by Kate Anders
I’m then prompted to change the password, and I change it over to the password that I use for my email so it’s easy for me to remember. In a matter of seconds, I am looking at her inbox.
The first thing I notice is that all of her emails are unread. Clara is one of those people who checks it several times a day. She reads them, replies, and then either stores them in specific folders or deletes them. There is never any buildup, so this is not an encouraging sign. Wherever Clara is, she isn’t checking her email.
There are more than a couple messages from our friends trying to check in with her and make sure she is doing okay. The earliest ones don’t seem all that worried about her, but as the hours turn into days, the tone of the messages start to take a turn into more worried territory.
I also see an email from the police department, and without a second thought, I click on it.
To: Clara Tomas
From: Durham PD
Subject: Contact
Ms. Tomas,
This is Sergeant Edward Cooper from the Durham Police Department. There has been some concern about your well-being and whereabouts and a missing person report has been opened for you. If you could please contact me at your earliest convenience, we could clear this matter up quickly. My cell phone number is 919-555-0125.
Hope to speak with you soon,
Sgt Cooper
I find it somewhat reassuring that Sgt Cooper tried everything he could think of trying to get ahold of Clara, even though he had to know the chances that Clara was going to reply were slim. After exiting out of the message, I make sure to mark it unread just in case one day Clara does check her email, this one will catch her attention. There is nothing else really remarkable about her inbox, just a couple of emails that go out to everyone in a class with reminders of important dates or opportunities for lab time; basically all the mundane things you would expect to see.
Time to check out the sent folder so I can actually see what this email that explained how she was thinking about leaving school actually looks like. I notice something is off within seconds. As soon as I get to the sent folder, there is only one in the sent pile. I’m pretty sure the sent folder doesn’t self-delete things, and I know Clara wouldn’t have deleted them either, so why in the world would it be empty except for one?
Even though my mind is racing with the possibility that someone has already been in the email account, I move forward with checking out the message from Clara.
To: Margret Kwan
From: Clara Tomas
Subject: Enrolled Status
Hello Mrs. Kwan,
I hope this email finds you well. I wanted to check in with you to let you know I am considering withdrawing from the computer science program. The pace of this semester’s coursework has been more intensive than I had been anticipating and it’s becoming incompatible with my other responsibilities. Please be on the lookout for forthcoming paperwork concerning my enrollment status.
Thank you for your time,
Clara Tomas
What the fuck did I just read? That was not Clara. Never in my entire life have I ever heard Clara talk like that, or have I ever read anything she has written that sounded like that. And I read every draft with cover letter for her internship application, and it was nothing like this. This reads like someone trying to sound smarter than they are and professional, but it’s coming off as stiff and weird. One thing is for sure, either Clara didn’t write this, or someone dictated it to her, because this is crazy.
Even though I am still dumbfounded by what is going on and wondering who the hell wrote this email, I know the most important thing to do right now is to save it. So I save a copy of it to my computer, and then print it out for my Wall of Crazy. Before I go to tack it up on the wall, I decide to keep looking around in Clara’s account. Who knows, maybe there is something else to be found.
After a while, I realize it’s the lack of something I should be worried about. Just like the sent folder, the entire rest of the email account has been emptied out. All of the folders are still there. One for each of her classes, one for past classes, a folder for friends, one for business contacts, all kinds of organizing folders, and still nothing inside any of them. Who would erase everything but leave the folders? It makes no sense. Either way, this whole thing feels like a clue.
Since I’m the only one in possession of the password for the email account, I decide to go ahead just to make sure no one else who shouldn’t be on here can be. I try to pick questions that don’t apply to Clara so she will know it is me, like what is your brother’s middle name (she’s an only child) and what’s the name of your middle school (she was homeschooled in middle school). Either way, at the end of this, I feel pretty confident that the account is secure and I have more to go on now than when the day began.
I’m about to log out and settle back into the couch to keep brainstorming ideas for quick cash when a memory hits me like a freight train: “Hold on, I need to save all this stuff to my cloud.” Clara saved everything to the cloud, she was obsessive about it. Every single time we left the house she always had to make sure she saved everything to the cloud, she talked about it all the time. Every student at the university gets a cloud, and it uses the same login and password as your email. So off I go to the login for the cloud server and the next thing I know, the welcome screen is up.
And that’s when I know for sure I am missing something. The welcome screen lists right on the front when the last login was. It was months ago, back before Halloween. Clearly, nothing that she had been saving to the cloud was this cloud. So where was it? I don’t even want to think about how many different cloud servers there are out there, and which one she was choosing to use.
I do briefly roam around what is there, and it’s all copies of old papers, just a bunch of boring math stuff. Nothing that has anything to do with her going missing.
