Searching for Rose

by Dana Becker

  And the pain was deepened by the loss of Joseph. She could really use his touch, his sensitivity, even just his strong, gentle presence, looming next to her. Someone to literally lean on. If they were still together, April was certain Joseph would be here, helping her with the boxes, and helping her, quietly, in his way, process each item. At moments like these, when she needed him, she missed him the most.

  The one solace that April had, as she packed away Rose’s stuff, was sleuthing, playing detective. It gave her some distance from the memories she associated with these objects. Mostly it was just a distraction from the pain.

  At first. Then, as she dug further, the sleuthing became interesting. What she was discovering, as she sorted through Rose’s stuff, was very interesting indeed. The more she sorted, the more she realized that she should have confronted her emotions and done this digging much earlier.

  Everything seemed to offer some kind of lead. She found a diary that was full of disturbing nods and gestures toward April’s worst fears. “Still not sure what to do about R,” i.e., Ricky, Rose had written in one entry. “Feels like it’s getting more dangerous.” And in another: “Need to talk to R. Settle things. Need to convince him I’m not a threat to him. That I just wanna BE DONE with this and walk away.”

  On and on it went. Rose didn’t always put a date on every entry, and April could sometimes only tell the entries apart from the different color pens she used. Often the details were hazy. Rose was always careful not to spell anything out too clearly, in case the diary ever fell into the wrong hands. Much of it probably would have been almost incoherent to somebody who didn’t know Rose, her life, her way of speaking and thinking. But, of course, nobody on earth knew Rose better than her older sister, and so the meanings of these entries could not have been clearer to April. The police must have seen these diaries when they’d poked around Rose’s stuff. And yet they’d never asked April about them. Another sign that they weren’t doing their job well.

  Rose had clearly been terrified of Ricky, and she’d gotten herself into something scary enough that she’d been afraid to speak about it even with April. She must have been afraid that in telling April what was going on, she’d endanger April, too. Rose had been trying to protect April from whatever it was that she knew about Ricky. April had suspected something like this had been going on . . . now here was the evidence, clear as day. Inevitably her thoughts turned to Joseph and the way he’d insisted that Ricky wasn’t guilty. How could she have trusted Joseph for even a minute?

  April continued flipping through the diary, gathering more evidence. She ripped out a few empty pages and began making her own notes, trying to make a clear timeline of events. In the days leading up to Rose’s disappearance the diary entries got longer and more distressed. Rose had been getting more worried about Ricky. From these entries April could also tell that Rose hadn’t seen or talked to Ricky in some time and that she was becoming more nervous that a meeting with him was necessary.

  April put the book down for a moment and noticed something written on its inside cover. It was a long string of random letters and numbers—or, what anyone on earth would consider random. But, to April’s eyes, they weren’t random at all. It was a code that she and Rose had invented when they were kids. They still used it, occasionally, sometimes to hide their thoughts from others, sometimes just for fun, in texts. The only two people on earth who could decipher this language were Rose and April. With only a tiny hesitation, April was able to decode the message. She translated the gibberish into:

  Ri-Ri! if you’re reading this because I’m IN TROUBLE—and that had better be the only reason you’re reading it!—this is what you need to do right now. 1995_(my favorite cereal forever) at gmail. Password BabyElephant1995. It will tell you what you need to know.

  For a quick second, April smiled. “Honey Smacks” had been Rose’s favorite cereal when she was a kid. And BabyElephant was exactly the kind of password Rose would come up with. For one second, April felt happy; she felt, for a fleeting moment, that she had something of her sister, something that was really her. But that feeling only let her down, only reminded her of the sad and bitter fact that, actually, she didn’t have her sister here. And might never again see her. But even that sadness didn’t last. Now wasn’t the time to linger on emotions. She’d done that for too long. No, April was on a mission. This was a huge lead. April sprang into action.

