Faceless (15 page)

The past few years, it had just been him and Marty, but even Marty was spending less and less time at home.

“What’s going on, Captain?” Hope asked him, gently brushing some crumbs off the man’s sleeve.

“Nothing, forget it. I’m just having a bad day. I’m sorry.” He rubbed his eyes trying to avoid Hope’s.

“Captain, please, something is going on. You need to tell me how long these episodes have been happening.”

The gray-haired man turned to his son.

“Marty, don’t you have something to do?” he bellowed angrily.

Marty didn’t answer; the expression on his face was obvious enough.

The older man turned toward Hope, his eyes almost pleading for her to not ask any more questions.

It didn’t work.

“Captain, answer me, how long?” she demanded forcefully.

He shook his head, and shrugged his shoulders at the same time.

“It’s nothing.” He went to get up, but Hope’s arm, as thin and petite as she was, held him down as if she had the strength of a pro wrestler.

“I don’t know. A while,” he answered her, with a bit of reluctance.

Hope
looked over at Marty. “We need to get him scheduled for a CAT scan. I want you to make an appointment first thing Monday for him to see a neurologist.”

“Hey, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I don’t need a CAT scan, Dr. Rubin. It’s just a bit of old age. When you get to be my age, young lady, you’ll see!” He broke into a slight smile, the skin at the corner of his blue eyes folded into tiny creases.

Hope
looked over at Marty, letting him know it was time for him to intervene.

“I’ll call his primary Monday, get a referral,” Marty said.

“I can do it myself,” the Captain said in protest. “I’m still quite capable of making my own appointments!”

“Oh, old man, I didn’t say you weren’t, but I don’t trust you to do it,” Marty answered abruptly.

The Captain stood up. “Fine, suit yourself.  Make the damn appointment. You’ll see, it’s just my old age. Now, can I go back and get dinner ready?” He didn’t wait for an answer.

“Clear off the counter, so I can open the beans and get dinner on the table. Hope, you call Justin and Diane in, let’s get you people fed.”

It was as if nothing had gone wrong. The Captain was back to shouting orders, just like normal, and the ring stayed put in Marty’s pocket.

***

Saturday I slept in and just hung around the house. Saturday evening, Bethany had a birthday party and sleepover, so Glenn and I had the evening to ourselves, but I was so exhausted I had fallen asleep by eight p.m. and didn’t wake up until seven o’clock Sunday morning. I was looking forward to a leisurely day at home, and just doing some chores.

Later that morning, I entered Bethany’s room with a bundle of clean, folded clothes and I dropped them on her bed. I was so proud of the way my daughter kept her room, whereas her brother was a slob. More often than not, his clothes would lie in piles, resembling cow patties in a pasture.

Bethany
was more like her dad, who was teetering on OCD. Her dad was a neat freak, and everything had its place. Bethany’s bed was made up with her mauve-and-white bedspread tight and neat—not a wrinkle in sight. Her white Formica dresser and desk were dust free and each item on it sat perfectly in its own spot.

I was about to put her clothes in the dresser when I had this overwhelming urge to open the laptop that sat in the middle of her desk.

That just wasn’t like me, I never intruded on my children’s privacy. Never. My daughter had kept a journal since she was able to read and write, and unless she chose to read me something out of it, I never felt the need to intrude.

I don’t know what it was—maybe a mother’s intuition—but something compelled me to open the lid on that laptop.

The lid was covered with a plastic protective cover stamped with a 1960s-styled tie-dyed design. It had been in sleep mode and immediately went to her Facebook page. I saw that there was a notation that she received a message, so I pointed the mouse and clicked on it. A list of ‘to’ and ‘from’ messages came up.

I was in a state of panic and was about to hyperventilate when I read whom the messages were from.

Dylan
Silver
had been conversing with Bethany since the day that Jamie’s body had been discovered. I knew that my daughter’s smart phone was had a Facebook app, so she received the same messages on her cell phone that I was now reading on her laptop. The last one that came in made my heart pound. It had come in at eleven p.m. last night.

“Meet me at our spot,” was all that was it said.

I tried to scream Glenn’s name, but no sound came out. My throat felt like someone had stuffed a dry rag in it.

Finally, my vocal chords began to work and my scream was so loud that Glenn came running up the steps in a pure panic.

“My God, Jean, what’s wrong?” He was standing in the doorway, trying to catch his breath.

I dialed my daughter’s cell phone number. It went straight to voice mail.

