Fully Loaded

by Mike Ryan

  “And you think ignoring her calls will help with that?”

  “Has to. She can’t get hung up on me. She deserves better. Someone that’ll pay attention to her, spend time with her, appreciate all that she has to offer. That’s obviously not me.”

  “You seem pretty strongly opinionated about this,” Jones said.

  “I am. If you’d have seen the disappointment in her face, you would be too.”

  “I’m sure she understood. She knows what you do.”

  “I’m sure she did understand. That’s the point. I don’t want her to understand. I want her to move on from me,” Recker continued, not letting up in his angst.

  “You said she got dressed up and looked pretty.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Just saying.”

  “Listen, just because I can see she’s pretty doesn’t mean something can happen. You said it from the start that you worried about her falling for me and to keep her at a distance. You were right,” Recker told him.

  “It’s not often you tell me I’m right so often in such a short amount of time. If it wasn’t at Mia’s expense I would actually feel good about it.”

  Recker’s text ringer went off one more time, once again from Mia. Jones looked at him, hoping he’d answer it this time. Though he wasn’t advocating for a relationship between the two of them, he felt Recker was being a bit too hard on himself. He suspected that although Recker said he wanted to keep Mia at a distance to keep her from falling for him even more, part of him thought Recker was doing it for himself too. He thought maybe Recker seeing her dressed up in a social setting with him, stirred a few emotions inside him that he didn’t want awoken.

  “What if it’s an emergency?” Jones asked, hoping to spur him into answering. “What if she’s stuck on the side of the road somewhere near a dark alley in a rough part of town?”

  Recker looked at him strangely. “It’s the middle of the day.”

  “Well the other parts could be true.”

  Recker sighed, knowing he had to answer. The professor was right. If she was stuck somewhere and it was emergency, he’d never forgive himself if something happened to her that he could’ve prevented. He reached for his phone and looked at the message, then listened to the voicemail that Mia left. By Recker’s facial expression, Jones could tell something wasn’t normal and actually started worrying that it really was an emergency.

  “Is she all right?” Jones asked.

  “Yeah. She’s fine. She just wanted to know if I could come see her at work.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “No, not about that,” Recker said. “She said a friend of hers is in trouble and wanted to know if I could help.”

  “So what are you gonna do?”

  “Go find out what the problem is. That’s what you pay me for, right? Help people.”

  “Well after you just said…”

  “Forget what I just said. If Mia needs help, I’m helping.”

  “Oh dear,” Jones said, fearful that Recker couldn’t even see what was happening to himself.

  He’d just spent the last few minutes venting about wanting to keep his distance from her and the minute she asked for help, he was ready to fly off to save the day. Maybe Recker was trying to deny it, but it sure seemed to Jones like, at the very least, a serious flirtation. Recker grabbed his guns and loaded up and immediately drove down to the hospital. Recker went up to the 5th floor and the pediatric unit, though he couldn’t get in with the doors locked. He stood there at the doors, almost expecting them to just open up, not even seeing the receptionist to the left of him.

  “Father or visitor?” the receptionist asked.

  Recker’s concentration was broken and looked to his left, though he wasn’t sure what he heard. “What?”

  “Are you a father?”

  “Uhhh…no,” Recker answered at the scary proposition, looking like a deer caught in headlights.

  “Then who are you here to see?” the receptionist asked slowly.

  “Umm, Mia. Mia Hendricks. She’s a nurse. I’m a friend. She asked me to come down.”

  “Oh, Mia. Just one moment.”

  The receptionist called the nurse station inside the locked doors for Mia, who immediately came out. As soon as the doors opened and she saw Recker, she gave him a huge smile, relieved to see him and thankful that he came. It was times like these that reminded her how nice it was to have him in her life, even if it wasn’t as close as she would have liked.

  “What’s the matter?” Recker asked.

  “Let’s step inside,” Mia said, bringing him beyond the doors to give them a little more privacy. Once the doors closed, she started opening up about her problem.

  “Are you in trouble again?”

  “No, thankfully. It’s my friend, Susan. Susan Hanley. I’ve known her for ten years, since college. She’s one of my best friends.”

  “OK, what’s wrong with her?”

  “She’s missing.”

  “Missing? For how long?” Recker wondered.

  “About a week.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything until now?”

  “I just found out this morning. Her mom called me here at work and asked if I’d seen or talked to her,” Mia informed him. “She said Susie hasn’t showed up to work for three days.”

  “When was the last time you spoke to her?”

  “About a week ago. We met for lunch.”

  “When you met did she sound worried about anything? Any concerns?”

  “No, nothing. We just talked about the usual stuff. Work, life, relationships, you know, that sort of thing. She seemed pretty normal.”

  “Anybody in her life that could possibly be a danger? Boyfriend, abusive ex, friend, someone she made enemies with? Anyone?”

  Mia shook her head, struggling to come up with anything. “No, not that I know of. Right now she’s single.”

  “Have the police been notified?” Recker asked.