  She grabbed her phone and immediately logged into the gmail account. The first e-mail was marked as “Unread” and had the subject line: To April: Please Read This First.

  Dear Sis,

  If you’re reading this, it means something bad has happened. But I guess you already know that. This is an encrypted account (fancy!)—that means any message I send from it is total anonymous, no trace of me on it at all. (Don’t ask me how I did that.) Why did I create this account? 1) I needed a totally anonymous way to communicate with the police, if things got to that point. 2) I made a habit of erasing all of my e-mails with Ricky from my regular account—in case someone hacked it—and stored all of those messages here. I didn’t want the wrong people to see them. And if anyone was gonna see them, I wanted that person to be you. I knew you’d know what to do with them. The reason I didn’t tell you about this plan or this account is that I didn’t want you to worry and I also didn’t wanna put you in any kind of trouble. Don’t be mad. Now that you’re reading this, it means that trouble has already come. I’m so sorry, Ri-Ri. I’ve made some mistakes. I never wanted you to be mixed up in this.

  Love always,

  Rosie

  April suddenly remembered Rose referring to this secret e-mail account. Once, when April had complained to Rose that she needed to be more careful about her communications, especially with Ricky, that she didn’t know who was watching, she’d told April that she’d “set something up” and that she was taking every precaution possible.

  As April read the archived e-mails, she got a clear and specific picture of the tense negotiations Rose had had with Ricky. “How can I trust you?” Rose wrote in one message. (And Ricky’s reply: “You better start trying.”) And in another message: “I don’t feel safe seeing you alone. If we meet, we meet in public.” At a certain point, after Ricky pleaded with her, Rose finally agreed to meet him. And after more tense negotiation, they agreed on the place, Finnegan’s in North Philly, and on a day and time: July 9. A Thursday. 9 P.M.

  April just stared at it.

  A million thoughts rushed into her head. July 9, July 9 . . . What was happening on that day? Was that the last day Rose was seen? April scrolled into her own texts with Rose. The last text she’d received from her sister was two days earlier. July 7. April’s eyes almost jumped out of her head: this meeting with Ricky on the 9th definitely happened during the same few days when Rose likely disappeared. April quickly scanned the rest of the e-mails in the inbox of this secret account. The last message, a message to Ricky, was dated also July 7. It was easy to imagine that Rose hadn’t communicated with him after that—at least not by e-mail—and that they’d met on the 9th, and that was it.

  And there was another glaring fact: This July 9th meeting contradicted something Ricky had told April. When April had seen Ricky, when he’d shown up unexpectedly at the Metropolitan Bakery that night, he’d told her that the last time he’d seen Rose was weeks before she disappeared, when—according to him—Rose had come by his shop and broken up with him. But that was simply not true. She had the proof in this e-mail. Why was Ricky lying? What was he covering up?

  Everything pointed in the same direction: Ricky. And if Ricky was, as she suspected, the person responsible. . . why had Joseph insisted that he was not? Why was he covering for Ricky? April collected all of Rose’s diaries and put them into her bag. She knew what she needed to do.

  Chapter Nine

  April was busy now with a full-time job at the bakery and two stressful and time-consuming classes at the culinary school. But she spent every free second on her Ros
e investigations. She’d gone to Finnegan’s, the bar where Rose and Ricky had been planning to meet on that night in July. She interviewed everyone who worked at the bar and who might have been there that night. She even tracked down some people who’d worked there but had left during the last few months. People seemed to remember both Ricky and Rose—both of whom were regulars at the bar—but nobody could place them at the bar on that particular night. If they had met, it wasn’t the kind of meeting that made an impression on people: there wasn’t a big fight or tears. Nobody got slapped. If anything of importance happened at that meeting, nobody at the bar seemed to know about it.

  April had noticed that there were two security cameras in the bar: one mounted at the bar itself and one by the front door. But when April asked the security guy if they saved old footage, he told her, with regret, that they erased everything at the end of each week. If there was ever any footage of Ricky and Rose meeting, it had long since been erased. Everything seemed to be coming up empty.

