Local Woman Missing

by Mary Kubica

  I wait in vain for Josh to call or text with news. I think about calling him, but don’t want to overstep. I try and work on my records, but my mind is too agitated to focus. All I can think about is Meredith and Delilah. It’s after eleven o’clock and they still aren’t home. After this many hours missing and this late at night, it’s hard to believe something innocuous has happened. My mind gets flooded with images of Meredith’s car submerged in the river or Meredith and Delilah taken along with Shelby. The thought terrifies me, and I force back tears, telling myself no, that whatever happened to Shelby is far different than what’s happened to Meredith and Delilah.

  It was ten days ago that Bea and I first woke to the news. We hadn’t known Shelby, but it was all over Facebook and then, later in the day, in the paper and on the news: Local Woman Missing.

  Bea and I watched as police cruisers surveilled the neighborhood, as police dogs went in and out of the Tebow home to pick up and track Shelby’s scent. The police came around asking questions. Until I saw her face on the news, I didn’t know what Shelby looked like; I’d never heard of her before. Ours is a large suburb, with a population that tops a hundred thousand. You can’t know everyone.

  According to her husband, Shelby had gone for a run that night. From what we read, it was after ten when she left. It was dark outside. Bea and I both thought the same thing: that was too late for a woman to be out running alone. But, according to her husband, they had a new baby at home. Shelby stayed home with the baby. Her husband worked long hours. When he came home that night, they had a late dinner together and then she hung around until the next time the baby needed to be fed. This wasn’t the first time she’d gone running late at night, because some days it was the only time she had to herself.

  Needless to say, she never came home.

  Shelby’s husband, Jason Tebow, was the first to come under suspicion. The first and the only, as far as we know. He’s still a suspect. Secrets were quickly smoked out by reporters and the police, and became common knowledge. Friends of Jason’s reported that Shelby had a flair for the melodramatic. They said she was a liar and a con. There was plenty of gossip all over the social media sites. The police department posted the details of Shelby’s disappearance to their Facebook page. The comments were ruthless. That girl wouldn’t know the truth if it hit her in the face, someone said.

  Shelby’s side fired back. They accused Jason’s friends of slander. Shelby, they said, was none of these things. She’s kind, loving. She always put others first. They said instead that Jason had been unfaithful since the baby was born, and probably before. Fatherhood was apparently not his cup of tea, and neither was monogamy.

  It was easy to assume he’d done something to her.

  But now, in light of Meredith and Delilah’s disappearance, a thought sows fear into my mind. What if it wasn’t domestic violence? What if there’s a serial kidnapper on the loose?

  MEREDITH

  11 YEARS BEFORE

  March

  The hospital parking garage is empty when I leave. It’s three-thirty in the morning. I was with my client for nearly seven hours, helping her deliver a beautiful baby boy that she and her husband named Zeppelin. It’s horrible. He’s only hours old and already I’m imagining him being made fun of at school. But no one asked for my opinion. The husband, Matt, is an amateur guitar player and a diehard fan of ’70s rock. They’d made up their minds weeks ago.

  All night my phone was quiet. The only person to text was Josh, who said good-night before he went to bed and told me he loved me. He doesn’t ever ask how things are progressing or what time I’ll be home. He knows better than to ask. He knows I don’t know. Childbirth is rarely predictable.

  This delivery was relatively quick, as firstborns go. My focus was on my client and her baby. It was a welcome reprieve. I didn’t have time to think about anything else, like those awful texts.

  But now, as I step onto the fourth floor of the parking garage, they come rushing back to me. I spot my car on the other side of the garage. I move quickly, a speed walk, just shy of a run. There are only a handful of cars here. Visiting hours ended eons ago. The cars still here belong to patients and hospital staff. Everything about the parking garage is cliché. It’s poorly lit, dirty and claustrophobic. There’s a foul smell to it because the garage walls are solid, with little ventilation. Even without the texts, the garage sparks fear. It belongs in a movie scene. It always scares me, but tonight especially so.

  I reach into my bag. I carry pepper spray with me because long ago Josh made me. He’s always hated the idea of me out on the street or in abandoned parking garages late at night. I told him he was being ridiculous. I swore nothing bad was going to happen to me. But now I’m grateful for the pepper spray. I’ve had the same canister for years. It’s probably expired, the ingredients degraded so that they wouldn’t be much help if I needed them. But the weight of it in my hand is a relief. It’s better than nothing.

  I keep my head up as I walk. I stay alert, scanning the parking garage with every step. There’s no one here. The parking garage is empty. Still, there are darkened voids where I can’t see, like in the corners of the garage where the lights don’t reach. There are stairwells at each corner; the doors are open, only a blackened hollow remains. If someone was there, standing in that blackened hollow, three feet back from the open door, I wouldn’t know. I also wouldn’t know if someone was behind me. I try to listen for footsteps. But there is some sort of supply or exhaust fan whirring in the garage. It dampens all other sounds. All I can hear is that fan. Twice I glance back to see if someone’s there, and no one is. Still, it doesn’t fully suppress the fear. As soon as I turn back, the fear of being followed returns.

