Disappeared

by Lucienne Diver

  “Except the program would probably ask me a whole bunch of questions I can’t answer or text the code to her cell phone, which I don’t have. And if she has it and I’m worried for nothing, she’ll know someone’s trying to break into her e-mail.”

  “Okay then, what does she love?”

  “Us, I would have said … up until a few days ago.”

  Aaliyah let that go by.

  “It could be anything,” she said, “any combination of your names or dates or both. Let’s see if we can think of something else.”

  Jared raked his hands through his hair. “I don’t know. She loves food shows. Good Eats, Food Porn, Hell’s Kitchen, all that kind of thing. She likes travel shows too. She’s always dreamed of going places. Dad always promised trips we never got around to taking. Too busy at work or a downturn in the market …”

  “Travel?” she asked.

  “Don’t get any ideas. Mom doesn’t even have a passport. And she’d never take off on us … Not like that.”

  “I’m just thinking about passwords,” Aaliyah said.

  But Jared wasn’t so sure. Now that she’d put it into his head, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Would he know if Mom had gotten a passport? She’d always wanted to see Paris. What if she’d been squirreling away money? What if her fight with Dad was the last straw and she’d had it with all of them and wanted to completely start over somewhere else?

  “Wait,” he said. He typed desperately, feeling like this was a last-ditch effort, not only to get the password right, but to prove Mom wouldn’t have taken off. That she loved them.

  jaredemsmom

  He hoped she was too lazy a typist to throw in capitals, because he was at the end of his attempts.

  He held his breath as he clicked Enter and let it out in a gust as a loading bar appeared instead of a lockout screen.

  Aaliyah clapped him on the shoulders. “Good going! What did you type?”

  Oh, right, because the screen showed asterisks as he typed, not the keystrokes of the password. He told her.

  “How did you know to use Em and not Emily?”

  “Mom always shortens it. I figured she’d use the same shortcut in typing.”

  “Go, you!”

  Yeah, only now that Mom’s e-mails had loaded onto the screen, he felt a little sick. Was he really going to do this, snoop through her messages? He could mark them as unread, so hopefully she’d never know, but … It was still a violation.

  He was torn between frustration and relief when what came up was a lot of crap—credit card and insurance offers, special deals, sales fliers.

  “No one uses e-mail anymore,” Aaliyah said with a sigh. “It’s all about texting.”

  Which gave Jared an idea. Mom had complained that Facebook kept trying to integrate her messages so that her texts and everything went through their Messenger program. He could only hope she hadn’t fixed the problem.

  He clicked onto Facebook and logged out from the account he’d created but never used. He tried to log onto his mother’s account, but the password wasn’t the same as for her e-mail. Dammit.

  Aaliyah was out of her seat and standing behind him, either for the view or because she couldn’t sit still.

  “Reset her password,” she said.

  Jared craned his neck to look up at her. “But she’ll know.”

  The sad look Aaliyah shot him went straight to his heart. “She’s already gone. Are you more worried about upsetting or finding her?”

  He typed in lieu of a response, answering the security questions Facebook threw his way and hoping for the best.

  It was the longest half minute of his life waiting for the reset code and instructions to be delivered to Mom’s e-mail, but once he had those, he set a new password, the same as for her e-mail, and was in. He clicked over to her messages, and his heart seized.

  There were messages, but not nearly as many as there would have been if Mom’s texts were still integrated. Nothing from him or Emily. However, there were five listed as unread, all from a man he’d never heard of, a man with two first names—Richard Travis. His icon in Messenger was too small to see more than that it was some guy crouched down next to a dog. Jared clicked on the messages, the one at the bottom, the latest, asked, Everything okay? I haven’t heard from you. Worried.

  Well, that makes two, Jared thought. He looked back at Aaliyah, who was signing at him to scroll up, but he was only a few messages in when he had to get up and move away from the screen, afraid of what was coming next.

