Girl Found: A Detective Kaitlyn Carr Mystery Read online

  I stay on the porch for a little bit after that, wishing, once again, that this could have gone a little bit differently.

  Finally, when the snow starts nipping on my nose a little bit too much, I reach for the door and go inside.

  The following morning, I meet up with my mom with a big box of fresh donuts and a jug of coffee.

  I'm bringing it over for all of the volunteers who are gathered at the Veterans Hall. There's going to be another press conference at the police station followed by another search around the observatory area.

  We drive over to the station, the glaze from the Krispy Kreme covers my fingers and my lips. I'm not much of a donut kind of girl. I love them and pretty much anything sweet, but I try to stay away because they inevitably spike my blood sugar, leaving me tired, hungry, and irritated.

  I get to the press conference right on time, just as Captain Talarico takes the podium. Dressed in one of his nicest suits, he looks confident and competent delivering the difficult news.

  In addition to finding Violet's clothes packed neatly in a bag, they also find Natalie's clothes packed in the exact same manner, a large plastic bag.

  Why?

  Why would anyone ask them to strip and then take the time to carefully put everything they were wearing in a bag like that?

  I stand near the back of the room and I hear a few deputies gossiping. One of them tells the other about how distraught Natalie's mom was when she heard the news and when she had to identify the clothing as the things that her daughter wore that night.

  To say that she was inconsolable would be a grave understatement.

  Out by the podium, a little bit against the wall, I see Natalie's brothers, the rest of the triplet set. Steven and Michael stand with their backs against the wall, dressed in similar khaki pants and button-down shirts.

  They're here to do some press interviews, no doubt, but they look practically comatose.

  I bite my lower lip as I try to decide what to do.

  Do I approach them? Do I talk to them now?

  Captain Talarico gathers his papers after going over all of the major details in the cases and talking about their possible relationship. I say possible because nothing is certain, but is anyone really not convinced that the two cases aren't related?

  They went missing just a few days apart.

  They disappeared under very, very similar circumstances.

  They were both dropped home in front of their houses, at which point, they went missing.

  Nobody has heard from them since and the only evidence that has been collected are the two plastic bags full of everything that they wore.

  "Hey, can I talk to you two for a second?" I say, walking up to the boys.

  "You're Violet's sister," Michael says, narrowing his eyes immediately.

  "Yes, I am, but I'm also a detective and I just want to ask you a few things."

  "No," Steven says, shaking his head.

  He's a little bit bigger in size than Michael with a doughier face, but kinder eyes.

  "Please, I think it would be best if we worked together, if we could compare stories."

  "There's nothing to compare. My sister had nothing to do with your sister’s disappearance."

  This takes me by surprise.

  "What are you talking about?" I ask. "Of course the two cases are related. What about the clothes that they found in the park?"

  Michael shakes his head and Steven follows along.

  "What about the fact that they both went missing in a very similar and suspicious way?"

  Michael shakes his head.

  "What do you think happened to your sister then?" I ask.

  "Nothing. I don't know. I don't know what to think."

  "You're certain that her case has nothing to do with Violet's though? Why?"

  "Why would they be connected? Why would Natalie run away with Violet?"

  "Wait, what?" This really takes me by surprise.

  Michael tries to shush him, but Steven is too much on a roll.

  "Our sister was one of the most popular girls at school. She and Violet, they just ran in different circles and there's no way they would have run away together."

  "Run away together? Why do you think that Natalie ran away?" I ask.

  "What do you think, there's some sort of serial killer kidnapping teenage girls, making them strip off their clothes, putting them in bags, and leaving them behind?"

  That thought has occurred to me, I want to say, but I keep my mouth shut. Steven starts to walk away, but I follow him.

  "Can you tell me what you're thinking? What do you think happened to Natalie?"

  "I don't know what happened, okay, but she told me that she was running away. She even wrote it in an email to me."

  "She did?" My mouth nearly drops open.

  He pulls out his phone and flashes it to me. I take it carefully, handling it as if it were a bomb, holding my breath as I read it.

  I'm not going to be around much longer. Take care of each other and tell Mom not to worry. I'll be fine. I know what I'm doing. I'll be in touch as soon as I get there.

  "Get where?" I ask.

  He shakes his head.

  "You have to tell me."

  "I don't know." Steven grabs his phone out of my hand. "This email arrived last night."

  My eyes widen. He thinks this is actually an email from Natalie.

  "Natalie ran away, okay? She wants to be gone. She had all these problems with my mom and she had all these issues with Neil."

  "What about her clothes?" I ask.

  "I don't know. Maybe she changed, maybe she knew that we'd all be looking for her. Who knows."

  I nod.

  Mrs. D’Achille comes over and pulls her sons away from me. I swallow hard as I let the wave of emotion rush through me.

  For a moment there, I thought that Steven had actual evidence that she was gone, that maybe she wrote that email before she went missing, but I'm pretty certain that whomever took her wrote that email to throw us off the mark.

  He can convince a teenage boy, but not a seasoned professional.