I started to frantically look for my daughter’s phone book. I flipped the pages till I came to the letter M. Bethany listed her friends by first names, and my fingers traced the names down until I came to her friend Melanie’s name.

I pointed to the laptop as I dialed Melanie’s number. As my husband read the messages that Bethany and Dylan were sending back and forth, I waited impatiently as the phone rang and rang. No one was picking up. I was just about to hang up when Melanie’s mother came on the line.

“Denise, it’s Jean, Bethany’s mom. Can I speak to my daughter?” I tried to remain calm. Silence was what I got for the first few seconds.

“Jean? I’m sorry, Jean,” she sounded bewildered. “Bethany isn’t here. Is everything all right?”

“Did Melanie have a sleepover last night?” I asked, praying to myself that she just meant that my daughter wasn’t there at that moment.

Again, for a second there was a pause before she answered.

“Oh, no, Jean, I’m sorry. Bethany wasn’t here last night. Let me call Melanie and ask her if she knows where she is.”

I nodded my head as if she could see me. Then I remembered we were on the phone. “Yes, please, can you do that, Denise? Can you get back to me as soon as you can?”

I apologized for being blunt, hung up quickly, and turned to my husband.

“She’s not there, Glenn, she lied to us. There was no sleepover. Where the hell is she?” I was frantic.

“Hold on, you sure it was Melanie’s house she was going to? Maybe you got it wrong, you’ve been so preoccupied lately.”

I looked at him as if he was crazy.

“Of course she said Melanie, I’m positive she said Melanie.” I began to question myself, hoping that maybe he was right. I pictured the conversation I had had with her the day before. It came back to me loud and clear.

“No, she said Melanie. I’m positive, she said Melanie got that new mare for her birthday and she wanted to go riding with her.”

The phone rang and we both jumped. I grabbed it.

“Bethany!” I practically screamed into the phone.

“No, Jean, I’m sorry, it’s Denise. Melanie hasn’t spoken to Bethany. She doesn’t know where she is. I am so sorry. Is there something we can do?”

I knew as a mother she was feeling my fear and panic, especially because of what had happened to those two young girls in the last few days.

“Yes, Denise, please have Melanie call everyone she knows. See if she can find out where Bethany is. I need to go!”

I hung up the phone and turned to my husband. “You stay here, just in case she comes home. And keep calling her cell phone. Go through her messages and see if you can figure out where they were meeting.”

I grabbed my purse and ran out of the house. I hadn’t even closed the door of the car as I took off down the street. I had to pull it shut fighting a force of wind as I drove down the road.

I dialed Marty’s phone, asked where he was, and told him that I needed him to come with me. I knew I was driving erratically as I punched in the numbers on the phone, but I didn’t care. I called my partner Joe’s phone number next, quietly praying to myself that he had returned home.

That call also went straight to voice mail. I left him a message. I was crying now and I’m not even sure if he would be able to make out a word I said, but I knew he would call me back.

I couldn’t believe that this was happening to me. I was a cop and I should have more control over my family. My daughter had lied to me, she was not where she said she was going to be, and she was probably with the prime suspect in a murder and attempted murder.

I was scared to death.

I pulled up to the Captain’s house and Marty, the Captain and Hope, Justin and his wife were waiting outside for me. I briefly informed them of my dilemma as they tried to figure out a way to help.

Hope
and Diane decided to go to my house and help Glenn make phone calls to see if they could find someone who knew where my daughter may have met up with Dylan. The Captain offered to stay and watch the baby while Justin went back to the station and organized some sort of search.

My first stop was Dylan’s mother’s house. When I got to the house, I banged on the door like a madwoman.

“Jean, you have to calm down,” Marty said, grabbing my arm.

I took a deep breath. Intellectually, I knew he was right, I knew acting like a crazy woman wouldn’t help me find my daughter. I needed to take a deep breath, stop and regain some composure.

We heard someone coming to the door. When it opened Dylan’s mother was in her wheelchair, this time without a child on her lap.

I blew right past her and entered the living room.

“Where’s Dylan? Where’s your son?” I looked around the room frantically.

“What are you doing? He’s not here. What do you want?” She kept spinning her chair in each direction I went.

“I want to know where your son is.” I leaned over her, my arms on each side of her chair.

“I… I don’t’ know. He called me and told me not to worry; he said he was okay.” She cowered as I hovered over her.

“Jean.” Marty gently pulled me away.