last thing the sheriff’s department wants is for Natalie to show back up after just sleeping over at a friend's house and have all of the reporters forget about Violet as a result, assuming that she would come back, too.

  "You did a good job," Captain Talarico says after the lights go off and we walk out into the hallway.

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah. You really sold it."

  "Well, wasn't so much of an act."

  "Yeah, but it takes a lot of practice. Not everyone can do it."

  I nod. I know what he means. Some people appear aloof on camera. They clench up. They don't want to talk. If there's ever a camera thrown into your face, you have to lean in. You have to participate. You have to engage. You have to make the people on the other side of it believe that you're telling the truth.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see a reporter with KTLA walking out, draping her bag over her shoulder. I pull myself away from the captain and approach her.

  "Hi, I'm sorry, Miranda. I'm sorry to bother you. I just wanted to thank you for coming and helping me to find my sister."

  "Yes, of course," she says kind of casually, not really engaging.

  Unlike her on-air personality, she seems to be distracted, probably worried about the next job and the next place that she needs to go to.

  "Can I give you my card?" I ask. "Please? Call me anytime, day or night, in case you get any leads."

  She looks down and reads my job title. Suddenly her interest is piqued.

  "You're a detective?"

  "Yes, homicide."

  "Oh. Did you say that?"

  "Yeah, I mentioned it on air, but-"

  "Oh, wow. Okay. I must've missed that. I guess it was when you introduced yourself, but you're actually a homicide detective and your sister is missing."

  "Yeah." I nod. "Why is that relevant?"

  "Well, it's unusual, for one. Would you mind doing a one-on-one interview with me?"

  "Not at all," I say.

  We find an empty room and her cameraman comes over and sets up. The bright lights come back on and I don't have anything in which to check my makeup or attire, except for my phone.

  I have two sweat stains underneath my arms growing bigger with every passing minute, but I hope to God that if I press my arms close to my sides, they won't be too visible.

  "I'm not sure how much of this we can air, but I would just love to hear anything that you can tell me about your sister."

  I tell her the whole story again, mentioning a few more details like how sweet and loving she is, straight A student, never sneaks out at night, and never had a boyfriend.

  "She wasn't anything like me when I was a kid," I add.

  "Well, you turned out pretty good, Detective Carr."

  "Yeah. There was that iffy time in high school where I could have really gone either way," I joke.

  She asks me a few more questions and I answer, nothing unusual, just more details about Violet growing up, my parents, and that kind of thing.

  At the end, I gloss over the details and emphasize the small town and my life now in LA. She seems to like the quaint angle in place. I know that she's not really wishing for my sister to be dead, but all reporters wish for some sort of resolution just so you have more of a story to report on.

  "I'm not sure how much of this will air. It will really depend on my boss," Miranda says, shaking my hand at the end. Her nails are perfect, immaculate, just like her contouring and her hair. There's no team traveling with her so I know that she does it all herself.

  She looks so good, she could be a YouTube beauty influencer.

  "I appreciate anything you can do. I just really want to get the word out as much as possible."

  "Yes, of course. Again, I'm really sorry." She gives me her card and tells me goodbye.

  10

  Later that morning, I watch the press conference on television with my mom and Sydney, which we switched around between channels, but they all show the same thing. At the end, they announced what time the volunteers are needed to participate i
n the search effort, along with the meeting place.

  I take the video of the broadcast from KTLA and share it on the newly created Find Violet Carr Facebook and Instagram pages that we have just set up.

  "What about TikTok?" Sydney asks.

  “What about it?"

  "Well, a lot of older people are on Facebook, but you won’t find any little kids on there anymore. I've had a case be solved with the help of the kids on TikTok. Why not make an account there as well?"

  "Yeah, sure," I say, realizing that I've never used the site before.

  I download the app when I have a free second and take a look around. I've heard about it. It's popular with people who like to dance and make funny little videos of themselves. I know that it'll take me a little bit to figure out how to use it and how to tag it properly so it gets out to the right people.

  "You think her friends are on it?" I ask Sydney.

  "Pretty sure."

  "I should probably search for their names just in case."

  "Yeah, of course.” Sydney nods.

  Mom has very little interest in this. She has a Facebook account, but she rarely uses it, except to stay in touch with her friends. I show her the page and how to share it. She’s the local here and I wonder how many more people will open up to her rather than me about my sister.

  "Mom, are you listening?" I ask, showing her the page again. "I'm going to leave. I have to go back to work tonight. So, I want you to be here and check it, see if anyone writes anything."

  "Yeah. Sure, of course," she says rather absentmindedly.

  "Mom, you really have to pay attention. I need your help."

  "I'm here, aren't I?" she asks as if being here is an imposition.

  "What happened? What's wrong?" I press.

  "I don't know, nothing. I just didn't get very much sleep last night."

  "Yeah, I know," I say, noting silently that she actually went to bed around nine.

  I went to bed at two, but hey, who's comparing, right?

  "You are going to be there at the search party, right? I can't."

  "Why can't you come?" she asks, folding her hands.