On that morning, I did not wake up until 11:34. Groaning as I rolled over on my bed to look at my alarm clock, I dragged myself out of bed into my bathroom. The previous night, a Friday, I had attended a costume party. My costume, a Ghostbuster, had required a surprising amount of makeup, and the evidence remained on my face. After spending several minutes scrubbing my face in the shower, I felt my stomach growl.
The house was quiet, as it usually was on weekend mornings. Though only the three of us lived there, it was quite large, and we had plenty of space and two spare rooms. Mom only cleaned one, which was the guest room. The other belonged to my sister.
I slid down the banister carefully, managing not to fall off and break my arm as I had done several months earlier. Reaching into the fridge, I pulled out the orange juice. There was a note on the door. I went to a church meeting, your dad is out at work. Quiche in the oven. Be back by 2. I sighed, poured my orange juice, and cut a hearty slice of the quiche. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I scrolled through Twitter for yesterday's pictures. My memories were a little hazy, which may have been from a good time or the work of a more fermented agent.
Luckily, the photos from my phone and social media had not confirmed the presence of alcohol at the party. The main evidence was that my friends and I had done an excellent job at being the Ghostbusters, especially since we were all female. The idea came from my best friend, Ryan. Her dad owned a successful lawn-care business, and was nice enough to loan the four of us leaf blowers. I knew we would enjoy quite a bit of popularity once we got to school on Monday.
I slid my phone back into my pocket and went upstairs. I had a paper in Government and a Chemistry lab report due. I turned the radio to my favorite classical music station and got busy writing. The words seemed to run together in the paper, and even though I tried my hardest to focus, Tchaikovsky slowly rocked me to sleep.
I was awakened by my phone buzzing in my pants. "Hello?" I responded, trying to wipe the sleep from my voice.
"Alexis." It was my mother. I hardly recognized her voice, which was muffled by the sound of her crying and a hoarse voice.
"Mom? What's wrong? Do you need me to call Dad?" I hadn't heard my mom cry in 12 years, and I wasn't eager to hear it again.
"No, no. I just called you an Uber, he's gonna take you to the police station. I'm here."
"Mom, why am I going to the police station?"
"I have to go. I'll show you when you get here." She hung up immediately, the sound of her tears still echoing in my head.
I quickly put on a shirt that didn't have drool on the sleeves and yanked on some shoes and a hat. My hair was far too wild to try to contain in a short period of time. After grabbing an apple and my coat, I trekked outside. The car pulled up within mere minutes. "Hi," I said to the driver, and climbed into the back of the vehicle.
"Hi. Are you Alexis?"
"Yeah. Cheryl Potter sent you?"
"Yes." In hindsight, if I'd been thinking clearly, I wouldn't have gotten in that car with a complete stranger who claimed that my mother had sent him and already knew my name. However, these weren't normal circumstances.
I knew my way to the police station by heart, since we went once a month. When I'd been much younger, we went even more often than that. I knew some of the cops so well that two of them had been at my elementary school graduation. Countless hours of homework had been done at Detective Smith's desk. As the sedan pulled up to the sidewalk, I flew into the doors, yelling thanks to the driver.
When I burst through the door, I saw the chief talking to my dad. "Dad!" He turned to me and hugged me tight. "Dad?" I noticed tears on his cheeks and red eyes.
"They found her," he said.
