What Happened at East Houston Street

Chapter 8

Tip was staring at the computer screen in his office on High Street when he felt the vibration of his cell phone in his front pocket. He reached for it and saw that Sarah Powers was calling him. He furrowed his brow as his thumb hovered over the 'Answer' button.

"Tip Wellington," he answered, trying to sound confident and unbothered as his hand slightly trembled holding the phone against his cheek.

"Tip, hey! This is Sarah Powers, Stephanie's sister." Her voice was overly friendly and very high pitched. He thought she sounded out of breath.

Sarah had never called him before, so he was anxious to learn the purpose of this contact. Usually Stephanie was the one to relay the invites to his parties or for trips out on his sailboat. Since their college graduation, Sarah's invites were less frequent, since both girls now lived in New York City, while Tip remained in Boston, while working at the prestigious Newell Investments as a Private Equity Associate.

"Sarah, yes, hi! How's everything with you?" he responded, working extra hard to sound casual and breezy. Why are you calling me?

"Good, well...not good...it's about Stephanie," she stammered, not really knowing how to explain the current situation of her missing sister.

Tip was starting to really worry now. Did she just say "Not Good", he wondered. Oh my God, what the fuck happened to Stephanie? His heart was racing. His hands were visibly shaking and a burning lump formed in his throat.

Sarah spoke again "Tip, I don't know what's going on. Stephanie's boss called me this morning because she never showed up and he hadn't heard from her and she's not answering her phone and she's not texting me back and the police won't help me because they say she needs to be missing for 24 hours and I'm seriously FREAKING THE FUCK OUT!!! OH GOD!!!" Sarah was fully sobbing at this point, her face hot with tears. She stood slumped in her tiny kitchen. Thankfully, both of her roommates were at work and she could totally break down without being self-conscious about it.

Tip's thoughts were everywhere. Missing?! What?! Is this really happening right now?
He rose quickly from his office chair and began pacing the area between his desk and the door, running his free hand through his hair and trying to piece together exactly what Sarah had just said.

"Sarah, slow down. Errr...calm down. Calm down." He tried to sound confident while trying to soothe her. He heard her sniffle and hiccup on the other end of the call. This poor girl, he thought, shaking his head. She must be so worried right now. Tip knew early on in their friendship that Stephanie meant the world to her older sister and vice versa.
"Sarah, where are you right now?" he asked.

Now short of breath and full-blown hiccupping, Sarah choked out a jagged response that she was at her apartment.

"Okay," he said, still pacing. "Stay where you are. I'm coming to you."

Tip heard a cry of relief and, what he sensed, gratitude on the other end of the line. He quickly ended the call and grabbed his suit jacket from the back of the door. Heading out of the building, he let the receptionist know that a personal issue had come up and to please let Mr. Newell know that he would be in touch with him as soon as he could. The receptionist gave a concerned nod that he didn't see because he was already jogging out of the building.

Tip jogged the whole way back to his Beacon Hill apartment from Downtown. He knew the train wasn't reliable and buses never ran frequently outside of the morning and evening commutes. It was still early afternoon. The fastest option was to run. As soon as he entered his small but quaint two bedroom first floor apartment on Franklin Street, he opened the closet near the front door and grabbed a duffel bag. He jogged to his bedroom and found two pairs of jeans and two sweaters and threw them in the bag, along with two pairs of boxer shorts and two sets of socks. He placed a pair of Nikes in a plastic bag that he had saved from grocery shopping and added them to the duffel bag. Lastly, he opened the small safe that was tucked away in his closet, typed in a code, and swung the thick door open. He removed an envelope of crisp $100 bills and a handgun. He wrapped the two items in a towel and placed them in the bag.

Tip didn't waste any valuable time changing out of his business suit. He had a 4 hour drive to make. Glancing at his watch he saw that the afternoon was slipping by, which meant a typically four hour drive was probably going to take him at least six. Traffic through New Haven at that time of day would be awful. He ran back outside to the back alleyway to his Volvo SUV.  He tossed the duffel bag into the back seat and slammed the driver's side door shut, trying to mentally prepare himself for a long, slow ride down Route 95.

Once he made it onto the highway and got past the worst of the traffic outside of Boston, he had begun to calm down a little. He couldn't help but feel responsible for whatever was happening to Stephanie. For the past two weeks, he was troubled and had a hard time sleeping. Worry plagued his mind even worse when he would close his eyes at night.

Traffic wasn't too heavy once he got out of Boston and he was cruising at a decent speed, allowing his body to relax a bit more into the soft leather seat, as he steered with one hand on the wheel. His thoughts wandered to happier days at BC. He recalled the excitement he felt when, during his freshman year, he saw that Stephanie had liked his Instagram picture of them at orientation. It was the picture that had started it all.

During his first winter break from college, he had woken up to find a notification on his phone screen that "Phoenix50" had liked his picture. He didn't recognize the screen name, so he instantly opened his Instagram app and clicked on the account. It was set to private, so he didn't have access to view the photos. The only clue was the profile picture, a faraway shot of a girl in sunglasses sitting on a bench. Though he could tell that the girl was familiar, he wasn't quite sure how he knew her.

Maybe this is just some random girl I've never met, he thought.

Tip, having run into a dead end in his sleuthing, clicked back into the picture that "Phoenix50" liked. He remembered that day at orientation six months prior. He had made a few new friends. He looked at his caption, "Already crushing hard on hazel eyes". Remembering the beautiful and funny girl from those three days in July, his heart skipped a beat. He zoomed in on the picture to get a better look at the smiling girl in his picture. Is that "Phoenix50"?

He was filled with hopeful excitement and was smiling, as he went back to the private Instagram account and pressed the "Follow" button. All he could do was wait for access. He spent the rest of his day frequently checking his phone to see if "Phoenix50" had accepted his follow request. That evening, when he was playing pool in his friend's billiard room, his phone beeped. Tip looked at the screen and a wide grin formed on his lips, as he read the notification. "Phoenix50 has accepted your follow request."

He had spent the later part of that night lying in bed and scrolling through the hundreds of pictures in "Phoenix50's" account. He had been giddy to learn that this was, in fact, the beautiful girl with the gorgeous hazel eyes from summer orientation. He was as far back as three years ago in her account and took extra care not to accidentally hit the 'like' button on any of them. He scrolled through picture after picture of the girl's high school days, smiling at her funny self-deprecating captions. He found one of her as a little girl, dressed in an oversized soccer jersey, holding a tiny ribbon that read "3rd place". She had captioned it, "Already destined for 3rd place. Whoa, dream big! #TBT". By the end of the night, he had decided that, not only was this girl the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, but she was also the cutest. He fell asleep in the early hours of the morning, hoping that he'd dream about the hazel-eyed girl.