NOT EDITED
By the time Rick got home, it was approaching six-thirty in the evening. The twins had probably gotten home around five, after their respective basketball practices. Enough time to have supper, enough time to get started on their homework. He made his way back to the rooms of his two eldest children, Jennifer and Peter. It seemed wise to start with Jennifer. She was friends with Bonnie. If something was going on with Bonnie, Jennifer was more likely to know the details, so long as Bonnie had gossiped about it. If there were rumors about Bonnie thinking of running away, Jennifer would have probably heard about them before Peter would.
Rick lifted a hand and knocked on Jennifer’s bedroom door. “Hey, honey, you too busy for a chat?”
It didn’t take long for Jennifer to pull open the door, one earbud pulled out of her ear and held in her hand. “You say something, Daddy?”
“Can we talk?”
Jennifer’s brow furrowed, but she nodded and took a step away from the door. Rick stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. It felt odd to be standing in his child’s room for what was essentially an interrogation. He’d done a lot in his career — seen a lot — but this one was a first for him.
“I wanna talk about Bonnie,” Rick said once Jennifer had sat back down at her work desk.
She threw her head back with a groan. “Did Pete send you? I already told her I don’t want to be involved.”
Well, pretending Peter had told him something was a damn good starting point, not to mention a good way to avoid telling Jennifer why he wanted to talk about Bonnie. “Yeah, but based on that reaction, I’m not sure he gave me all the details.”
“It’s just a little fight. It’ll blow over, and they’ll get back together. I’m not going to interfere with it.”
“Peter’s worried she isn’t going to come back on her own.”
“She will once she realizes she was wrong and that Pete doesn’t even see other girls when Bonnie’s in the room.”
Rick nodded. “When she was talking to you about the fight and the break-up, did she say anything weird to you?”
“Weird like how?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Something like… wishing things were different? That she had a different life or lived somewhere else? Anything like that?”
“No.” Jennifer’s brow furrowed again. Finally, she pulled out her second earbud and set it on her desk. “Is everything okay?”
Rick let out a breath. That one, he wasn’t going to lie about. He couldn’t, not to his little girl. He crossed the room and sat down on the edge of her bed, hands falling to his lap. “Bonnie’s mom came into the station not too long after school ended today. Bonnie didn’t come home tonight.”
“Oh, my God.”
“I know it’s a lot to take in, but I need to know if you think there’s any chance she would run away.”
Jennifer shook her head. “Not Bonnie. She’s mad at Pete, but that’s it, and that’ll pass. She loves her life. She loves here. She’d never run away from it.”
“That was sort of where my mind was too.” Rick cleared his throat. “What, uh… what’s the issue with Pete? How much about it do you know?”
“It’s stupid. He’s applying to other colleges that she didn’t apply to, and she thinks it’s because he wants an excuse to see other hot girls and cheat on her without her knowing. She’s just stressed out from semester one finals and all of that. But she wouldn’t run away. She’d go home and talk about it with her mom.”
“When was the break-up?”
“Uh… Monday, I think. But she’s been trying to talk to me about it since. I don’t wanna get involved and tell her how crazy she’s being about it and have her hate me forever because of it.”
“Okay,” Rick said, his voice soft. “She’s been her normal self outside of that? No strange behaviors? Paranoid looking over her shoulder or anything like that?”
Jennifer shook her head. “No, just… normal Bonnie.”
“Thank you, honey.”
Jennifer watched him stand up. “You’re gonna…? She’s gonna be okay, right? I-I mean, we’re in Ellepath. She’s okay. You’re gonna find her.”
Rick offered a smile. “That’s the plan, honey. We’re workin’ on it.”
***
After interrogating a second one of his own children, Rick stepped outside for some much-needed fresh air. Before he could even pull his phone out of his pocket to call Jeff, the man pulled into his driveway. Rick lowered himself to the stairs as Jeff climbed out of the cruiser. “What’d you find?”
“Ex-husband is nowhere near Iowa. Still in Florida. Was working today until about five-thirty,” Jeff said. He walked up the drive and sat down beside Rick. “How’d the convos with the kids go?”
“Both say there’s no way she would have run away. She was normal Bonnie today. Nothing out of the ordinary.” Rick chose to keep her and Peter’s fight to himself. Right now, he had no intention of adding fuel to Jeff’s ‘runaway’ fire. Everyone at the station would think she was just a teenage runaway. It was a small town. There was no way she could be in danger. But Rick knew better than that idyllic bullshit. Kidnappers didn’t stop kidnapping simply because they lived in a small town.
“Normal Bonnie,” Jeff echoed as he sat down beside him. “What does that entail for her?”