  But April wouldn’t stop. Even while she was at work at the bakery or in class, April would review all the details in her mind, over and over again, looking for something she’d missed. She was doing that one night at the bakery, going over the details again in her head, just before closing time. She’d scrubbed down the tables and had retreated into the kitchen to begin putting away and cleaning everything there, and prepping the space for the next morning, when she heard a familiar voice from behind her.

  “Hey,” it said.

  April froze. She took a deep breath.

  Just breathe, she whispered to herself.

  This was what she’d been preparing for during the past weeks, ever since she’d seen Rose’s secret e-mails. But she hadn’t thought it was actually going to happen, and certainly not that night, in the bakery as she closed up shop. But it was happening. Right now. A strange calmness came over her. She slipped her hand into the little purse she kept slung over her shoulder for just this reason, and turned around, pointing a .22 caliber Smith & Wesson pistol directly at Ricky’s heart.

  She held her arm extended, just slightly bent, with her left hand gripping the shooting wrist, steadying it. She squared her eyes right behind the gun, to aim, just as she’d been practicing at a shooting range every day that week.

  She’d bought the gun last week from a friend of one of her exes. She’d gone to the bar that he owned. She’d marched right in, sat at the bar, resisting the deep temptation to order a drink, and asked him if he’d sell her a gun. He sold her one that night, no questions asked.

  “Hands up, Ricky. Right now. Higher.”

  Ricky lifted his hands in the air. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. April quickly approached him, keeping the gun squarely aimed.

  “Keep them up,” she said. “I swear to God I’ll pull this trigger if you do anything. I would love to do it, Ricky. Do not tempt me. . . .”

  With the gun in her right hand still pointed at him, she quickly reached into his belt, grabbed his gun, retreated to her position by the sink. She slipped his gun into her purse.

  April could tell that Ricky was watching her in disbelief.

  “Been practicing,” she said.

  “I can tell,” he said. “Can I put my hands down now?”

  “Yeah, put your hands down,” she said. “I was gonna visit you, you know. But I’m glad you came here. We need to talk.”

  “Thank you. Could you stop pointing that thing at me?”

  “I’ll put it down when I feel like it. I’m gonna ask the questions here, okay? You gimme the answers. Got it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah, what?” April said, clicking off the gun’s safety.

  “You ask the questions,” Ricky said, nervously. “I give the answers. Got it.”

  “Ricky, I’m serious here. I know what you did. I will kill you right now, happily. Don’t give me a reason. Now answer me: When and where was the last time you saw Rose?”

  “She came by the shop. . . .”

  “You’re lying. I know you’re lying.”

  “I’m not. I’m telling you . . .”

  “I’m giving you a chance to make this right and to save yourself. I know the truth. I know everything, Ricky. So let’s start from the beginning. Where was the last time you saw Rose before she supposedly disappeared?”

  “I’m telling you,” Ricky said now, more desperately, “it was when she came by my shop. . . .”

  “SHUT UP!” April shouted. “I will pull this trigger. . . .”

  “April, I swear, I swear that’s what happened. . . .”

  “I will KILL you if you continue lying. Tell me the truth and I’ll spare you. It’s the only way.”

  April was beginning to lose control of her rage. Her hand, holding the gun, was beginning to tremble. And, in this sudden surge of emotions, she saw something in Ricky’s face that unnerved her even more. He was terrified. No, it was worse: he was confused.

  And his confusion was genuine. This wasn’t the face of someone who was defiantly hiding information; it was the face of someone who was about to be executed and didn’t have any clue what the executioner wanted from him. It wasn’t what April expected to see and it terrified her. Why didn’t he just tell her the truth, especially because his life depended on it? For the first time it occurred to April that he might not be lying. And yet . . . if he was, would she really kill him? Could she really pull that trigger? Her rage was strongly urging her to do it, to squeeze. And yet, that look in his face, that look . . .