Nothing like the feeling of a dead-end road. Joe was right. I do need help. I have no idea where to go from here. Sure, I have new information, and I have a lot more new suspicions, but at the end of the day what I really have is a pile of new questions that need to be answered and no clue how to find the answers to these questions.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“SOUND OF SILENCE” BY DISTURBED
It takes a few moments before consciousness really sets in. The crick in my neck is clearly coming from the unnatural angle of my head, which I apparently decided was a good way to fall asleep. There’s not even a pillow underneath my head.
Wiping the sleep out of my eyes, I slowly start to sit up and take in my surroundings. I must have polished off that bag of Cheetos, and if not, then they’ve been reduced to dust because the crinkling sound coming from under my ass clearly indicates I slept on the bag.
It takes a minute to clear the cobwebs from my brain, and I take that time to gather all my hair up and throw it back in a messy bun. I’m sure it looks more bird’s nest than Instagram messy bun.
Sleep actually paid a visit to me last night, maybe it was the exhaustion catching up to me from a week of minimal sleeping, or maybe I just tired myself out last night making my giant Wall of Crazy, but I actually feel kind of human right now. Sleep is good. Sleep is necessary.
Thinking back on last night, I can’t help but feel a little bit proud of myself. Everyone has been shutting me down at every opportunity, I don’t have access to the kind of information that the police have, but yet I still got somewhere last night. I have a direction I need to go.
I need to find that cloud.
The thing is, if I had given up, or left it to the professionals, no one would even know this is important. Even if the police had believed me right from the beginning and a full-fledged investigation was ongoing, would it have ever occurred to them to look beyond the university-provided cloud? Would I? Probably not. I would have just assumed they were looking at it and nothing in it helped them, I certainly wouldn’t have broken into it to find the answers for myself.
The poli
ce may have the skills, hell, Will probably has the skills to do the real investigative work, but I’m the one with the context. I’m the one that knew Clara best. I have all the nuances and daily routine, the mundane, the stuff that no one may think is important, but might actually be. I have all that. It’s a big responsibility knowing that it’s my job now, to sort through every interaction, every rogue comment, to see if it might have anything to do with what is happening right now.
The hard part for me now is going to be accepting that while I might know what questions to ask, and where to look next, I have no idea how to get those answers.
I feel it in my bones that finding this cloud server is going to provide us with at least some answers, maybe a direction to go in, or maybe even a real clue, but I don’t know how to find it. My Google search from last night left me with a list as long as my arm showing how many different server options there are available out there. I don’t have her computer, so it’s not like I can go see what websites she visited, so I need help.
Which means I need Will.
Three thousand dollars Will.
Three thousand dollars I don’t have.
I’ve never been a person who begs, I’ve always been someone who gets it done no matter what, but I’m starting to have to accept there just might be some begging in my future.
The stack of books on my kitchen table is getting taller and taller as I riffle through the apartment, trying to find every textbook I have that might be worth anything. I finally have a plan. I’m going to get as much money as I possibly can together and then beg in person. With cash. There is no way I’m getting to three thousand, at least not for a few days, but maybe I can convince Will to start now if I bring him as much as I can pull together. Which brings us to my plan, which starts with carrying this stack of textbooks out of my car.
By the time I make my last trip out to my car, I feel like I have run a mile. No, a mile is too easy, more like a marathon. Okay, a half marathon. My chest is heaving, my lungs burn from the cold air that stings when you try and gulp it down. My body that clearly was not made to sleep on a couch with no pillow is feeling all kinds of sore.
But none of that matters because I have a plan to put into action. Step one, the bank.
I’m normally the kind of girl who blares music super loud when she drives. I’ve been known to dance around in the driver’s seat at stoplights while jamming out to classic rock. The minute I got my driver’s license back in high school, I was on the open road. Anytime things got too suffocating at home, I would just hit the road. Turn on my music and let all of my worries and stress go. Sure, when I got home nothing would have changed, everything was always still waiting for me just where I left it, but there is something about the open road. It was like freedom. It still is. A respite from reality for as long as the car is moving in any direction.
So it’s especially odd that today my car is silent. There are no ’80s hair bands, or upbeat Pharrell talking about being happy, nothing but the sounds of traffic filling up the empty space. All I know is that I for sure don’t want music playing right now. I don’t want the respite. God only knows where Clara is.
As much as I want to believe the happy picture people are trying to paint me, can I really buy into the idea that Clara is just off somewhere living her best life? That college was just too much for her and she bailed, and now she’s what? Hanging out on a beach somewhere where some hot guy brings her margaritas? I just don’t buy it.
So why should I get to have a respite when Clara could be anywhere? Maybe she’s scared, or nervous, or terrified. With all the stuff on the news and the things they talk about on my favorite podcast, Crime Junkies, the nightmares in my head tell me she could be in serious trouble. I can’t let my mind go there just yet, but at the same time, I also can’t seem to allow myself a break from it all either. And right now, in this moment, sitting alone on a quiet car ride with only my thoughts to keep me company feels like a dangerous proposition.