“I don’t know, what does it entail for any teenager?” Rick’s brow furrowed as he turned to look at Jeff. “Sorry, before you came up here, you said Tina’s ex was working today?”
“Yeah.”
“Like, the prison work camp?”
“No, he’s a mechanic. I talked to his parole officer.”
“Parole?” Rick echoed. “As… as far as I know, Tina believes he’s still in prison. Did the PO say how long he’s been out?”
“Three weeks.”
“We should talk to Tina about that.”
Jeff glanced down at his watch. “Tonight?”
“Her baby’s missing, Jeff. She’s not going to be doing any sleeping tonight, no matter what time we pay her a visit.”
“Yeah,” Jeff said, his voice quiet. “I told her I thought Bonnie was a runaway. And I still… I still think that’s possible. But because she already knows that’s how I feel, I don’t know… if I should be there when you talk to her.”
Though Rick knew part of that reasoning was likely Jeff’s desire to get home to whatever sexcapade Mary had planned for him, it was still sound reasoning, regardless of the driving force. “I’ll handle it and let you know how it goes. You and Mary can pick up your plans for the night.”
“I called ‘em off. I don’t think I should go inside, but I’ll sit out in the cruiser. I…” Jeff cleared his throat, lifting a hand to rub the back of his neck. “I think Bonnie’s a runaway. I’ve always believed every missing kid in Ellepath to be a runaway or a good hide-and-seeker, and I’ve always been right. But I can’t just go home, let you do all the heavy-lifting, and find out far too late that this time, I’m wrong. I don’t trust Tina enough to trust her gut, but I do trust you enough to trust yours. I’m tagging along, no matter how late of a night it is, or how many late nights it is. Okay?”
Rick smiled, reaching out to pat Jeff’s shoulder. “All right. Let’s roll.”
***
“He thinks I’m crazy,” Tina said as she set a coffee mug down in front of Rick.
“He doesn’t think you’re crazy. He’s just… like everyone else in this town. This is the only place they’ve ever lived. They’ve been lucky. Shielded from the real horrors of humanity. On one hand, that’s great. On the other hand, it makes people in small towns think crime in those small towns is impossible. That they’re immune.”
She nodded slightly, brow furrowed as she lowered herself into the chair opposite Rick at the dining room table. “Have you…? Have you found something?”
“Yes and no. Umm… your ex. Where is he these days?”
“Prison. Rotting in prison.”
“I was afraid you’d say that,” Rick said softly. “When there’s a missing kid, one of the first things we usually do is check out any estranged family members, and in doing that, we discovered that he’s been paroled.”
“He…? He what?” Tina asked, her voice breaking.
“He was paroled three weeks ago, Tina.”
“I-I never got a letter. I-I didn’t even know he was up for parole. Aren’t they s-supposed to tell me?”
“Usually, yes. I’m so sorry you didn’t know, Tina, and I’m so sorry that they let him out. What he did to you girls is… I don’t even think the man deserves to be alive, much less walking around in public. But, umm, I have to ask, and I’m so sorry that I have to. Has Bonnie ever shown any interest in reconnecting with him? I know she was young. I don’t know how much of the abuse she remembers versus what she just knows about because she’s been told.”
“What are you asking me, Rick?”
“Do you think there’s any chance Bonnie would leave to visit him? See him for herself? See how true the stories are?”
“She wouldn’t… I don’t…” Tina shook her head. “She wouldn’t, Rick,” she whispered. “She wouldn’t.”
“You’re absolutely, one hundred percent certain she wouldn’t? Bonnie intercepting a letter of parole notification is a damn good reason for why they didn’t tell you. They tried, but the wrong person opened the envelope.”
“She believes everything she knows about him. I-I keep the information limited. She shouldn’t have to know everything. But she has always believed that the abuse happened, was documented, and that he was imprisoned for it. She’s said more than once that she doesn’t have a father or a dad, and she’s happy with that. She wouldn’t, Rick.”
After a moment, Rick nodded. “What about him? You think there’s any way he’s smart enough to track you down?”
“Yes, but not because he’s smart. Because he’s persistent. If he has an ankle monitor, he’s not smart enough to get around that.”
“I… will check into that. Jeff is the one who talked to his PO. I don’t know what the conditions of his release were.” Rick cleared his throat. “I’ll find out more about that and work from there. In the meantime, if you were to hear from him in any form, I want to know immediately. No matter the time of day. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Rick reached out and wrapped his hands around hers on the coffee mug. “We’re going to bring her home, Tina. If it’s the last damn thing I do, she’s coming home.”
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