Shark Lover

by Marie, Gracie

  “You’re certainly are optimistic aren’t you?” Carly asked giving her a look. “I’m just trying to prepare you for what might come. I don’t want to see you completely crushed. I love you way too much to see you down like that.”

  “I know you are doing it for the right reasons and I really appreciate that. It’s just hard knowing that he’s missing and we don’t have a clue as to where he went or why,” She said as she let her toes graze through the sand. “Look over there, isn’t that Officer Sanchez’s car?” She pointed towards a house to the side of where they were walking. “I think he’s inside of that vacation rental questioning some people. Let’s go over there and check that out. I wonder if we are allowed to.”

  “I don’t think so. Let’s wait over here until he is done. We don’t want to get in the way of an interrogation session. He needs to be able to get all of the information that he can. They might know something that could lead to finding Marc.” Carly twirled her hair with one finger as she began to think more strategically. “They were probably here when he was. Their vacation might have started by witnessing something horrific.”

  “Carly, stop. Don’t be so negative. And what made you Sherlock Holmes?” She rolled her eyes at her sister again.

  “Hey, I’m just being realistic. I’m trying to play out all of the scenarios in my head. So many different things could have happened. We need to think purposefully and figure out exactly what might have happened. If he’s questioning this particular beach cabin, it must have occurred in this area. So we know that so far. Now let’s put together all of the facts that we have so far Cathy. Help me get this story straight.” She stopped thinking out loud for a moment and tried thinking of more possibilities. “Cathy?” She looked around realizing her sister was gone. “Oh no not you too! Why is everyone going missing?” She put her hands on her head and started looking around in all directions.

  “I’m over here!” Cathy yelled out to her sister from behind some shrubs on the side of the house.

  “Over where?” Carly asked back still confused and unsure where Cathy went. “Why are you over there Cathy?”

  “I’m to your left. Come here! I think I found something of Marc’s!”

  “Oh, what did you find?” Carly said as she started moving to her left to where her sister was. She could see curly blond hair in the mix of large, grassy bushes and she knew it was her sister. Cathy always had a way of getting lost in the adventure. Carly knew she would need to calm her sister down so they could really concentrate of finding Marc.

  “Look at this,” Cathy said as she held up a watch in Carly’s face. It was silver and the glass screen was cracked. “I can’t believe that this is here.”

  “I don’t get it. What is it?” Carly asked, unsure of why the watch was significant or why it had anything to do with Marc.

  “This is his. He always wore this watch in the lab. He said it was easier to check the time on his wrist rather than on his phone. He said he was old-school like that.”

  “Yeah, but I’m sure every guy in the world wears a silver Rolex watch. How do you know if this one is his specifically?” Carly inquired, her inner detective getting the best of her. She knew that this clue was too good to be true. When things came so easily, they were always too good to be true. She knew that for a fact.

  “Because the bottom of the face of the watch is engraved with his name. Look here.” She held up the watch again to Carly’s face as she read the name. Sure enough it was engraved with the name Marc Porter in cursive.

  “Wow, I can’t believe it. That’s crazy that we would find it. Why would it be back here by this house and behind these shrubs? How did you even see it?” She questioned her sister with fire in her eyes. Every little clue was important to the big picture and she needed to know the answers.

  “I don’t know. Maybe he took it off before going into the water? He obviously wouldn’t want to go surfing or swimming with it on. It was a gift from his mother. I’ll save it so I can give it back to her. I saw the silver. It was popping out to me. The sunlight was shining upon it, so I went to go investigate and found it.”

  “It just gives another piece of the puzzle. Now we know he was here for sure. We have two clues that prove so. The car and now the watch. I’m not so sure why it would be all the way back here by the house though. Maybe people at the house that Officer Sanchez is questioning have something to do with his disappearance. That’s why he’s there right now. Should we go to the front of the house and wait for him to come out? It would be great to talk to him and we could show him the watch.” Carly said reasonably.