  After talking to the boys, I head straight to Captain Talarico and tell him what Steven D’Achille has on his phone.

  “The kid thought that he was protecting his sister by covering it up.”

  As soon as he sees the captain and me approach him, he gets angry.

  "I should have never told you a thing!" he yells.

  "What are you talking about?"

  "This is a message from Natalie."

  "Steven, please. We have to go through the proper channels. Our crime tech team has to go through all of your emails and track who sent that email and why."

  "No, it's Natalie. I'm certain of it, even the way she signed it and all in her little phrasing. It's her," he insists.

  This makes me pause. In fact, it might actually be good news.

  "Whether or not it's her, we have to confirm it. It may be her and this may be a clue to finding out where she is."

  "What if she doesn't want to be found?"

  "That's not really up to her," Captain Talarico says. "She's underage. She can't go missing. Okay?"

  "She's going to be so mad at me," Steven mumbles. "I should have never said anything."

  When the captain starts to pull him away, I lean over and whisper into his ear.

  "I'm glad that you said something. She may be alive and she may need your help. This way we'll find out for sure. If she did run away, well, I'm sure she'll like to know just what kind of caring and loving brother she has watching out for her."

  He shakes his head and turns away, reluctantly handing his phone over to one of the deputies holding an evidence bag.

  10

  Right after the press conference ends, Mom excuses herself to go to work and I meet up with her later around lunchtime.

  Work is her sanctuary. It's her happy place, just like it is for me.

  She likes being around books. She likes organizing them, handlin
g them, getting new ones in, and cataloging them.

  I park out front of the public library, where I have spent many happy hours of my life. The building is rather bureaucratic in its formality, no columns or fancy things like they have in some big city libraries, but more like an office building with a no-nonsense exterior and even less no-nonsense interior.

  I find Mom in the back, walking around with a trolley, sorting. She only works here part time now, just because more hours are not available, but I have a sneaky suspicion that she would work here for free if she could.

  I tell her about what happened with Natalie's brothers and she sighs loudly at the end.

  "That's not her writing that email," she says quietly.

  "No, I don't think so either, but we're going to confirm. Maybe it was her typing it out and she's somewhere and they left some sort of online ID."

  "So, you'll be able to track the location of whomever wrote that?"

  "Yeah, unless they took steps to cover up their cyber trail, which is not unheard of, of course."

  "So, you're certain that the two of them are together?" Mom asks.

  "I'm not certain of anything. This is probably the strangest case that I've ever worked.” I shake my head and whisper, “I don't know what the connection is between them. I mean, they're friends. They go to the same school, but why take both of them? The thing that makes it particularly difficult is that it's a stranger or someone who is almost a stranger, which makes it very hard for investigators to track."

  "What do you mean?” Mom sticks her hands into her pockets.

  "Well, you know, if it's someone that Violet knows directly, that's one thing, though I'm not sure that either of them know this person. In most criminal cases, it's a close family member or friend, usually a male. It's in their circle of friends, so to speak, so it's easy to connect the dots or easier. DNA and all the other forensic evidence helps that along, but in this case, we don't have any forensic evidence. We don't have a body. We don't even have a circle of friends that this could be tied to or he could be tied to and that's what makes it quite difficult."

  "It's still going to be solved, right?"

  I nod and promise that it will, but she and I both know that I can't make that kind of promise.

  In my line of work, I tend to make promises that I really shouldn't. But how do I say no though?

  I always promise that I will find out the truth, but what I'm really promising is that I'll do my best and this case is no different.

  I will do my best to find out what happened to Natalie and to my sister. I will do my best to try to find out the truth and I'll keep working this case for as long as possible, long after everyone else gives up.

  A coworker walks by, looking back occasionally with a lot of nervousness in her body. Mom says hello to her, but their interaction is terse and quick.

  "What was that?" I ask my mom.

  She just shrugs and looks past her coworker. The tone of the afternoon seems to shift. She doesn't have to tell me because I already know.

  When you’re family to someone who's gone missing or a murder victim, people don't know what to say to you. People don't know how to act around you. After the initial condolences and asking for details about what's going on, a wall takes over.

  To change the topic, Mom invites me out to lunch and we can't get there fast enough. We drive to one of our favorite restaurants in town. It's relatively modern and it has a serious LA vibe, lots of specialty cocktails as well as ahi tuna for appetizers. Mom insists that it's going to be her treat. As soon as we order a round of cocktails, I find out why.

  "I hate to ask you, but I need to borrow some money," she says directly, without beating around the bush.

  I'm actually a little bit surprised. She has always been very responsible and good with finances.

  "I'm behind on the mortgage. I've had some unexpected expenses creep up. Violet's braces, things like that and I just don't get paid that much."

  "Yes, I understand. Anything you need. How much?" I ask after a pause.

  My grapefruit vodka cocktail arrives and I take a few big gulps to try to ease some of the anxiety of being here and having this conversation. I don't know if you know what it's like to have your parent ask you for money, but it doesn't feel good.