  “Susie’s mom said they were called three days ago. They haven’t turned up anything.”

  “Is she close to her parents?”

  “Her dad died a few years ago but she’s very close to her mom. They talk at least every other day. That’s how she knew something was wrong. They haven’t talked in a week either and she said she went to Susie’s apartment, but nobody was there.”

  Recker didn’t respond and just looked away at the wall, trying to think.

  “Can you please find her? I know something terrible’s happened to her. I can feel it,” Mia said. “I know you have your own stuff to work on but I’m just really worried about her.”

  Recker grinned at her and put his hand on her arm to comfort her. “It’s fine. I’m glad you came to me. Of course I’ll help.”

  Mia let out a sigh of relief and hugged him, “thank you.”

  “I’ll find her,” Recker replied. “What does she do?”

  “She’s a pediatric otolaryngologist.”

  “She’s an ear doctor?”

  “Ear, nose, and throat,” Mia confirmed. “For kids.”

  “OK. I’ll need everything you know about her. Names, addresses, work, everything you know about her. Don’t leave out anything, even if you think it’s small or unimportant.”

  “Are you going to her apartment? If so, then I wanna come with you.”

  “That’s not a good idea,” Recker told her.

  “She’s my friend. I’ll be done work in an hour.”

  “Mia…”

  “Mike, please. I’m not gonna interfere or get in your way. I just wanna go to her apartment with her. Maybe if there’s something there, maybe I can help.”

  Recker looked at her, displeased, knowing it was never a good idea to let people who were personally involved get in on a case. It usually didn’t turn out well. But reluctantly, he relented.

  “Fine. But that’s it. You’re not tagging along with me anywhere else,” Recker said.

  “I promise. I won’t bug for anything else.”


  “OK. Let me know when you get home and I’ll pick you up and we’ll head over there together. In the meantime, I’ll start working on other things.”

  “What are the statistics on missing persons? Are they usually found?” Mia wondered, fearful of what happened to her friend.

  “Statistics are usually useless. They’re about the past. All we need to worry about is the present.”

  “You don’t think she’s de..”

  Recker cut her off before she got herself too worked up over what might have been possible. “Let’s just worry about finding her first. Everything else will take care of itself.”

  Mia took out a notepad and started jotting down a few things for Recker to get started with. As Recker left with the information, Mia watched him leave as another nurse strolled by.

  “Was that the new guy you’ve been swooning over?” the nurse asked.

  “Yeah, that was him.”

  “Still haven’t corralled him yet?”

  “No. He doesn’t get roped in easily,” Mia sighed.

  “What’d you say he does?”

  “He’s uhh…kind of hard to explain. He’s kind of a private security investigator.”

  On the way out of the hospital, Recker called Jones to let him know they had a new assignment and to give him the specifics of the case.

  “Taking on cases without me now, are you?” Jones kidded.

  “Well since you went dry, I had to get my own.”

  “I take it this is a result of Mia’s conversation?”

  “Yeah. She’s pretty worried about this woman,” Recker told him.

  “Send me her information and I should have something for you to work with by the time you get back here.”

  “Will do.”

  Recker did as was requested and texted Jones the information that Mia gave him. By the time Recker got back to the office twenty five minutes later, the professor already had a few leads on their subject.

  “Susan Hanley, thirty years old, works at a private practice,” Jones read off the screen.

  “Any medical issues?” Recker asked.

  “She’s not taking any prescriptions that I can find. At least not of the legal variety.”

  “So we can probably focus on foul play then. Any men in her life?”

  “Well, she was married for three years, but they got divorced over a year ago. They have no children and no signs of police involvement.”

  “Mia said she didn’t seem worried about anything.”

  “That would seem to imply that whatever happened to her was a sudden act,” Jones said, continuing to dig up information as they spoke.

  “Could be work related,” Recker stated.

  “What kind of problem could she have being a pediatric ear, nose, and throat doctor?”

  “Even bad people have kids, David.”

  “True enough.”

  “How about trying to locate a cell phone?”

  “Already tried. Wherever her phone is now, it isn’t active,” Jones told him.

  “The police should already have a file on her case. Can you tap into their investigation?” Recker wondered.

  “Yeah. I’m also going to try to find an appointment calendar for her and cross reference some of her patients to see if I can find an outlier. Hopefully she’s an adopter of the online appointment books and doesn’t still just use the paper.”

  “I’ll pick up Mia and head to her apartment in a few minutes to see if there’s anything of note in there.”

  Jones suddenly stopped typing, sure his ears were deceiving him. He turned to look at Recker. “I’m sorry, did you just say you were picking up Mia?”

  Recker feigned ignorance for a minute, realizing he shouldn’t have said it. “Did I?”

  “I’m quite certain that you did.”

  “Slip of the tongue,” Recker said.

  “Please tell me you’re not really letting Mia go with you to the Hanley woman’s apartment?”

  “She really wanted to go and thought she might be useful.”

