Girl Taken: A Detective Kaitlyn Carr Mystery Page 2

  Everyone always wants the police officer on the case to pay the most attention, to be alert, to be present. Who wouldn't want that? But I'm anything but that today. I'm annoyed, distracted, and frustrated that it’s me here doing this welfare check, rather than some uniform cop.

  Terry seems like a nice enough guy, but in my opinion, he's more than enough freaked out over not being able to get in touch with his grown, retired parents. It has only been three days. Apparently, they have gone four months before without talking, especially when the Islingtons were out at sea.

  "Tell me more about that," I request, flipping to the next page in my notebook.

  "They had a house around here, Hollywood. They sold it. My father owned a gym, which he sold to buy that boat. They saved their pennies. They bought this 52-foot yacht. It was all of their savings after they sold their house. Their dream was to go down to Mexico, fish, sunbathe, just live on the water."

  "So, why did they come back?" I ask.

  "My wife is pregnant. They were so excited about their first grandchild. They wanted to be here for the birth. They didn’t want to miss a moment. They were going to take a break from the boat at first, but they didn't have much income so they decided to just sell it."

  The story sounds plausible enough. We make our way around the corner to the parking lot to see that their car is missing.

  "They just rented this apartment a week ago,” Terry continues. “It was supposed to be a temporary thing until they found something better and figured out where they really wanted to live. We kept pushing them to move to Burbank with us, but they love this area. They like being able to walk everywhere and they have all their friends here."

  I nod, taking another look around the building. It's a 1920s construction with a yellowish facade, peeling in many parts. It has a grand lobby, like a lot of older buildings do, with tall ceilings and beautiful trim all around. The elevator is minuscule. It has narrow double doors and an antique gate that you have to pull over prior to pushing the giant hundred-year-old buttons.

  “When was the last time you saw them?” I ask.

  "I helped them move in," Terry says. "A week ago, exactly. They didn't have much in terms of stuff since they did live on the boat for a while. They were going to thrift a few chairs, and we were going to give them our old couch and dining room table. They wanted to buy a house after the sale of the boat went through."

  "So, they were selling it?” I ask.

  "Yeah, they have the boat parked out in Marina del Rey; they got a good deal on a slip from someone, but they thought that having it there, they'd be able to sell it for a good price, be able to buy a place of their own."

  Just at that moment, I notice that a neighbor comes out downstairs and gives him a dismissive look. Terry looks slightly embarrassed. We make our way back inside, and walking past the property manager's apartment, I knock again.

  This time, he opens. He is in his forties with a receding hairline and a pot belly, with a beer in his hand. A daytime talk show is blaring on the television in the background.

  I introduce myself and he takes us upstairs, letting us in using a key to open the door. When Terry said that the apartment was temporary, I was still expecting a little bit of furniture. But it’s bare. It’s a studio with big, wide, 1920s era single-pane windows looking out at the neighborhood below. There’s a king-size bed on the floor, neatly covered in a nice quality blanket. In addition to regular pillows, there are also decorative pillows, which are lovingly propped up by someone who really cares about the place.

  The floors are spotless. There's a brand-new vacuum cleaner along with some cleaning supplies in the corner. In another corner, there's a small desk and chair, both from the cheaper line of IKEA furniture, the kind that doesn't even come painted. I know because I own the exact same set.

  "What do you think could have happened to them?" Terry asks, nervously walking around the apartment.

  He checks the bathroom, including the medicine cabinet, which is full of supplies, not unpacked, but rather in small little baggies, as if someone had just moved in. In the closet, I find three suitcases.

  "How was all their stuff when you helped them move in?" I ask. "Did they have it in these suitcases or was it in bags?”

  He shakes his head.

  "Ruth, my stepmother, is very meticulous. She likes everything just so. But where is everything?”

  His shoulders slope down and he continues to crack his knuckles in the most annoying way.

  "Any chance that they changed their minds? Maybe didn't want to sell the boat after all?"

  "No. They had to sell it.” He shakes his head again. “That was the only way they were going to be able to get a house and move back and be involved grandparents."

  I walk around the empty studio apartment, trying to think of what could have happened to the Islingtons. I check the cupboards, and in the hallway leading up to the bathroom, I find another closet.

  When I open it, the mystery of the missing clothes is solved. They are all neatly hung up on hangers, and others are folded into a dresser underneath.

  "How long is this going to take?" the property manager asks, looking at his phone. He's been watching a YouTube video the whole time we've been here, clearly uninterested and unbothered by his tenants’ disappearance.

  "Did you get to know the Islingtons?" I ask him.

  "No, not really.” He shrugs and burps but doesn’t bother with an apology. “They signed a lease for a month, and I doubted they would be here any longer than that.”

  “Why is that?” Terry and I ask almost simultaneously.

  “This is kind of a transient building, so we don't bother making friends. People come and go. It's a good place to stay if you're on the way to something else, but long-term, I'd probably look elsewhere."

  We follow him out to the hallway and downstairs, and I manage to give him my card before he disappears into his apartment. I get the sense that police presence is a pretty common occurrence here so I doubt that I would get a call back even if he were to see the Islingtons again.

