by JM Addison
*
Another lousy night. She felt helpless not knowing what to do. When she talked to Will, things seemed “reasonable”. But now, she didn’t know just what to do. Sure, there might be a lot of reasons why someone would want to hide, but not Chris. He wasn’t one to get into significant money trouble. She couldn’t imagine him in some kind of a love triangle. Criminal activity? She loved her brother dearly, but he was a geek! She couldn’t imagine him getting into trouble with the law and having to hide out.
Perhaps another call to Mom. Maybe Will was right. A discussion would help them to sort of brainstorm together and come up with a solution. On the other hand, perhaps it would just worry her mother because, if Mara didn’t know how to find Chris, it was very unlikely that her mother would. She would probably just cause her mother unnecessary worry thinking about what could have happened to him. If mom had heard from Chris, she would no doubt have called Mara knowing how worried she would be after their conversation the other night.
If Chris was just lying low for some reason, he would let Mara know about it soon enough. Perhaps something would turn up on Will’s end with regard to whatever Chris was working on at work. She needed to get involved in some activities to get her mind off the situation. Enjoy a good meal, get some needed rest, maybe go into work on Saturday. It would be much quieter on a weekend. She would be able to catch up on a lot of work she was falling behind on without constant meetings and interruptions.
She ate at home that night. She paid some bills that would soon be overdue. She did some tidying up around the apartment and pulled out a novel she bought a couple of weeks ago but never had a spare moment to pick up again. She changed into more comfortable bed clothes and curled up on the couch with her book. The next thing she realized was that it was sometime after Six AM on a drizzly, gloomy Saturday morning. Apparently, she must have been exhausted to have slept so soundly on the couch. Her book lay nearby on the floor, her reading lamp still on.
She felt pretty good for a change with some lingering worry that would no doubt grow if she didn’t keep herself busy. She was quite hungry, so instead of showering first, she decided breakfast would be the best way to start the day. She feasted on some yogurt and melons while trying to find something newsworthy to watch on TV. It was amazing how early all the channels showed cartoons first thing on Saturday morning. The news channels were mostly talk shows.
She didn’t feel like going out for a run in the rain, so she took a long hot shower and put some thought to organizing her trip to the office. There was quite a bit of catching up to do, so she would be pretty busy.
She finished getting dressed in a casual set of jeans and a sweater, put on some makeup and fussed a bit with her hair. She was putting away the toothpaste and tooth brush when the sharp burst of ringtone from her cell phone just about sent her through the roof. She realized then that she was a little more uptight than she had originally believed. Her first thought was that it might be Chris, so she quickly inspected the phone display to discover that it was her mother. She Answered with apprehension.
“Mom, it’s not quite eight yet on a Saturday! Is everything OK?”
“I don’t know, I was just wondering if you might have heard from Chris yet…”
Mara paused for a moment as she reflected on her reasons for not passing on all her concerns about Chris to her mother. If she was calling Mara now, she must be starting to worry and Mara didn’t want to make things worse. So she tried to put her mother at ease by describing her ideas about Chris just wanting to sort of ‘lie low’ for a while until whatever he was into passed. Mara was consoling and understanding yet blended this with an appropriate amount of concern herself. It was amazing what all that corporate public relations training could do for a person.
After hanging up, she noticed her reading lamp by the couch was still on, so she turned it off and opened the shades the rest of the way and looked out and down at the soaked streets. An ugly and quiet early Saturday morning in the rain. She noticed a dark blue van was parked directly in front of the fire hydrant on the other side of the street. What did he think? The cops wouldn’t give out tickets on a Saturday in the rain?
She turned and retrieved her overcoat and purse. On the way out the door she caught a glimpse of the medicine cabinet through the open bathroom door. She noticed with some amusement that in her rush to grab the phone, she managed to toss in the toothpaste and toothbrush, but she didn’t swing the cabinet door shut all the way. No matter, she would get it later. She breezed out the door, made extra sure the apartment door was securely locked and made her way down to the back lot to fetch her car.
On the drive to the office, her mind began to drift again and anxious thoughts of concern began to plague her. She turned on the radio and poked the buttons looking for just about anything that wasn’t playing commercials. She paused at a red light and noticed the familiar shape of a dark blue van two or three cars back. If it weren’t for the curve of the road behind her she never would have noticed it. Could it really be the same van she notice parked by the fire hydrant outside her building?