I’ve never been more grateful for the prospect of standing in line at a bank, but by the time I pull into the busy parking lot of my local bank branch, I’m more than ready to get the fuck out of my car.
It’s a busy Saturday morning, and it seems like all the little old ladies in town have decided to do their banking right now. I’ve never been someone that I consider to be impatient but as I make my way into the bank and take my place in a line that is twenty-five people deep, I can feel the impatience start to take hold. The nervous energy running through my veins with nowhere to go. My foot finding a tapping beat just trying to relieve my need to keep moving. The longer I’ve been awake, the more amped I get about putting my plan into action. About making it through all the steps before I can go to Will and get the ball rolling. And now I’m stuck behind a bunch of blue-haired little old ladies, who want to do everything at the speed of a snail.
It takes forty-five minutes, but I finally make it to a teller. I haven’t been in a bank in person for years, probably when I first moved to Durham and opened this bank account. The teller in front of me looks like she is straight out of a movie, the drab neutral-colored professional wear that doesn’t seem to give her body any kind of shape at all. Her hair pulled back into one of those ’90s oversized scrunchies that used to be considered professional but now is more like something you use to keep your hair out of the way while you wash your face before bed. And worst of all, she is wafting everyone’s favorite overly floral Clinique Happy. I really thought I had smelled the last of that in middle school. Clearly, I was wrong.
“Hello, and what can I help you with today,” she says almost on a sneer. I don’t know what this lady’s problem is with me, but if I had to guess, she probably isn’t a big fan of my workout gear as clothing, or maybe it’s the bird’s nest on top of my head. The thought also crosses my mind that I have some remnants of last night’s Cheetos marring my skin somewhere, but I quickly decide I don’t care if I do.
“I need to make a withdrawal. And a cash advance,” I state my business, hoping there isn’t going to be a lot of questions or hoops for me to jump through.
“Hmmm, a cash advance, I assume you have a line of credit with us to be able to do that.”
I nod.
“You are aware that cash advances aren’t recommended, yes? The interest rate is quite high,” she says it somehow managing to look down her nose at me even though we are relatively the same height.
“I’m aware, I’d like to take out the maximum, please.” I’m not engaging in more back and forth with people, I have enough drama on my own to deal with.
“Fill this out, please.” She slides me a couple of slips, one for the cash advance and one for my withdrawal.
Thankfully, from then on, we don’t seem to have any more problems, just silent judgment.
“Alright, two thousand five hundred dollars,” she says as she starts counting out the twenty one-hundred-dollar bills, four twenties, and one ten.
“You have a nice day,” I tell her, my voice filled with sarcasm.
As I’m leaving the bank, I can’t help but feel accomplished and defeated at the same time. On the one hand, I almost have all the money that I am going to need to pay Will, on the other hand, rent is going to start becoming an issue and my emergency credit card is super close to being maxed out. The more I think about rent being an issue and I have to face the reality that I might not be able to afford my apartment for much longer, the more panicked I can feel myself getting. I don’t know why I never thought about it before, but I’m pretty sure I am about to be responsible for one hundred percent of the rent now that Clara isn’t there.
I’m going to need a roommate. I can’t get a roommate, it’s Clara’s room. A job seems like the more likely solution, but I don’t have the time to even consider what that is going to look like, and right now, in this moment my life is full of a lot more important things than pounding the pavement looking for a job.
After the bank, it’s time to head over to the
bookstore that Clara and I have been to a million times to buy our books from. The place with the cheapest books and the best resale value. No surprise that it’s not the bookstore on campus. I’m fully aware I am going to have the same experience that basically every college student has; spending hundreds of dollars on textbooks only to be given a buyback number that if you are lucky, barely even hits twenty percent of the original price. Since I’m on scholarship, I’m not paying for my own books, but still, the whole textbook thing is a racket.
Lifting the stack of books out of my car takes more effort than I was ready for, and I sway backward before I have a chance to get my balance back. It takes a few minutes to make it to the back of the store and the buyback counter, but by that time, I’m crossing my fingers that this is going to come as close to five hundred dollars as possible. The closer I get to five hundred, the more likely Will is going to agree to give me more time to figure out the rest while he gets to work.
“Withdrawing?” the customer service guy asks while he scans each one of my books.
“I’m sorry?”
“You withdrawing?” he asks again.
“Uh, no, just um, cash poor.” I shrug my shoulders.
“Ah yeah, bummer, I know the feeling.”
Then it hits me. “You get a lot of withdrawals?”
“Yeah, normally about a month after semester starts, and then again right before finals. People either realize they hate college, or withdraw before they fail a class,” he explains. “Basically everyone who withdraws comes through here, the last stop being movin’ on. Trying to get every last penny back before movin’ on to what’s next.” He pops his gum and then reaches over to the printer and hands me a sheet of paper.