  “I can’t read it,” he said, as Aaliyah started to ask. “I just—it sounds—”

  “Like they started a friendship,” Aaliyah finished for him. “That’s all. You don’t know that it went anywhere romantic.”

  “And I don’t want to find out. If it did … If she left us to go to him—”

  “Then he wouldn’t be asking whether everything was okay. He’d know, because they’d be together. This message was sent early this morning. The others were Friday and Saturday. So, he hasn’t been in touch with her all weekend.”

  Again, that horrible rush of emotion that made Jared feel like he had a fever. If Mom was with this guy, then at least she was okay, but if not … “Would you—” Jared swallowed. He couldn’t ask his girlfriend to read through his mother’s possibly illicit messages to her boyfriend. That was too much. “Never mind.”

  He forced himself to sit back down and start skimming. Mom and this Richard guy met at the Italian cooking class Mom had taken in the spring, the one Dad hardly ever let her cook from, because he said his cholesterol would skyrocket. From there, she and Dick became Facebook friends, but from what he could tell, while it got a little flirty, mostly food puns, it didn’t go beyond that. They shared recipes. There’d been a request on Dick’s part for them to get together, but if it happened, they didn’t talk about it on Facebook. Did the fact that they used Messenger at all mean they’d never progressed to the swapping of phone numbers?

  “Maybe you should send him a message,” Aaliyah said. “Ask him to let you know if he hears from your mom and to encourage her to call if he does?”

  Did he want to do that? His head agreed that it was a good idea, but his heart wanted nothing to do with it.

  “Jared?” Aaliyah asked when he didn’t move or respond.

  “Just trying to figure out what to say.”

  He got as far as, Hi, this is Diane’s son before freezing up. The next logical thing was My mother is missing, but he hadn’t even admitted it to himself. And what if she wasn’t. They had yet to go by her house—Jared didn’t even know her new address. She could be hiding out. Aunt Aggie would surely have checked it, but if Mom was quiet or sleeping or in the shower …

  He hit the backspace button to erase his message, but as he did a notification popped up: Richard is typing.…

  Damn, had he seen that “Diane Graham” was online? Jared only went on Facebook when something he wanted to see had a Facebook page rather than a normal web address. He hadn’t really thought about that feature, though now that he was aware, he noticed a bar down the right-hand side of the screen with green lights indicating which of his mom’s friends were online.

  Then the new message popped up. Diane, I’ve been so worried. You okay? Did he hurt you?

  Jared’s blood ran cold. He looked at Aaliyah, to see if she’d seen, and she was staring back at him, her eyes wide. Jared hadn’t told Aaliyah how bad it had gotten. She knew about Mom and Dad’s fights, but not that they’d turned physical. He didn’t want anyone to know, but especially not Aaliyah. What if she worried he’d follow in his father’s footsteps?

  What if he was afraid of it sometimes himself? Not that he ever wanted to hurt anyone, but anger seemed to be his default. Like with Mom. So far, he’d only expressed himself with words or silences. Or once throwing a game controller at the wall, but … what if that was how it started? What if he was like Dad?

  Then a thought nearly as bad occurred to him. He hadn’t s
een anything about Dad being abusive in their messages above, which meant that this Richard guy must communicate with Mom outside of Messenger. Maybe even in person.

  Who the hell are you? Jared typed, before he could help himself. Stay out of our business. He jammed his finger on the Send button, instantly regretting it. But it was too late. The message had gone out.

  Richard is typing.…

  Who is this? he asked.

  Jared logged out of Facebook and slammed down the lid of his laptop.

  Aaliyah jerked back like he’d thrust it at her. “What was that all about?” she asked, her voice tight.

  “What?”

  “That. All of it. Him asking whether your father had hurt your mother. You flying off the handle.”

  “Wouldn’t you be upset if someone said that about your family?”

  She studied him, her dark eyes hard, not molten or sparkling or any of the ways she usually looked at him. He felt cold in his core. But maybe that had come earlier, when he first saw the five waiting messages to his mother from a man he didn’t know.