This only served to heighten her anxiety another notch. It could be the van was simply going the same way and itwas no big deal. After being followed the other night, she was just being oversensitive to people following her. She hadn’t noticed the light change and the car behind honked the horn to remind her to pay attention to her driving. As she accelerated, the road widened into two lanes as she approached the congestion of the office park with its associated strip malls and such. She decided to stay to the right and go a little unreasonably slow. Most cars simply signaled and passed in the left lane. The van, however, seemed to match her pace and purposely stay back even farther.
As she approached her turn down the street which led across the back parking lot of the office complex, she sped up and made a right as the light went yellow. She studied the mirror as the intersection fell away behind her, but the blue van managed to make a right on red and continue “pursuit”. She pulled into the lot, showed her ID badge to the guard at the entrance and proceeded to a spot near the building. The guard station was usually manned on evenings and it was still early enough that he had not gone off duty yet. Plus, the schedule was probably different on Saturdays anyway.
From her spot she could see the van cruise past the entrance to the lot. The windows only revealed shadowy figures in the two front seats. She realized that her heart was pounding fiercely from anxiety and took a moment to breathe and calm down.
One could say that the van was different than the one parked by her building. One could also say that the van just happened to be travelling to a destination along the same path she took to work. Perhaps they were going extra slow simply because of the rainy conditions. But with the events so far, especially her being followed the other night, the facts led her to the conclusion that she was followed again.
That led to the next logical question: Why? Was she simply under surveillance so that someone looking for Chris might find him because Mara would lead them to him? If this “someone” were willing to spend the effort and cost of keeping her under surveillance, then that “someone” must want to find Chris pretty bad. And if that “someone” were the police, why not simply bring her in for questioning and use the usual police tactics employed to find a wanted person? This would mean that it was unlikely that the police were looking for him. Now she felt more motivated to go to the police herself. After all, if this someone would follow her, they could even be a threat if they got more desperate. She could be in some sort of danger herself.
She grabbed her purse, locked her car and headed for the employee entrance. As she approached, she glanced around surreptitiously looking among the landscaping and for signs of the blue van or of any surveillance activity. She felt safe once her security badge allowed her to enter the building.
As she rode the elevator to the fourth floor, she contemplated what to do next. She had great plans for getting caught up on w
ork, but also could feel that adrenaline induced trembling still running through her system. Clear, calm thinking would be difficult.
She approached her desk and immediately felt alert. A warning bell had gone off somewhere in the back of her mind. She was pretty particular about her workspace and it sure seemed that someone had made some adjustments to the position of her desktop office equipment. The reach of her phone and computer keyboard were optimum for her work style and she was pretty fussy about it.
Calm down, she told herself. It was Saturday and someone probably just sat to use her phone momentarily. Perhaps the janitorial staff did some extra cleaning. She was obviously experiencing the hypersensitive jitters of extreme anxiety. She sat down and again considered contacting the police. She was here now, so it would be wise to take advantage of that fact and try to catch up on a couple of things. Her message wait light on her phone indicated no new messages. That was good. She began the startup process for her desktop computer and was surprised when it asked for both her ID and password. Typically, her ID was already shown as the user logging on to the corporate network and she only had to supply her password. She logged on without any trouble, it just seemed funny. Could someone have used her phone and her desktop computer?
She took a quick look at her files in the computer and noted that everything seemed as it should. The thought of someone else using her things annoyed her to some degree, but nothing seemed wrong.
She went to get herself a cup of coffee and figured she would probably need to make some since it was a weekend. However, as she made her was to the coffee break counter, she noted that a fair number of people from other departments were in. She was glad to find coffee already made.
Back at her desk, she began catching up on some unfinished work from the previous week and started preparing for the upcoming week’s activities. She needed to get a message to several of her staff members about the communication plans for a new policy manual to the employee masses in general so she decided she would leave them a voice mail message. She felt the project was getting a little delayed so she didn’t want it getting lost among the sometimes uncontrolled tide of email, so she would record one voicemail and then use the voicemail system to address the message to several staff members. As she accessed the voice mail menus through the prompts of the automated telephone voice, she was surprised she had more old messages saved there than she thought. She couldn’t remember what they were, so she decided to listen to them again to make sure she didn’t need to follow up on something immediately.
The last two messages were messages that she swore she never heard before. They were not that important, one from a salesperson of an information management company and one from one of her staff members just getting back to Mara with the answer to a question that came up earlier that week. But if they were new messages, why did the system not prompt her to hear new un-played messages? Why was her message wait light not blinking?
Could the person who sat at her desk, used her phone, likely used her computer have somehow accessed her voicemail messages? That really shouldn’t be possible since they would need her PIN number to log in to the voicemail system as her.
