It's been eleven days since Kayla went missing and nine since the police started actually taking it seriously. Even after that agonizing forty-eight hours of wasted time, it never exactly seemed like their top priority. When Detective Pawnee called me in hinting at some new information, I found someone to cover my shift at the Daily Grind and drove myself to the station right away. The detective looked grim as we sat down in the cliche little interrogation room, and I had to remind myself that it didn't mean anything. He just had one of those faces.
I still couldn't stop myself from asking the obvious question anyway.
"Did you find her?" Hope and dread, all mixed together. After this long, the odds weren't exactly great. There was a chance, though. Of course, even the best case scenario now was complicated. Kayla hadn't just run off. Someone had taken her. Something had
happened. Life wouldn't just go back to the way it was even if she was brought home safe and whole right this second.
"We are invested in finding out what has happened to your friend, Mr. Julien," he rumbled back in a tone I suppose was meant to put me at ease. It didn't. "We need a bit more help from you. I appreciate you coming in like this. You said you and Kayla had known each other for a long time? You were close?"
"A few months. And yeah, I guess we were pretty-- How is this helping, exactly?" Suddenly I was in one of those surreal situations that should be funny except that it's terrifying. I didn't have a clue where Kayla had ended up or what happened to her. I had never hurt her. None of that stopped me from feeling queasy when the questions started hinting that what they were looking for now was a suspect.
I hadn't hurt Kayla, but I hadn't been completely honest with the officers either. It had been a necessary lie to get them to take me seriously. Every weekday for the past four months, Kayla has ordered the same caramel latte before work. I call her name, each morning, and watch as she steps up to the counter. Four months I have been saying her name and I am certain she doesn’t even know mine. It isn’t that she is self-centered in the sense you think of pretty girls as being self-centered. Kayla Howard just isn’t the sort of girl who expected to be noticed by anyone else. It is the sort of behavior people so often mistake as dismissive or cold, but it isn’t me Kayla is dismissing. It is the result of an awkward child growing into a lovely young woman so gradually that she was never really aware of the change she had undergone. The ugly duckling had no means of realizing it had become a swan.
The complete lack of self-awareness was, ultimately, what drew me in. The occasions when a shy, almost accidental glance would give me a clear but fleeting glimpse of those olive green eyes became a treat. Just like that, she had my attention. When she stopped showing up, I noticed. But you can't walk into a police station and file a report because a girl might have switched coffee shops. And you can't say that you got her home address by checking her ID when she paid one morning either, because then you end up in a tiny little room with a couple of chairs and a worn out table being asked leading questions.
So I lied. It doesn't mean I killed her.
Detective Pawnee is using that tone again. The one he learned watching cop shows. I expect maybe he's going to call me Buddy. Pal. Sport. We're all friends here. Did you catch the game last night? Stash any bodies? Don't worry, it's just us guys.
"I came to
you," I blurt, and regret it immediately. He just gives a solemn nod, making a clear attempt to look concerned, maybe even apologetic. It seems like a good point, but it also seems defensive. I really didn't hurt Kayla, but I'm nervous anyway, because I've never been interrogated before. Something about the cramped room and the whole cop vibe just have a way of making a guy feel guilty.
"We appreciate it," he repeats, all weary Midwest sincerity. This time it works. I convince myself I'm being paranoid. This guy is just doing his job in following up. I spend the next two hours answering all the same questions I answered at the start of this whole nightmare. I tell them what I know about Kayla's routines. She goes to work every morning at eight thirty. Afterward she takes her rat terrier, Lizzie, for a walk. The dog was found in her apartment, which suggests this wasn't when she was taken. The building itself isn't especially secure, but it isn't seedy either. Beyond that, she mostly stays home. Her neighbors don't have much more to say about her than the fact that she's quiet.
I'm starting to get worn out when my old pal says, "So you guys were close, yeah?"
"We were friends, yeah." I don't know where he's trying to go with it, so I wait, forcing myself not to scoot to the edge of my seat.
"I was just looking over her phone records again today and it just stuck out that there weren't any phone calls between you. No texts. Nothing." He said it like he was expecting a perfectly rational explanation. Like he was just waiting to laugh it off with me, embarrassed over having missed something so obvious.
"We'd just make plans when she'd come in. I'm not big on phones," I shrug, hoping it's casual and not just twitchy.
"Right, just had to ask." I half expect him to start in with a sympathetic story now. How his wife texts him all the time, how he hates phones himself. Women, right? He just smiles, though, shifting in his hard chair. "Your coworkers, though, they say they never saw the two of you talking."
Well, this is bad.
"Last week Jeff said he had the flu when he came in hung over," I counter.
"Jeff, that's the manager, yeah? He was real nice about letting us go over the surveillance tapes though, and turns out..." He spreads his hands, feigning helplessness.
"I came to you," I say again, exasperated.
"You did," Pawnee agrees, reasonably. "It was the right thing to do, too. It looks good, you stepping up like this. Now you've got the chance to come to me with anything you might have left out before. And look, I should tell you, we do have a warrant to search your place. So if there's anything you wanna get off your chest, with that in mind..."
All of a sudden, breathing isn't so involuntary anymore. I have to remind myself, after several neglectful seconds, to take a gulp of air.
I didn't hurt Kayla. I don't know where she is. I didn't grab her during her evening walk with Brutus through the secluded jogging trails she picks to avoid people. I never got the chance. Someone else got to her first. I didn't hurt Kayla, but if I had I would have taken a souvenir. I know it's as cliche as Detective Pawnee's best buddy act, but who doesn't like a memento? If they really are searching my apartment, they won't find a trace of Kayla Howard, but they will find Andrea Thomas's silver pendant. They'll find the earrings Cindy Ellison was wearing in all those bulletins plastered around town when she went missing three years ago. They'll find trinkets from half a dozen girls who aren't Kayla Howard. Through some fucked up twist of fate, I'm going to end up in prison over the one that got away.
(The prompt:
Serial killer has been monitoring his next victim's movements for months. She is a loner and the perfect target. One day she disappears and nobody notices but him.)