  “Okay. You have three choices here, Ricky,” April said, in as calm a voice as she could.

  “You tell me where Rose is right now—and you tell me when and where you’re gonna let her go. If you do that, we’re good. No trouble from me. You go your way, I go mine. Got it?”

  “Yes,” said Ricky.

  “Or second choice: You pretend to tell me where she is, and tell me you’re gonna let her go but don’t: I will go to the cops and tell them everything. The pill smuggling business, the money laundering, the blackmail, the cover-ups, the weapons stuff, all of the assaults. Not to mention this kidnapping. EVERYTHING, Ricky.”

  Ricky looked at her in horror.

  “You try to play me, I will testify against you in court. And, in case you can’t tell, I’m gonna be a killer witness. And if you think you can scare me out of it, or kill me first, I’m telling you right now, and listen closely to what I’m saying: I’ve already written up my testimony, in detail, with dates and everything, and it’s saved and backed up online in two separate places—in places where the police will find it if something happens to me. You can’t and won’t stop me from testifying. I will ruin you and put you in jail for the rest of your life. So better just play along with me. Got it? Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “And third option: You continue lying to me here, and I will put a bullet in you right now. Don’t think I won’t do it, Ricky. I got the gun for this reason. I’ve been picturing this for a while. I will kill you right here for what you’ve done. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “Good. Now answer me: Where were you on the night of July 9?”

  “What? Um, um. I’m not sure. That was a long time ago. I’d have to think about it.”

  “JULY NINTH! Where. Were. You?” April was shouting, her shooting hand now violently shaking.

  “April, please, hold on. I really don’t know. I’m not lying. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t remember anything about that day. . . .”

  “Ricky, I know you met my sister at Finnegan’s! You said you last saw her at your shop. Well, I know that you saw her at least one other time, at Finnegan’s . . .”

  “No,” he said. “No, no . . .”

  “Actually, yes,” April said. “I know you did. I saw the e-mail, Ricky. I saw the security tape”—she lied—“and I saw you two there on the recording. Don’t lie.”

  Though April was terribly worked up now, she still had enough of her wit
s about her to tell that there was someone else now in the shop. Someone had come through the front door. She could hear footsteps. She immediately slipped the gun into her purse, just as a police officer appeared in the doorway.

  “Everything okay in here?” he said.

  Ricky just stared, but April, though struggling hard to rein in her agitation, smiled, trying to turn on the charm. “Oh, everything is fine, Officer. Thank you.”

  The cop gave a look around the space, and finally lingered on Ricky, giving him a long, suspicious glance that was intended as much to inspect him for any signs of wrongdoing as it was to communicate to Ricky that he was Being Watched.

  “Do you know why I’m here?” the cop said, still looking at Ricky.

  Ricky said nothing, but started making some sounds, as though he were about to mutter something. Again, April took the lead.

  “It was my bad, Officer. I was getting a bit emotional.. . .”

  “I heard shouting,” the cop said.

  “I know, I know. I’m sorry. Everything is okay here. Really.”

  “You work here?” he said to April.

  She nodded, and pointed to her Metropolitan Bakery apron.

  “You?” the cop said to Ricky. “You work here?”

  “No, sir,” Ricky muttered, his eyes fixed on the wall next to the officer.

  “You want him out of here?” the cop said to April.

  April hesitated, unsure what was best to say in this moment. Of course she wanted him to stay, so that she could finish her interrogation of him. But maybe that would be impossible now.

  Ricky’s eyes shot up.

  “I should leave,” he said.

  “Good idea,” said the cop. “And watch yourself.”

  Ricky turned around and left without a word. Now it was just the cop and April. She became suddenly aware of her purse, with two guns in it, neither of which she was licensed to carry. The cop leaned out the door, to make sure Ricky was away.