  “I believe he was here too. I have all along. Everything points to him being here. Not so fast on the suspects though. Maybe he was renting this place a few days ago and that’s why the watch was out here. I don’t think anyone would have moved it. He doesn’t have any enemies, so I don’t know why random vacationers would come after him. I still believe he placed it here so it wouldn’t get broken and maybe he forgot about it. He could have left it by accident. We have to think of every possibility.” Thinking she then said, “Let’s let Officer Sanchez do his thing and we can go explore the beach around this area. There might be something else that could be important to this case.”

  “But wouldn’t he have taken all of his belongings down to the shore with him? Also I don’t think he would have wanted to come to surf with all of his stuff. He would have been more prepared. I mean if it were me, I would have left everything in the car. It would have been much safer then bringing it down here and leaving it behind a shrub,” Carly said as she started following Cathy down to the beach. “I agree with searching the beach again. You know Marc better than Officer Sanchez does, you would know his belongings better than anyone. Maybe we will find more clues down here.”

  Cathy stopped and gasped. She couldn’t believe she was seeing it again.

  “Cathy, what’s wrong?” Carly exclaimed with exhilaration.

  “I…I…I…can’t believe it’s here. This isn’t good.” She stumbled over her words.

  “What? What’s here?” Carly shook her sister. “Cathy, tell me. It could be something of great significance!”

  Cathy closed her eyes, not wanting to believe what she was seeing. She had just seen it last week. It had only been a week since she had held it in her arms and had felt the smoothness of it. She didn’t want to believe it. But there it was lying on the ground a few feet away. She had stared at it for hours. She knew this was it. The blood red color of it made her shudder. Finding the words to describe what she was seeing was too difficult. She wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere but here.

  “Cathy?” Carly shook her again to awake her from the shock. “Please tell me, you’re scaring me.”

  She shook her head and put her hands over her face in response. Talking now would make the horror all too true.

  “I wish you would tell me. Cathy, I don’t understand. What do you see? Is it something around us? Do you see another clue?” Carly probed once again trying to get the answers out of her shocked sister.

  Cathy nodded her head and looked away from Carly’s intense glare. It was too much pressure to handle.

  “Okay, so you saw a clue. What was it? It was something of his wasn’t it?”

  “Yes!” She blurted out. “I can’t believe we are seeing it.”

  “Correction, you are seeing it. I would like to see it, but you won’t tell me where it is.”

  “It’s a part of Marc’s board. His red board. The one he always surfed with. It’s just a few feet away from us.”

  Chapter 13

  “What red board? Cathy, what are you talking about?” Carly threw her hands up in question and frustration. She knew her sister was troubled by something, she just didn’t know what. She wanted her to tell her what was wrong. Cathy had always been a free spirit and Carly wasn’t used to her holding back as she was now.

  Cathy finally responded by running closer to the piece of the board. She knelt down when she
reached it and started running her hands over it. The board felt exactly the same way that it had the past weekend. She knew it was the same one. It was red and had the blue waves going down the center of it. The Rip Curl logo was engraved on the bottom. Only the bottom half was left. Cathy wondered what had happened to the top half. She knew this board had been custom-made and that there wouldn’t be any others out there like it. It was created to be unique and it was.

  “So you are saying that this is Marc’s surfboard?” Carly queried as she knelt down with Cathy.

  “Yes, I know for sure that it is. Well, it’s part of it. His father had this custom-made for him on his thirteenth birthday,” She said still looking over the board. “He wouldn’t have left this here. I know that for a fact Carly. This is really bad.”

  “Don’t lose hope yet, Cathy. We don’t know that anything bad happened to him. Like you said he could have been staying on this beach. That’s probably it. He was staying in one of the vacation cabins and left his board out so he could surf whenever he wanted to. It would be such a hassle to keep carrying it in and out right?” Carly tried her hardest to put on a brave face for her sister. Her optimism wasn’t helping the situation, but she had to try anything that she could to make Cathy feel better. The clues were coming together and they weren’t looking good. She knew herself that half a board like this wouldn’t just be left on the beach, but she had to try everything and anything to help Cathy.