She sat back to consider the situation. Her brother’s whereabouts: unknown. From the facts, it at first seemed as though he was staying out of sight on purpose. This from the fact that she was followed from his apartment the other night. It would seem to indicate someone staking out his place waiting for something to happen. She happened, so they followed her to see where she might lead them.
Being followed today though put a new twist on things. Why would someone have her under surveillance? Parked outside her place? Following her to the office? Now the fact that someone from inside apparently sat at her desk, could very well used her computer and perhaps was able to tamper with her voicemail. Was Viiradium somehow involved with what happened to Chris?
She felt safe, secure, entering the building before. But now, she felt exposed sitting there. In all of this, why hadn’t Chris tried to contact her? Perhaps he did and she missed it? She turned back to her computer screen and opened her email in tray. Nothing new that was important. Nothing from Chris. She poked around in some of her email folders with the mouse not knowing what she was looking for while trying to think of what might have happened. She even inspected her ‘deleted’ folder, but noted that only messages that she deleted yesterday were in there. If a message from Chris did come in though, she definitely wouldn’t have deleted it. She thought of the odd ‘anonymous’ message she received the other day and wished she had actually read it before deleting it. In retrospect, it seemed like a good way for someone proficient in computers and networking to get an unnoticed message through to someone else.
If he was in trouble, couldn’t he go to the police? Her fear and anxiety grew as she grappled with the realization that he could be unable to do anything. He could be dead.
She began to feel helpless. She began to understand what people meant when they say they felt ‘hollow’ when struck by a tragic loss. The only thing she could do was go to the police.
She shutdown her computer and grabbed her coat and purse. As she walked briskly to the elevator, it stuck her that she may be in more danger than she realized. Especially if Chris were harmed and now someone was after her. At least watching her. Someone with access to her employer. In fact, likely someone at her employer. If she were being watched, how could she get to the police without being noticed?
As she approached the exit to the parking lot, she could hear the rush of a downpour going on outside. Great. The rain had really picked up and she had no umbrella. She dashed outside and ran to her car which was parked beyond the reserved and visitor parking spaces. That was stupid. It was Saturday, who cares about visitor parking? As she approached her car, she realized her keys were still in her purse. She pulled her coat up over her head to afford a little protection from the drowning rain to fumble for the keys. She realized she must have looked quite stupid, but who cared about looks while standing in a downpour. By the time she got in and got the door shut, she was completely soaked and cold.
She needed to get home to get a dry change of clothes before going to the police. While she was at it, she would be sure not to forget her umbrella. On the drive, she would develop a plan to get from her place to the police without being followed or watched. On the drive back, she kept a watchful eye out for any ‘suspicious’ vehicles. No blue van, no red Taurus. No car that seemed to ‘reappear’ frequently.
After parking in the lot behind her building she ran in and up the stairs. She quickly unlocked the door and swept inside. She made sure the door was locked securely. She took off her coat and dumped her purse. She figured her mascara was probably a mess so she popped into the bathroom to fix it up.
She flipped on the light switch and looked in the mirror. She felt a sudden chill run up her spine. More than just a chill, the fear flushed her ears red and her heart began a brutal beat. It wasn’t so much what she saw in the mirror, it was simply the fact that the mirror, which made up the door of the medicine cabinet, was fully closed. She distinctly remembered noticing that she left it partially open in her rush to answer the phone earlier. She knew its hinges were a little worn and didn’t swing easily thus, it could not possibly have closed by itself.
Someone must have been here. In fact, that someone could still be here! She hadn’t been gone to the office for that long. She came right from the entry door to the adjacent bathroom without going through the rest of the apartment. Someone could have easily been caught off guard by her unexpected arrival and simply found a quick spot to hide inside. The kitchen? The bedroom?
Tears of fear welled up in her eyes as she spun to leave. She was too scared to even go into her bedroom to grab fresh clothes. She had to get out. She had to call the police. No, she wasn’t even going to go into the other room to reach the phone. She wasn’t going to stand there and fumble with her cell phone. She had to get to the police. She picked up
her coat and purse. Forget the umbrella. She unlocked the door and exited, but still turned to carefully lock it behind her. She wasn’t sure what good it would do since apparently the lock was overcome by the intruder with no obvious damage. Still, it seemed natural to leave things locked up.
She had to assume she was being watched. How would she get to the police unnoticed? Perhaps going to the police was a better idea than she had originally thought. It would provide her with a sense of safety and be a cause for prudence in her watchers as they would understand that she was suspicious of their surveillance.
