Killing Me Softly (#Wattys2016)

TWELVE

TWELVE

Sondra got out of the cab in front of her building, her body wilting with fatigue. It was close to two in the morning and she had to be back at the studio at nine. The narration was done and final mixing was taking up a huge chunk of time. They were on an aggressive editing schedule as the New York premiere was only a few months away, with the nationwide release shortly afterward.

Sondra dragged herself inside and checked her mailbox before falling into the elevator. She opened the door to her apartment and straggled to the bathroom to twirl the faucet on in the shower. Sondra stripped down and climbed in. She stood underneath the blistering needles of water, relishing the chance to power down her brain, even if only for a moment. She scrubbed the day away before washing and conditioning her thick black hair with vigorous strokes. After stepping out of the shower, she rubbed generous amounts of baby oil across her smooth brown skin before she shrugged into a pair of green sweats and a black tank top. She shuffled into her kitchen to make a cup of chamomile tea, and as she waited for the water to boil, she leaned against her counter thinking about the documentary. Overall, she was happy about how it was shaping up.

The kettle whistled and Sondra poured the hot water over the tea bag followed by two heaping spoonfuls of sugar. She stirred it, the clinking of the spoon against the side of the mug the only sound echoing throughout the apartment. Sondra blew into the tea and plopped onto one of her bar stools. That day's Times and Post were still hanging over the edge of the counter where she'd thrown them that morning. She grabbed the Post, not having the mental capacity to handle the Times at the moment. She leafed through it, that day's news only of mild interest now. She stopped on a picture of a pretty blonde girl with doe eyes, from California apparently, and shook her head. Yet another young woman who'd been missing for two weeks, triggering a statewide search.

"Hmm," Sondra murmured. "She went jogging just like Tracy."

Sondra kept reading, intrigued. When she finished, she pulled her laptop out of her bag and typed the woman's name into Google. Thousands of pages came up, including mentions in People and USA Today. On a whim, Sondra typed in "Tracy Ellis."

Tracy's obituary from the Chicago papers came up and it looked like her station had run a few stories, though Sondra couldn't access them. No media frenzy surrounding her sister's disappearance. A few outlets had picked up on Tracy's connection to a well-known author and former Olympian, though her parents had chosen not to exploit their fame to spur the search for their daughter. It was just their way. If Sondra had been in the country at the time, she would have raised holy hell. Which was her way. Granted, Tracy had only been missing just shy of a week, so Sondra wouldn't expect there to be a ton of news stories. Still... Sondra glanced back at the Post story with half a page dedicated to Sharon Wilson from Cupertino, California.

Sondra continued to click around Google, finding yet more stories about missing women. Sondra's curiosity was piqued by a USA Today article questioning the volumes of media ink devoted to finding missing white women versus minority women who vanished. She googled the names from the article and was astounded by the disparity in coverage. Sondra leaned back, her wheels clicking, like they did when she got an idea for a documentary. She re-read Tracy's obituary again.

"Well, baby girl, maybe you won't have died in vain."