  “No, Carly. This is really bad. Look at these marks on the side of the board. There’s so many scratches. It looks as if something sharp went across it. We just don’t know what it was. This is terrible. Carly, what do we do?” She said as more tears started to pour down her face. “Look at this, something bad happened on this board. What do we do?”

  “First of all, let’s just calm down. I mean we could be freaking out over nothing. Sometimes the water is rough and leaves marks on surfboards if they crash into the sand pretty hard. Sometimes surfboards even break apart. Now let’s take some deep breaths to calm down.” She closed her eyes and started breathing hoping that Cathy would follow suit. She did and they breathed in and out slowly for a few minutes. “Alright. Now let’s go talk to Officer Sanchez. He probably has some more information and we can give him these clues.”

  “But wait!” Cathy suddenly exclaimed.

  “What’s wrong? I think it would be best if we talk to the Officer. We need to at least check in at this point and then we can continue searching. Don’t worry. He will help us out and we really need to hand over the evidence, especially if this is a criminal investigation.”

  Cathy gasped loudly and loudly said, “Criminal investigation?”

  “Whoops, sorry wrong words. But whatever happened, we definitely need to hand over the evidence. I don’t want this to get blamed on you. I know how these things go.”

  “I’m sure they could probably track my phone and see that I was not in this area at the time, but yeah you are probably right. I might look like the main suspect. It’s just that I don’t really want to hand over the board or the watch. I know how much they mean to him. He wouldn’t want them to just be handed over to law enforcement.”

  “He would if it lead us to him. Come on, let’s go. I see him leaving the house. If we hurry we can still catch him before he takes off in his car.”

  “You’re right. We need to help Marc. Let’s run. Hurry!” Cathy put Marc’s surfboard under her arm and put the watch carefully in her back pocket of her jeans. She then started running as fast as she could towards Officer Sanchez. Carly followed quickly behind her trying as hard as she could to keep up with her sisters fast pace.

  “Officer Sanchez! It’s us!” Carly called out waving her hands to grab his attention. He was still further away in the distance, but he turned his head around and looked at the girls. Waving to the girls, he stopped in his tracks curiously looking at what Cathy had under her arms.

  After a few minutes, they had finally reached Officer Sanchez. Cathy was the first one to speak, which surprised Carly. She couldn’t believe that her sister had regained her composure that quickly. She was so shaken up a few moments ago, but now she was acting as if everything was completely fine. Carly’s face was glowing. Even though the situation didn’t look good, she was still proud of her sister for regaining her tranquility and staying calm throughout the whole endeavor.

  “Thanks for turning over the evidence. I know that was hard for you to do,” Officer Sanchez replied after hearing Cathy’s explanation of the clues and what they meant. “I will bring these back to the station and we will take a better look at them and see if they give us any more information on this case.”

  “Did you find any information from the vacationers at the beach cabin?” Carly blurted out trying to find out more.

  Cathy gave her a look. She loved her sister, but sometimes she asked the wrong questions at the wrong time. Cathy wanted to know the details as well, but she didn’t want to interrogate the officer.

  He cleared his throat, not bothered by the question. “After interviewing the entire family, I found out that they did see Marc three days ago. They were relaxing out on the porch and the kids were playing in the front of the house. They described seeing a man with dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. They stated that he was wearing a wetsuit and appeared to be going out to surf. The kids said he briefly said hello to them and then proceeded to walk down to the beach. They said after that point, they never saw him again.”

  “The last time he was seen by anyone was three days ago. We went to the university. Nobody has seen him since then. If the family didn’t see him leave the beach, I wonder where he would have gone.” Carly said thinking out loud once again.