On her way there, she began to feel a little embarrassed. She noticed in the rear view mirror that she looked like hell. Wet hair, makeup smeared, clothes soaked. She probably smelled like a wet dog. Oh well, she was going now. No way was she returning to her place not knowing if the intruder was still there or not.
She remained alert to every car around her. Without being paranoid and imagining things, she studied everything looking for signs of pursuit. She tried to think of what she would say once she got there. Some of the parts of her story were pretty odd, even to her – like the fact that Chris’ secretary said he “sent a message” to say he had the flu. If someone had hurt Chris or even worse, killed him, then pretending to be Chris by email would be easier than phoning in sick to someone who would obviously recognize from the voice that it wasn’t really Chris.
Of perhaps there was no email at all, simply the fact that Corrine was ‘covering’ for someone and just saying Chris was home with the flu, or just used the phrase “sent a message” as a general description that could have been a phone call from Chris. The other things at the office seemed to indicate a stronger connection to Viiradium as well. Her voice mail being tampered with. Her computer. She wondered if Will was able to turn up anything. Since it was the weekend, she had her doubts.
She pulled into the same parking lot adjacent to the municipal building where she stopped and ate lunch the other day. In fact wasn’t it just yesterday? That was hard to believe. She got out of her car and locked it. The rain had let up quite a bit but it would still have been nice to have an umbrella.
She ascended the steps of the building and noted in the dim reflection of the full length glass of the door that she looked somewhat like she just crawled out of a storm drain.
Inside the building was a small foyer which led to various municipal offices. She entered the double door for the Bedford Police and approached a reception counter. A uniformed police officer at file cabinet turned and tried to hide his obvious double take. He quickly advanced toward the counter with a smile and asked, “May I help you?”
“I’d like to report a missing person…” Mara said tentatively. She was still quite wound up over the earlier events and the added stress of coming to the police even on a good day to report the disappearance of a loved one just made her tremble all the more.
“Come on in and we will take care of you”, he invited. He swung a gate open and gestured for her to enter. Then he led the way to a small, sparsely furnished room with a table and three plain chairs. He indicated a chair and she sat. He excused himself and said someone will be back in just a moment to help.
As she sat there she tried to collect her thoughts. She sat thinking of some of the likely questions they would have: Let’s see… when did she last have contact with her brother, why did she think he was missing, has he ever ‘disappeared’ before, why would someone want to harm him, and so on.
The same police officer came back in and sat across from her. “May I offer you a drink? Something hot perhaps? Coffee?”
“No, thank you.” The way her nervous stomach felt, Food or drink would not stay down for long.
“OK then. My name is officer Jenkins. I would like to hear your statement and take some notes if you don’t mind. Reporting missing people is pretty serious if the disappearance is valid. Typically we would have two officers here, but with the lousy weather, we’re a little short staffed. So, please feel comfortable. Tell me who’s missing and don’t mind me taking a few notes.”
She took a deep breath and tried to pull herself together. She knew she probably looked a little wild and hoped he would not think she was a lunatic raving about a claim of someone who was not missing but knew perfectly well where they were.
“It’s my brother…” She began. Then she related the cold facts as best she could. She thought she did quite well presenting herself as a serious, credible, concerned family member able to lay out in a logical flow the circumstances of the past few days.
At this point she only related the facts with regard to her brother and left out the suspicious events such as the fact that he emailed in sick rather than called. And that his message wait light indicated he, or someone, had retrieved his messages. And the fact that she was followed – twice now. And the suspicion that her phone and computer at work were tampered with. And the fact that someone was in her apartment.
She paused to think for a moment about her story. Officer Jenkins was making a few notes using only the bottom half of the sheet of paper. “Let me ask a few questions…” he said. “Could I get your name?”
She suddenly felt foolish. A moment ago, she thought she did a pretty good job but realized how inept she must have looked not even supplying her own name or address. In fact, she didn’t even relate much about Chris except the circumstances around his disappearance. She looked up and caught officer Jenkins giving her a long look. She suddenly felt even more self-conscious about her appearance with him looking at her. She wondered what he must be thinking of her. He judged him to be in his late forties, blond, trim and she noted no wedding band. No gun either. Probably some policy about not wearing firearms in the office.
She continued with some of the more minor details: her name, address, phone and some more information about Viiradium. She noted that he began putting these details on the upper half of his note sheet. She supposed he was probably used to taking statements from people and knew enough about how best to organize the facts to help begin an investigation.