  "Where do you think they are?" Terry asks me. When our eyes meet, I know that he’s terrified of what the answer might be.

  3

  I get back in my car with more questions than answers. This isn't uncommon, and in fact, I'm quite used to it. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know if this is a case at all.

  The couple might be found. The couple might have gone on another boat trip and didn't get in touch. Relationships between adult children and their parents are complicated and frayed, and it's not unusual for weeks or months to go by without either party getting involved.

  But the concern that I see on Terry’s face gives me pause. His family doesn't seem to be the type to simply disappear or leave for a long period of time.

  I stop at a red light and stare at the Tesla in front of me. It's gray with nice curves and I've seen them accelerate with great ease, much unlike my own Prius. I've never had a thing for cars, not like many in the department. I don't like the sound of their engines. I don't like looking at cars that I don't particularly like driving. Of course, I prefer to be the driver over the passenger. At least I have autonomy as to where I'm going.

  That was the one thing that really gave me some trepidation about this job in the first place, the amount of time that I'd have to spend in a vehicle, and over the years, I have gotten used to it. My car has become my second home. It's a place where I have a change of clothes, a book, my laptop, and even a little tray for eating on the go.

  I yawn and quickly try to push it away, but it somehow builds momentum and I feel more tired afterward. I should follow up and go check out the boat in Marina del Rey, but this is my day off and I'm not in the mood. I've been getting up at three a.m. for days, hardly getting any sleep at all. Of course, Luke and I have been spending more than a considerable amount of time together, but I'm entitled to have a private life, right?

  A large tow truck drives past me, leani
ng into the horn, and I realize that someone ahead of him cut him off. My thoughts return to Luke and how effortless our time together has been.

  Our relationship exists in pockets of air around both of our work schedules, but the time that we do get together, we just make the most of it. He likes to cook and has been showing off his prowess in the kitchen and making all sorts of dishes that are completely lost on me. I'm someone who can have an apple and some cereal for dinner and call it a day, but I do enjoy sushi and different types of vegetables and salads, and once he figured that out, he's been indulging me despite how much I've told him that there really is no need.

  A couple of days ago, I introduced him to Sydney, my closest friend and colleague, and he even managed to get her seal of approval and she's kind of a tough read. She knows my history with men, let alone men in law enforcement, and has little patience for the games that many of them like to play. In particular, the man that shall remain nameless, Thomas Abrams.

  He was an abusive and mean liar and cheater and no one at work knows about him except for Sydney and Catherine Harris, the assistant District Attorney. I also shared the details with Luke, who of course had a few choice words for “a loser like that,” his words, not mine, and all other men who would raise their hands to a woman.

  I've always prided myself on being a strong woman capable of taking care of myself. I've had relationships here and there, but I’ve been mainly on my own since college, taking care of my own every need and not depending on any man. Things were no different when Thomas came into my life, except that I liked him, his dry sense of humor, and his charm. And as the familiar story goes, the first time he hit me, it was out of the blue and he was drinking, and he looked so mortified and horrified over the whole thing; he apologized over, and over, and over again and I felt like I had no choice but to accept his apology.

  The second time he hit me, he pushed me into a wall out of anger. The third, and the fourth, I've lost count. Then I knew that I had to get out. I just couldn't let that continue. Otherwise, I'd become one of those domestic violence victims that I used to see on patrol all the time. So afraid of their own shadow and so dependent on the assailant that they’ll never be able to get out.

  I put a stop to it, but not fast enough. It was after another fight, another argument, another injury that I should have never had. What's scary to me, the thing that I regret to this day, is that I never pressed charges and no one at the department knows what a prick he really is. At first, I thought no one would believe me and that it was a one-time thing. But then I was, well, just embarrassed. It kept happening and here I was, this police officer with a badge and the power to even arrest him if I wanted to, and I let him control my life in that way.

  The night that I told Luke about it, I had buried my head in his shoulder and cried, and he held me close and told me that it was going to be all right. We've all been there as cops. Domestic violence calls are the most common ones of them all.

  A woman answers the door, clearly battered, clearly beaten up and hurt, and then she refuses to press charges out of fear, but also out of a lack of options. If she presses charges, the man spends a night in jail and then gets released. Where does he go? Back to their house, only this time, he's angrier. This time he’s had a whole day and night in the slammer to think about all of the horrible things that he can do to her to make her pay for what she dared to do to him.

  It didn't get that far with Thomas, but it went a lot further than it should have, and I was seeing the grip that he was starting to have over me and my life. And the worst part was, the more times that it happened, the less sorry he was and the more embarrassed I was for taking him back and for letting him into my life again, and again, and again. I didn't grow up in a physically abusive home. My parents had their arguments, fights, but my dad never hurt my mom and she never hurt him either. Underneath it all, I know that she loved him.

  I don't know why, suddenly, my thoughts return to my father, but as I approach another green light and put on my turn signal, that's just who I think about. These thoughts come in waves, along with the pain. Anyone who's ever lost someone, even a pet, anyone that they loved, will know.