  “And you didn’t see the danger in that?” Jones asked.

  “I’m not taking her anywhere other than that. That’s it. I thought maybe she would pick up on something that’s out of place or something. She would obviously know better than I would if something wasn’t where it should be o something was missing,” Recker explained.

  “Hmm. Perhaps you’re right about that. And time is of the essence. Most missing persons cases involve family members, parents, spouses, siblings, and are resolved within a shorter period of time.”

  “You don’t think her mother would be involved, do you?” Recker wondered.

  “I’ll check into her more closely while you’re gone.”’

  Recker then left the office and headed to Mia’s place. She was actually able to leave work just a few minutes after Recker left the hospital, so she flew home to be dressed and ready for when he got there. He got there a little early and figured she wouldn’t even be home from work yet. Recker expected he might have to wait a little while and was surprised to see Mia standing in front. He pulled up to the curb and she quickly got in.

  “Waiting long?” Recker asked.

  “Nope. Just a few minutes.”

  “Didn’t think you’d even be here yet.”

  “Got done early,” Mia said.

  It was about a twenty minute drive to Hanley’s apartment. Recker and Mia talked about her almost the entire way there as he wanted to get as much information about her as he could. He liked knowing as much as he could about someone, things that really made them tick, stuff that couldn’t always be found by the keystrokes of a computer.

  “You don’t think Susan could’ve just taken off for a week do you? Just taken a vacation or something?” Recker asked.

  “No. No way. She wouldn’t do that. Not Susie. She was committed to her job. When we met last week she told me she had a jam packed schedule for the next month. She’s not the type of person to just blow off her commitments. She loved the kids she worked with. She’d never just abandon them like that.”

  “Did she ever take any kind of drugs that you know of? Even dabble a little bit?”

  “No, not that I know of. I never saw any signs of that. Even when we were in college, we were roommates, and she never did anything. Never even smoked a cigarette,” Mia answered. “She’d have a drink every now and then but that’s about it.”

  “So she didn’t have a Stephen Eldridge in her life?”

  Mia kind of chuckled at the suggestion but quickly blew it off. “No, she always got the nice guys. I’m the one that got stuck with the jerks.”

  “What about her marriage?” Recker asked.

  “Yeah, Dominic. He always seemed like a decent guy. I always got along with him.”

  “What ended things? Did it get ugly?”

  “Umm, not that I know of. From what Susie told me, there were no big blowups or fights or anything that escalated. They just kind of grew apart. She never talked badly of him, even after it ended. I think they just wanted different things,” Mia explained.

  “Such as what?”

  “Well, she didn’t want kids for one. I think that was one of their biggest issues.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah. Surprising, huh? Usually it’s the woman that wants the family and kids. But it was reversed in their case. He was an insurance broker and worked in an office all day, and when he got home, he wanted a big family there. Susie, though, she worked with kids all day. She wanted a quiet house with just the two of them when she got home. She didn’t really want a family yet.”

  “I guess that’s a big divide,” Recker stated.

  “Yeah. She told him that maybe in time she’d change her mind, but I think he didn’t want to wait for ten years and then find out that she still didn’t want kids. So I think they just sort of agreed to part ways. Everything seemed amicable and all. I think they still talked from time to time.”

  “Any boyfriends since th
en?”

  “No, not really,” Mia answered. “She was content just immersing herself in her work. I mean, she usually worked ten or twelve hours a day. Plus she said that she didn’t want to get involved with someone again and have to go through the family thing again. I think part of her felt bad for hurting Dom with not wanting kids. She didn’t want to get into another relationship and have it fall apart the same way if they wanted kids too.”

  “She ever have any one night stands?”

  “Not that I know of. If she did, she never divulged it to me. She never seemed that interested in having a social life again, to be honest. Sometimes I had to drag her out just for lunch. Kind of like you.”

  Recker continued peppering his passenger with questions, ranging from Hanley’s mother, to her friends, coworkers, casual acquaintances, patients, anyone at all who might have known her. All in the hopes of finding someone who might’ve had a disagreement or problem with her. The problem was there was no such person. At least none that Mia could think of. To her knowledge, everyone loved Susan. If that was true, and Recker could rule out foul play from someone she knew, it’d make it much tougher to find her. It also increased the chances of her having a bad encounter with a completely random person she didn’t know. It also raised the possibility that perhaps Hanley just ditched her life behind to start anew somewhere else, even though Mia said that was something her friend would never do. But Recker knew that oftentimes, people kept secrets. And sometimes those secrets were dark. Dark enough that the people closest to them would be completely unaware of that secret life.

  Chapter 13

  Hanley lived on the sixth floor of an apartment building in the northeast part of the city. It was a modest apartment, nothing that the wealthy would consider living in, but not a dump either. It was a well maintained building in a pretty safe neighborhood with most of the amenities included in the rent. Once they reached the apartment, Mia worried about how they were going to get in the door.

  “I don’t have a spare key or anything,” Mia said.