  “That’s not an answer. It’s deflection.”

  “I know,” he said, glancing at her. Maybe the tortured look he was sure he wore would tell her everything he couldn’t put into words. Getting defensive and shutting her out would only drive her away. He couldn’t lose Aaliyah like he’d lost his mother.

  “Oh, honey.” Aaliyah opened her arms and Jared leaned into her, his face pressed into her stomach so that his nose filled with her amazing ginger and whatever body wash. She wrapped her arms around him, finger-combing his hair with one hand.

  He hugged her back, but far more gently than he wanted, feeling too childlike in that position and worried about seeming too needy.

  They heard footsteps coming their way, intentionally heavy-footed, he thought, so that they’d know Mr. Persad was coming and cease whatever it was they were up to. Jared let Aaliyah go, reluctantly, and she sat back down in her seat to stare at the entrance to the dining room where her father appeared.

  “Hi, Dad,” she said wryly.

  “Hi, kids,” he answered, emphasizing the kids. “How’s the research coming?”

  “We’re all done,” Aaliyah said, indicating Jared’s closed computer. “We were just going to put on a movie. Wanna join us?”

  Please say no, please say no, Jared chanted in his head.

  “Thanks, but I’ve still got a bit of work to do, and I don’t want to cramp your style,” he said, though the last part was clearly a lie. “Have fun.”

  Jared tried a smile he was sure failed spectacularly, but Mr. Persad was already turning away and never noticed.

  “Assuming you want to watch a movie,” Aaliyah said when he was gone. “I thought maybe something to take your mind off things …”

  That sounded awesome, if probably impossible.

  “Sure,” Jared answered. “Maybe something stupid funny. Lots of action and no redeeming social value.”

  “Like?”

  “Anything.”

  “Let’s raid our collection.”

  For the next two hours, they watched Kevin Hart make his “oh crap!” face. Jared surprised himself by mostly forgetting himself and even laughing along.

  The police were waiting when he got home.

  Eight

  Sunday afternoon

  Emily

  Emily froze when she opened the door and saw two police officers standing on their front porch. Her heart started to pound.

  “Mom?” she asked, before they could even talk. All she could think was that Mom had gotten into an accident and that was why she hadn’t called.

  “I’m sorry?” asked the taller officer, taken aback.

  “Did something happen to Mom? Is that why you’re here?”

  He shared a look with his partner, but neither one answered directly. “Is your father at home?” he asked.

  “Dad!” Emily shouted into the house. “Dad, the police are here!”

  She turned back around. “Please, uh, come in.”

  They crowded into the foyer, and she retreated before them, feeling very small. Even the shorter officer—a lean woman with dark hair, dark eyes, and bags underneath them even though she couldn’t have been more than twenty-five—was about Jared’s height. Like five-nine. The other officer, big, blonde and bulky, was almost as tall as Dad, who came into the picture just then to make her feel even smaller.

  He looked down at Emily, and for a second she wondered if she shouldn’t have let them in, but they were the police. What else was she supposed to do? Maybe she should have asked to see badges first or waited for Dad to take care of that.

  But then he passed right over her to the officers, a smile starting on his face. They didn’t echo it.

  “Officers,” he said, holding out a hand to the man to shake. “I’m Drew Graham.” After the guy had shaken, he held his hand out to the woman. “What’s this about?”

  “I’m Officer Villarreal,” she said, “and this is Officer VanWyck. We’re here about your wife. Your sister-in-law reported her missing.”

  Dad glanced down at Emily again, and she was afraid he was going to send her to her room. Like she didn’t already know something was wrong. Like she wasn’t crazy-worried. She hugged herself, pressing her fingers hard into her still-healing cut to focus away from the present pain. She hid a wince and forced herself to ease off before she went too far and had to explain the bleeding.