  4

  I would say that I had a good childhood. A happy, content one for most of my life. But when I was a teenager, I found out that my father was dealing drugs and gambling. I'm not sure exactly how many years he’d been doing it because Mom doesn't really ever want to discuss it. Then there was his death, two gunshot wounds to the stomach, blood splattered all over their bedroom. I walked in on that and I've had nightmares about it for years. Eventually, time started to take away the pain little by little and I could breathe again.

  I knew that time could make things better, but what I didn’t know about was the waves of loss that would follow. I could be driving, just like now, hitting one green light after another and suddenly something about the world would remind me of that moment and a wave of loss would come and wrap itself around me.

  I would immediately find myself in that bedroom with those wallpapered walls, the single-pane windows that never kept out enough cold in the dead of winter or enough heat in the summer. That’s when I would see my father on the floor, his face still contorted with the pain.

  What kind of detective thinks that her father was murdered but doesn't do anything about it? Doesn't investigate even a little bit?

  That’s why I was attracted to going to the police academy in the first place. I thought it would give me some inside knowledge as to what happened that night, but I never took that final step.

  I never got the file.

  I never sought out the truth.

  I argued with my mother about how it couldn't be suicide, but that was all I did.

  I didn't take it any further.

  I park the car at the Starbucks and get out. Usually I go through the drive-through but today I just feel like a little walk around the parking lot. Everyone is in a hurry, rushing around, going far too fast. I text Luke to see if there's anything that he wants and I walk around in between the shrubs, enjoying the warmth of the sunshine on my bare arms after the coolness of the air conditioner. It's a particularly warm day, muggy, humid even.

  My thoughts return to my father and how differently I handled the situation with my sister. My mother has always been the type to, on the one hand, obsess and agonize over minuscule decisions, but at the same time, bury her head in the sand about others. That's why she couldn't do the press conference about Violet. She just can't face the truth sometimes and I wonder how much of that has to do with what happened with my dad.

  When I asked about him, Mom told me the bare minimum to get me to leave her alone. In that time when the pain was so strong and difficult to deal with, I accepted that that was enough. My father had a past. He sold drugs, and not just to old junkies who'd been doing it for years, but to kids. Not directly, but for others at the schools. It's a despicable thing to do. But what else is there? I hardly know anything.

  Mom mentioned this part of the story one night after we’d polished off two bottles of wine and she’d let her mind wander. But I've investigated nothing about my father in any real capacity. I never talk to anybody about it. I never even saw the police report regarding his death. I just put it all aside.

  As I get myself a cold iced tea, green, no added sweetener, I watch the condensation on the outside of the cup and I wrap my hands tightly around it. My nails are peeling in parts, painted a light lavender color that my mother hates. I haven't been to the nail salon in years. I have an anxiety about strangers looking at my short nails and handling my hands.

  I grab a seat on one of the metal benches and pull the nail polish container from my purse. Instead of removing the old color, I simply paint over it, committing the cardinal sin of nail design. It gives it somewhat of a layered look, not anything to show off on social media, but enough to make it look like my nails aren't completely in dismal shape to a casual observer.

  After putting Luke's tea i
nto the cupholder of my car, I walk across the parking lot to Albertsons to get a few things. As the sliding doors open with one sweeping motion in front of me, I walk through, grab a basket, and focus on limiting myself to just a few purchases.

  My thoughts return to my sister and how differently I have handled her disappearance. The easiest way to think about it is that by the time that Violet went missing I was an adult, a detective with years of experience and that she was also my sister, not my father. Also, unlike my father, I didn’t find her dead on the floor, and I have no idea if she’s really gone for good. She needs my help as we speak.

  The strawberries are fresh, but the blackberries a lot less so. The season is running out and I'm going to have to find a new go-to snack. When it comes to food, I eat things in cycles. I don't like having different things at every meal. Instead, I prefer to eat similar foods all the time until I get sick of it or the season changes.

  Usually, I spend the summers gorging on watermelon; if not every meal then almost every one. And by the time the season comes to an end, I'm pleasantly sick of it and start looking forward to something else. I walk past the packs of pretzels and potato chips, knowing full well that there's no way that I could have just one. No matter how much I tell myself that it would be nice to eat just a few, no harm done, I know that it will only open the flood gates. I can never have just a little bit of either.

  My thoughts return to Violet and exactly how much she hated going to grocery stores. I remember how much she would beg Mom to just let her hang out in the magazine aisle. Mom used to let me do that all the time when I was a kid, but we have a big age gap and times have changed. Mom watched true crime shows and didn’t feel safe letting Violet do that and Violet put up quite a fight.

  I haven't been to Albertsons in ages and I lose myself in the non-food aisles, looking at all the tchotchkes, the plastic mugs, the balloons. In the card aisle, I'm reminded of the fact that no one in my family ever really wrote cards. I've met others that take card giving to another level. I've always thought of cards as being a little lame. How long do you really hold on to them after you receive them? But as I got older, I now wish that my family had exchanged cards more. I wish I had written and told Violet how I felt on her birthdays and holidays and I know she would've kept mine and I definitely would have kept hers.