“Now I would like to ask some specific questions about your brother if you don’t mind” he said. “Why do you think your brother is missing and not just away without letting someone know?”
“Well, we don’t talk every day, but it’s pretty unusual for him not to return any of my messages. We typically get together about once per week and he would tell me if he was going to go away or take a trip or something.” She continued on, “I actually was thinking he was simply away, but out of concern, I went to his place the other night, as I mentioned, and he wasn’t there and it looked like he hadn’t been there. After I left, I’m sure I was followed. I know that sounds like something out of a movie, but I’m sure because I darted into a parking garage at West View Mall and watched as they pulled in and paused to look for where I had gone.”
“So, you feel like something suspicious is happening?”
“Yeah, I guess it really spooked me so I began to think that this was more serious. Then more time went by and I still hadn’t heard anything from him.”
“Did you happen to get the license tag number or the make of car that followed you?”
“I know it was a dark red Taurus sedan and I could make out part of the tag number. I made mental note of it, but in the tension of the moment, I didn’t write it down and now I’d forgotten. I do remember that it was a Massachusetts tag though.”
“Why do you think someone would have followed you from your brother’s place?”
“I don’t know, isn’t that what the police are for? To find out why someone would be following me or looking for him?”
“Well, I’m just wondering if you may know of some reason why someone might be there apparently watching his place and then follow you? I only ask because I need as much information you can give including any insights that might help us to begin an investigation.”
She felt embarrassed about being so rude. After all, he was right, they had even less in
formation than she did and they needed all the details they could get if they were going to find him. She wondered for a moment about telling him the rest of the reasons she was scared. She didn’t want to seem paranoid, but she did want them to be able to find her brother.
She plunged on, “There is some more. I don’t want to seem paranoid, but I left him some voice mail messages myself, yet, when I stopped by his office to see if anyone had seen him or knew where he might be, I noted that his message wait light was off. Apparently, someone retrieved his messages. And the fact that he didn’t call into work, but simply sent in a message from home. He loves working, loves his job, keeps in touch with the people in his department, it would be easier to just pick up the phone and call.
“Then, this morning, a van parked outside my place followed me to the office.”
“You went to the office on a Saturday? Is that normal for you?”
“No, I just thought I could get caught up on some things. I was getting behind and thought a day at the office with no distractions would allow me to catch up. When I got to work this morning, I discovered that someone tampered with my telephone and computer as well.”
“Tampered?”
“Well, there were messages that I had never heard before, and yet, the system said I had no new messages. Plus, someone else had logged in or at least tried to log in from my computer. I only know this because when you log in, the computer shows your name or whatever was the last login name used. You only need supply the password. Today, I was prompted for both a user name and a password.”
“I’m no expert in the equipment your company uses, so who knows? Perhaps those were glitches in the system? Can you give me any more details on the person following you today? License? Make of auto?”
“No, just a dark blue van.”
“How do you know the van just didn’t happen to take the same route you did to get wherever they were going?”
“Well, I don’t. Just that with everything else that’s happened, it just seemed a little too out of the ordinary to be simply coincidence.”
“Are there any other details you can give me?”
“One more. This is the thing that really scared me and the reason I came here now without changing first. As I hurried out this morning, I noticed as I passed through the door of my place that I had left the door of the medicine cabinet open. I only happened to notice because the reflection in the mirror was different and just caught my eye. I realized I must have left it open in my haste to answer the phone. My mother called me this morning to see if I had heard anything from Chris. It seems she is pretty worried too. Anyway, it’s a little funny because I consider myself such a neat freak. But I was in a hurry and made a mental note to just close it later when I returned. I paid more than the usual attention to locking the door to my apartment because I was feeling anxious about all this. Well, after I discovered my office was tampered with, I couldn’t concentrate on work and decided to leave. I got caught in that downpour and got really soaked. I thought I better go home and get changed.
“I had forgotten completely about the mirror being open on the cabinet door until I walked into the bathroom to look at the mess my makeup was probably in. It dawned on me as I walked into the bathroom that somehow the mirror became closed. This could only have happened if someone else was in my place looking around. They probably swung the mirror all the way open as they looked inside for whatever they were searching for and then simply closed it when they were finished not realizing it was not paying attention to the fact that it wasn’t closed to begin with. The fact that the place was evidently searched really scared me on top of everything else. I didn’t even bother going into the rest of my apartment. I spun around, locked the place back up and drove straight here...”