  I dig again into my bag. I find my cell phone, grip it in my hand. I don’t want to call and wake Josh; I’d never hear the end of it. If he knew I was scared, he’d want to send a whole brigade with me to every birth I went, to make sure I was safe.

  I consider a call to Kate or Cassandra or Bea. It would be a great comfort to have someone on the other end of the line, keeping me company. But it’s three-thirty in the morning. I can’t call and wake someone up.

  I hasten my pace. By the time I’m halfway across the garage, I’ve broken into a run. I’m sweating, my breath coming so fast that I have trouble catching it. My pulse pounds in my ears.

  I reach the car. I yank open the door and nearly dive into the driver’s seat. I slam the door closed. I tap the button and activate the locks, but that’s only a partial relief because there’s still the fear that when I look in my rearview mirror, someone will be there. My fears aren’t unfounded, because of the text messages. I hope you die. I hope you rot in hell. I have every reason to be scared, though I’ve tried my best to convince myself that the texts are only a prank, that someone with a sick sense of humor is sending them, though I don’t know anyone like that.

  I thrust my keys into the ignition. I start the car. Before I can throw it into Reverse, there’s a tap on my window. I scream, seeing only blackness filling the glass. Someone is standing beside the car. I can’t make out a face. I grab for the pepper spray. The only other things I have to use are an ice scraper and my keys.

  The figure squats down and there in the window is Jeanette, the midwife.

  I throw my hand to my heart. “Oh God,” I say, lowering the window and forcing myself to smile, to relax, “you scared the shit out of me, Jeanette.”

  I take a deep breath. Jeanette is here in the parking garage with me. No one will hurt me while Jeanette is here.

  “Sorry!” she replies, still on a high from the birth. They can be vitalizing sometimes, especially the ones like this that don’t take twenty-four hours only to wind up in surgery. “I thought you saw me,” Jeanette says. “I’ve been trailing you for a while. I called out for you.”

  I tell her, “I didn’t hear you or I would have stopped.”

  T
hen she gets a mischievous grin on her face and says to me, “Zeppelin,” and we both laugh. “The kids will have a field day with that.”

  “I feel sorry for the poor boy,” I say. “He’ll grow up hating his parents for it.”

  “Whatever happened to Thomas and James?” Jeanette asks. Jeanette is older than me. She’s more traditional.

  “Come on, Jeanette,” I say. “Don’t you know that Thomas and James have fallen out of rotation in recent years? These days it’s all Jacobs and Noahs and Masons.”

  “And apparently Zeppelins.”

  “It’s an atrocity,” I say. We have a good laugh.

  “It’s getting late,” Jeanette says. In just a few hours, the sun will rise. “You better get home and try and sleep before your own babies are up.”

  We say our goodbyes. I watch as Jeanette makes her way to her car parked farther down. Once she’s safely in, I spin out of the parking garage, going fast. The relief washes over me when my car finally reaches the street outside. On the street there are other cars, building lights, streetlights. It’s still hours away from dawn, but the moon is nearly full, giving off additional light. A twenty-four-hour McDonald’s calls for me, and though I’m usually not a fan of fast food, I consider a run through the drive-through because it’s been hours since I’ve had a thing to eat. I’m famished, craving something greasy and quick.

  The relief is short-lived because soon after comes the familiar ping of my phone. A text message. It could be Josh, wanting an update. Now that Tuesday has become Wednesday, childcare arrangements may need to be made. He leaves for work early, by six o’clock. He’ll need to find something to do with the kids if I’m not home by then, though I will be; he just doesn’t know it yet. He’s being proactive.

  I grab my phone from the passenger’s seat to see what he’s said.

  But the text message isn’t from Josh. It comes from the same unfamiliar number as the rest.

  Get home safe, it says.

  LEO

  NOW

  Dad took home videos of us when we were kids. Hours of them. Some nights, when he’s being especially pathetic, he makes me watch. The girl in those videos is giddy, silly. She smiles a lot. She’s always giggling. You, on the other hand, are dead serious. You look shook, scared. You’re nothing like that girl anymore. You’re someone new.

  I’m at school when Dad gets the call from the police. He comes to get me. It’s fourth period honors algebra when he comes, which most people hate but I like because it comes easy to me. Apparently I’m good at math. Not that you care. The whole stupid class gets fired up when they call me down over the intercom because they think I’m in trouble. The truth? No one likes me. I’m the weird kid, the freak, the loser. I have you to thank for that. I don’t get in trouble, though. The only time I get in trouble is when the other kids tell lies about me.

  Dad’s waiting in the office when I come down. His eyes are red and watery like he’s been crying, which is embarrassing as fuck: when kids at school see your dad cry. Todd Felding walks by and sees and I know I’m never going to live this one down.

  Dad and I leave and, together, we go get you. They’ve got you in a room at the police station, and it’s just you and the lady cop. She has a name. It’s Detective Rowlings. I just don’t like calling her that. Dad calls her that sometimes, but mostly he calls her Carmen. I’m not entirely sure, but if I had to guess, I’d say Dad and the lady cop have hooked up before. She’s been there from the beginning and is, as Dad says, invested. Dad’s so blind that he can’t see she’s got the hots for him. He thinks it’s all about solving a cold case. Instead, it’s about trying to get into his pants, which I’m sure she has more than once.