  “That’s what we are thinking. The time of disappearance was three days ago. I’ve had an investigator look into the beach rentals here.” He paused. “He was not renting a beach house or cabin in the area. We believe that he came here to surf. That eliminates the possibility that he came up here to rent a place. He might still be staying with a friend. We are going to continue to investigate the area and we will keep up with the questioning throughout the rest of the day and possibly tomorrow. I’ll call you again if we find out any new information. Thanks for handing over the evidence. I’ll have another officer take these items back to the station and we will tell you what we find.”

  “Thanks so much, Officer Sanchez. We really appreciate everything that you are doing for this investigation.” Cathy shook his hand and thanked him on behalf of herself and Carly. “We’re probably going to call it a day. We might search the beach one more time, but it’s getting kind of late. We should probably leave the work up to the professionals like you. Once again thank you so much.”

  “No problem. We take missing person’s cases seriously around here. We’ll call you soon and let you know any new facts that we find out. Thanks for being patient. I’ll be in touch soon.” He replied in the same monotone, serious tone that he always used as he started walking back to his police car. He put the board in the back seat, closing the windows so it would be safe inside. Taking off at a fast speed, he used his siren. Cathy figured he wanted to get the evidence back as quickly as possible.

  “Let’s go down to the beach one last time and then we can go home,” Carly said to her sister. She could tell from Cathy’s expression that she was still dazed from all of the happenings of the day. Carly looked out at the ocean and watched the sun slowly set. She knew they only had a little time left to search for more clues. “Hurry, let’s go down to the water.” She grabbed on to her sister’s hand and started pulling her down the beach.

  “Carly, I don’t know how much more I can take. This isn’t looking good. I don’t know what to do. I can’t give up on Marc, but this is getting to be too much for me to take!” She said as she stopped dead in her tracks.

  “I know it’s a lot to take Cathy, but the sun is setting and we only have a limited amount of time. Marc would want you to do this. He would want you to find ou
t the truth.” She said understandably.

  “You’re right, he probably would want me to help with the search. I can’t give up now. I need to find out the rest of the story. I want to bring back Marc for his mother. I feel so bad for her. She must be worried out of her mind. That has to be every parent’s worst fear, having a missing child. And of course I want to bring him back for me too. He was the love of my life,” She said regaining the pep in her walk and heading down to the shore. “We’ll find him, I just know it.”

  The waves were crashing down on her toes. The water was ice cold and Cathy shivered as she felt the chill move throughout her entire body. She wasn’t going to let this valuable time go to waste. She got down on her hands and knees, desperately searching for something she knew she wouldn’t find. The sand grains went through her fingers, she wasn’t finding anything useful. She found shells and more shells. Groaning out loud, she could barely control her frustration. She just wanted to find something that would lead her to some answers.

  Walking away from Carly, she needed to take some space. Her frustration was finally getting the best of her. She tried to take a moment to think of peaceful thoughts. Thinking of the ocean softly grazing her feet and waking up from a sun-kissed nap, she felt herself relax a little more. She continued to walk slowly down the shore. The lighting was perfect. It wasn’t too dark or too light. Sunset was always the best time of the day to walk along the beach.

  She took a second to peer behind her to look at Carly. Her baby sister was dedicated. She was searching thoroughly. It looked as if she had picked up a metal detector and was now searching with it. Leave it to Carly to ask a perfect stranger if she could use her metal detector. For the first time today, Cathy found herself actually relaxed. All of her worries had subsided for a while and she felt blessed to have the opportunity to take in the fresh air of the day.

  She continued walking slowly down the beach. The sun was setting fast and she knew that their time here would be running out. They weren’t equipped to run a night search. Cathy wished she would have brought a flashlight or something that would have helped her to find something. It was aggravating to spend hours and hours searching to find clues that still didn’t offer the truth. She wasn’t sure how the law enforcement dealt with that. They had to spend half of their lives searching for clues and still not knowing where the missing people went. Cathy knew she was being too impatient. Marc had just gone missing only three days ago and it had just been reported last night. She had to give it more time to see results.