  Before Mom left, her greatest fear had been that someone would find out about the cutting and she’d be committed. One of Jared’s friends had been sent away for a mandatory seventy-two hour watch last year after he’d tried to hurt himself. He’d said it was hell, and the whole school wouldn’t shut up about it. In his case, it was his wrists he’d cut, and his intent had been … different. She wasn’t sure the police or her father would get the distinction. She didn’t want to end anything but her pain. Yet if she ever cut too deeply … maybe there wasn’t as much difference as she wanted to believe.

  But Dad was saying something to the officers, and she had to focus back in. “I was afraid this would happen,” he said, his voice gone weary and sad like it did when he was disappointed in her. “Aggie was really concerned when Diane didn’t meet her this morning. I told her—I’m sorry, I don’t mean to keep you standing here. Maybe you want to come in? I can make coffee or something. I’m sure you have to ask your questions.”

  “Yes, sir, we do,” the taller officer, VanWyck, said, but Emily thought she saw his shoulders drop just a little bit, his tension easing at the lack of confrontation. It must be tough to be a police officer and never know what you were walking into.

  Dad led the officers into the kitchen, hugging Emily to his side along the way, surprising a gasp out of her when his hand pressed against the wound on her shoulder. He either pretended not to notice or really didn’t, and she breathed a sigh of relief. He signaled the officers to seats at the kitchen table, but only VanWyck took him up on it. Officer Villarreal stayed standing, her back up against the wall of the breakfast nook, gaze sweeping the house. She held her hands loosely at her sides, like she might have to go for her gun at any time. Her nails were as bitten down as Emily’s, and she felt a weird kinship. If she were writing a story, Officer Villarreal would be the hero. But this was real life, and she couldn’t get lost in fantasy.

  “Emily, why don’t you see if the officers would like anything to drink,” Dad said.

  Because she was a girl and lived to serve (not) or because she’d stayed standing, unsure of her welcome? It didn’t matter, both officers declined.

  Emily got herself something instead, to give herself a reason to stay in the kitchen, as if worry over her mother wasn’t enough. She grabbed a bottle of soda out of the refrigerator and poured herself a cup as quietly as she could manage, then stayed there leaning against the counter, out of Dad’s eyesight.

  “As I told Aggie,” Dad said, leaning confidentially toward officer VanWyck, who was sit
ting across from him, poised with a notebook and pen, “Diane and I got into a fight Friday night. It got a little heated, and she left, saying she couldn’t handle things right now. She needed to get herself centered before she could be anything to anyone else. Then she took off. She was supposed to have the kids this weekend, but she left them behind.”

  Officer Villarreal shot Emily a look, and her heart sped up an extra few beats. The look was more than just sympathy. There was speculation there, and Emily had no idea what she was thinking. She hoped it wasn’t that this conversation would be better held without her. She was relieved when the officer focused back on her father.

  “Heated how?” she asked.

  Did Villarreal know about the previous call out to their house? No charges had been filed, so surely there wouldn’t be anything on record. Emily was suddenly afraid for her father. What if the police thought he’d done something more than just drive Mom away?

  “Don’t get the wrong idea,” her father said. “It was just words. We were in a public restaurant.”

  “Which one?”

  “Vespucci’s.”

  Officer VanWyck was taking it all down.

  “What time was that?” he asked, looking up from his notepad.

  “I don’t know, around six thirty or seven.”

  “And when you left?”

  “Maybe close to ten.”

  “Long dinner.”

  “We had a lot to iron out,” Dad said.

  “And then?”

  “I paid the bill; we went our separate ways.”

  “And you haven’t heard from her since?” Officer Villarreal asked. Emily didn’t like the way she was looking at Dad.

  “I’ve heard from her!” Emily jumped in. “She texted me and Jared yesterday.”

  “Can we see the text?” the officer asked, shrugging away from the wall.

  Emily fought her phone out of her pocket, unlocked it, and swiped over to her texts. She opened the conversation with Mom and scrolled up so the cop could see Mom’s text rather than just Emily’s pleas for her to come back. Then she held her phone out to them, screen first.