  Dad doesn’t know it but I’ve read the texts the lady cop sends him. They’re mushy, sloppy, sentimental. They make me want to vomit. She massages Dad’s ego, tells him she admires how brave he is, how gentle, how honest. I’ve been thinking about you, she sometimes texts. You and Leo are on my mind all the time.

  Gag.

  They’ve got a plate of food for you. You’re eating. Except that it’s like you forgot how to eat ’cause you’re doing it all wrong.

  You’re thin. You’ve got pale skin. Your hands shake. Dad is so sure you’re you that he rushes right up to you and gives you a hug. You go stiff. It looks to me like you stop breathing. You try to pull back, but Dad won’t let you. He’s crying. He’s holding on for dear life. The lady cop has to lay a hand on his arm and tell Dad to give you some room. I’m embarrassed for him. I feel my own cheeks get hot because of the way he acts.

  “You look just like your mom,” he says, cupping your face in his hand and, from the pictures I’ve seen, you do. You both have red hair, which is something because only about two percent of people have red hair.

  I hang back, by the door. I don’t know you.

  Dad and the lady cop talk a long time. They stand too close. A DNA test is pending, but that doesn’t matter because Dad already knows it’s you. The lady cop suggests you get checked out by a doctor. She wants to check for evidence that you’ve been sexually abused. Dad looks like he might be sick when she says those words. Sexually abused.

  “Like a rape kit?” Dad asks.

  I’ve heard of that before. The lady cop says yes. She touches his hand, her voice going soft. “It’s precautionary, Josh. We don’t know for sure that she’s been sexually abused. But if we can find the person who did this to her, it will help convict him.” She says that there might be DNA evidence on you that will aid in their investigation. I don’t like that she calls Dad Josh. I also don’t like that she touches his hand when she says it.

  Dad’s torn. He wants to help the police, but he doesn’t want to traumatize you. The line between these things is thin. Eventually Dad says yes and we go to the hospital, where we sit in the lobby and wait. You go into the exam room with the nurse alone. Dad offers to go with you, to hold your hand, which is weird as fuck. The lady cop tells him no. She says it gentler than that. “I don’t think that would be a good idea, Josh.” You’re not six years old anymore, but try telling that to Dad. The lady cop sits with us during the whole entire exam. “You shouldn’t be alone,” she says to Dad, though he isn’t alone. He has me. I wish that she would leave.

  It takes so long I think it will never be done.

  They confiscate your clothes. They send you home with something else to wear.

  There’s never any question of if you are who you say you are, though the DNA results won’t be back for another day. Child services could take you for the night. Child services is supposed to take you for the night. But after all that you’ve been through, the lady cop breaks the rules and lets Dad and me take you home.

  She tells Dad what you told them about where you’ve been. Dad nearly goes through the roof. “It doesn’t make sense,” he says, and he’s right, seeing as how Mom was found dead of a self-inflicted knife wound with a note: You’ll never find her. Don’t even try.

  The note went on to say that you were safe, that you were fine.

  If what you say is true, you weren’t fine. You were far from fine. But maybe you’re lying. No one thinks about that but me.

  We leave with promises to take you to a shrink and to our own doctor for a follow-up. They’re worried about malnutrition, muscle atrophy, physical abuse; they’re worried about your eyes. You have to wear special sunglasses because you haven’t seen daylight in eleven years. At home, we’re supposed to keep the blinds closed. They’re worried about your feet. They’re wrapped in bandages. If you had shoes, they took those, too.

  They’re also worried about your mental state. It’s clear to see you’re not all there. You’re not right in the head. You’re scared as heck, wasted and emaciated. You should be seventeen but no one would ever think you’re seventeen. You could pass for ten. You’ve got no boobs. You’re about four and a half feet tall. You weigh maybe eigh
ty pounds.

  We drive home. You ride in the back seat. You say nothing.

  It’s a media circus when we get home. That’s what Dad says as he steers the car through a crowd of reporters. A media circus. It makes me think of the reporters as clowns, as circus freaks, which they are. They step back so Dad doesn’t run them over. Still, they take pictures through the car window; they shout questions at you. Those farther back crane their necks for a measly look at you. There are a butt load of them. They fight each other for a square foot of our lawn, which Dad says they aren’t supposed to be on, anyway, because that’s trespassing. He lays on the horn and they step farther back from the car. At the sound of Dad’s horn, you spaz out, getting all twitchy. I feel sorry for you. But I don’t know what to say to make it better, so I say nothing.

  I ask Dad how they know you’re here. Dad says some shyster at the station or the hospital probably leaked to the media that you were back. Otherwise how would they know? Your miraculous return is supposed to be kept on the down-low.

  Dad’s angry about it because if what you told the lady cop is true, then there’s still someone out there looking for you. And if that’s the case, these reporters will lead them right to our door.

  MEREDITH

  11 YEARS BEFORE

  March

  Dawn comes quickly. The morning after a birth is never easy. I wake to Josh leaning over me, kissing me before he leaves.