She finished her account of the story and sat, huddled and still trembling a bit in the chair. She couldn’t think of anything else to say, so she just looked at him as he completed some of his notes.
“This keeps getting more involved by the minute.” He said. “Is there any more to the story?”
“No, that’s all I can think of for now. I don’t mind telling you though, I am not going back to my place until someone goes in first to check the place out!”
“Well I thank you Ms. Chandler for your report. And I can appreciate your concern. Again, we take reports of missing persons quite seriously if they seem legitimate. Sure you won’t take something warm to drink? You look like you could use one.”
A hot cup of coffee sounded pretty good right now. Since she was able to tell her story, her apprehension decreased a degree and realized that her wet clothes were making her feel quite chilled. “I wouldn’t mind a hot coffee…”
“No problem. What do you take in it?”
She told him and he excused himself to get her some. She went back over the story in her mind to see if she could think of anything she might have left out. She found it pretty hard to read his reaction. She hoped he took her seriously enough to investigate. His comment on treating missing persons seriously if they seemed ‘legitimate’ made her a little nervous. Did he think her report was ‘legitimate’? He returned shortly with her coffee and excused himself again, saying he would be back in a few moments.
She could hear him talking in the distance in the outer room, but heard no one else, so she figured he must have been on the phone with someone. She began to feel a little apprehensive about the reaction of the police. Would they at least check out her place to be sure it was safe to return? Would they think there was enough credibility to the facts to begin an investigation?
He returned after a while and explained there would be a police car dispatched to meet her at her apartment. They would be waiting on the street for her.
“Here is my card” he said as he offered a card with the logo of the Bedford police and the name Sargent ‘Randall Jenkins’ and phone number. “Call me if you think of any more details. I will be filling out a formal report and going over your statement with one of our detectives Monday. They will likely want to talk to you, so what might be the best way to reach you?”
She fumbled through her purse for her business card. “Here is my business card, let me put my cell number on the back. You already have the number and address at home from before, but I will put it here so it’s convenient.” She jotted her number down and handed it over.
She thanked him as she left to return to her apartment. The drive home was tensely demanding though uneventful. Did “they” know she had gone to the police? Were they watching her? Would they leave her alone now?
She found the Bedford patrol car parked outside her building as she pulled up. Rather than pulling around to the off street parking, she found a spot at the curb not far from where it was parked. As she approached the police car on foot, two officers emerged. One lanky red haired fellow and another surprisingly short blond woman – at least short for her impression of police officers, however, she was taller than Mara herself.
The police woman, ‘J. Blake’ from the name pinned to her uniform, approached with a smile and an outstretched hand. “Hello, are you Ms. Chandler?”
“Yes, thank you for stopping by.”
“We understand you may have fallen victim to a break in.” J. Blake said.
“Yes, I was a little afraid to go back in ‘til someone had a look. But I suppose that by now, if anyone has been in there, they would be long gone by now.”
The red haired officer smiled and muttered a greeting but didn’t Identify himself or appear to wear a similar ID pin. Mara noted that they both wore the typical belt of assorted police paraphernalia: Night stick, holstered pistol, mace, handcuffs and such. A holstered radio was evident on the male officer. She invited them in the main building and unlocked the entry door of her upstairs apartment.
“Has anyone seen any suspicious intruders in the area?” J. Blake asked.
“I didn’t stick around to ask.” Mara replied.
They went into her apartment and look
ed around checking from room to room. “Everything looks OK. Could you tell us if you notice anything missing or out of place?” The taller officer asked?
Mara, looking around responded, “Everything seems OK as far as I can tell. I know someone was in here sometime while I was away at work today. I might have scared them off when I come home early, but I was not about to go looking room to room and confront some armed villain. So I skipped out the back and went straight to the police.”
J. Blake extended her arm and put a friendly hand on Mara’s shoulder. “Everything seems fine. My name is Judy. My partner’s name here is John. I’ll leave you one of our cards. It has the local phone number for the police station sergeants desk as well as our emergency dispatch. You can also call 911. If you think of anything that might be important to tell us, just give us a call. We understand you have filed a missing persons report, so no doubt one of our detectives will be contacting you.”
Judy gave a friendly smile as she turned to leave. “Thanks for checking the place out.” Mara replied, “I don’t mean to be a bother, but I really appreciate your help.”
Mara realized that Judy wasn’t all that much different than she. Perhaps a year or two older and not that much bigger. She wasn’t afraid to just waltz into the unknown. Sure, she had a gun, but it wasn’t drawn. She simply was more relaxed. Mara decided she needed to do the same. Relax.