  Despite my dad's illegal activities and all of their problems when I was growing up, Mom always made sure that the mortgage was paid and everything was taken care of.

  I didn't live a lavish life, but I was also never worried about being evicted or thrown out onto the street. I actually had no idea that was what really happened until after I graduated.

  "Is everything okay, Mom?" I ask, after she finishes one cocktail and orders another.

  "I like that guy, Luke, the FBI agent, your friend."

  "Yes, of course.” I nod, taking a bite of the pita chip.

  "He seemed like he'd be good for you."

  "Yeah, I guess."

  "What do you think?" she asks.

  "I don't know. I mean, I enjoy spending time with him, but it's complicated."

  "Doesn't sound like it's very complicated. I heard him say that he wants to be with you."

  "Were you spying on us?"

  "No, of course not, but the walls in the house are thin, as you know."

  I nod thinking back to all the fights that I overheard her have with Dad and how loud Violet was when she cried as a baby.

  "Why did you say no?" Mom asks. "He seems to be like the type of guy who would be appreciative of your line of work and wouldn't be scared by all the hours you put in."

  "Yeah, I guess," I mumble, taking another bite.

  "Tell me what you're thinking, Kaitlyn."

  I swallow hard. It's hard for me to explain.

  "I don't know. I wasn't really thinking anything. I'm not ready," I finally say.

  "Are you not ready or are you scared? Those two things are not the same."

  "Why are we talking about this? Why don't we talk about Violet?"

  "There's nothing to say about Violet," Mom says. "Besides I need to talk about something else. I need to think about something else. Otherwise, I might lose my mind."

  I reach over and grab the glass of water, bring it to my lips, and feel the chill of the ice cubes on my tongue.

  "I just don't know if I can date like that. I mean, he wanted me to be his girlfriend. He wanted us to be exclusive, but I don't know what that means."

  "That means you don't date anyone else. You see each other. You spend time with one another. You see if you can put up with one another long enough to spend a few years together. If that goes well, you get married," Mom says, tossing her hair from one side to another.

  "That's so romantic." I laugh.

  "Listen, I believe in love, you know? Real deep, all consuming love, but I also believe that this is what it requires. It requires you to take a chance to jump."

  "I don't have a parachute," I say.

  "You don't need one."

  "You always need a parachute if you jump from a high place."

  Our eyes meet and she shakes her head.

  "Why do you think I was together with your father all of those years long after I knew that he was selling drugs and he was running one of the biggest operations in this part of California?"

  It's the first time she's ever spoken to me about him like that.

  "Why?" I ask.

  "Despite all of it, despite that secret life, despite all the danger that he put himself in and he put our family in, I loved him and I wanted to be with him. I didn't need a parachute because I knew that it would be okay."

  I bite the inside of my cheek.

  "It wasn't okay, Mom," I say. "You needed a parachute because he was killed. You found him dead in your room with two gunshot wounds in the stomach. You needed a parachute to protect you from all of that pain and to protect us from all of that sadness."

  "No, I didn't need one," Mom says. "Just because something bad happened at the end, doesn't mean that w
e didn't have a million beautiful, amazing moments together."

  "Yes, it would mean that," I say after a long pause. "I mean, I love Dad, of course, but you were the one who was married to him."

  "The thing about it, Kaitlyn, is that you don't not read a book just because it's going to end badly. You read it anyway. You read it despite that. If you think about it, everything in life ends badly, right? We all die. We all have to say goodbye."

  "No," I say quickly. "I don't believe that. I mean, yes, we all die, but we don't all have to die like that. We don't have to be murdered."

  "Don't say that," she hisses, putting her finger in my face. "He was not murdered. He killed himself."

  "You don't know that."

  She looks away from me, pursing her lips. She tries to hold back tears.

  "I don't want to fight about this, Mom. Let's just agree to disagree, but no, not all deaths are a sign that everything ends badly. The majority of them are a sign of a life well lived. Besides, I tend to believe in another pearl of wisdom as they say that I think it's an Indian saying that goes something like everything is okay in the end and if it's not okay, it's not the end."

  Our food arrives and we sit together silently after the waitress leaves, not looking at each other, but not diving right in as well. It's a moment of contemplation of thought.

  Somewhere in the distance, a bird chirps and dances on a twig. One car pulls out and another pulls in.

  A group of girls walk by giggling and a young father carries his toddler on his shoulders licking an ice cream cone.

  We spend the rest of lunch talking about things that don't really matter. She doesn't bring up Luke and I don't bring up my father.

  Neither of us mention Violet. Sometimes you have to consciously avoid certain topics in order to just get through it.

  Just as the check arrives, Mom insists, "I'm paying for it."

  I'm quickly reminded of the fact that she just asked me to borrow money for the mortgage.

  How many months behind is she? How much does she need?

  What happens if I can't help her out in a few months?

  As she signs and gives a generous tip, I notice how very put together she looks now in comparison to how she did before. It throws me off a little bit.