by Kaylea Cross
“Has Whitney ever stayed out all night before?” Kate asked.
“No, never. At least not since we’ve been roomies.”
“Can you give me the names of any friends she might have gone out with?”
“Maybe a few. I’ll write them down for you.”
“What about a boyfriend?”
“No, I don’t think there was anyone she’s been dating recently.”
“How about anyone at her office, someone she was having problems with?”
“She never mentioned it if she did.”
“I know these are probably the same questions the police asked you when you filed the missing person report,” said Kate.
“Police?” Suki asked.
“You did call the police and file a missing persons report, didn’t you?”
“No. Like I told you on the phone, I think you have to wait twenty-four hours.”
“That was Sunday night, Suki. It’s been well over twenty-four hours. You didn’t call them yesterday?”
This girl can’t be that dumb, can she? Kate drew in a breath and centered herself.
“No, I was waiting for you,” Suki replied, sounding defensive.
“Oh, Suki.” Kate felt her eyes grow wide with panic. “Today is Tuesday. The police don’t even know Whitney’s missing. That means they’re not even looking for her yet!” Her voice rose, despite her efforts to keep it level.
“But you told me when I first phoned you, that you were going to call the police yourself. So, I thought you had called them,” Suki shot back.
“I did call them, but they wouldn’t even talk to me because Whitney had just gone missing. I don’t even think the officer wrote her name down. But that was Sunday night. Now it’s Tuesday, Suki. Tuesday!”
Kate was frustrated with Suki’s lack of urgency, and she didn’t care to try to hide it. She shot up out of her chair. “We need to go down to the police station. Right now. Do you have a car?”
“Yes, but—” Suki began.
“But, nothing, Suki. We’ve got to get down to the police station and file the report.”
“Okay, okay. You’re right.” She raised her hands in submission.
“Then, come on. Grab your car keys and let’s go.” Kate sprinted down the hall to the bedroom to get her purse and jacket.
* * *
After a stressful and silent drive, Suki and Kate arrived at the police station. They approached the reception desk where a middle-aged receptionist with graying brown hair stood looking bored.
“How can I help you?” she asked.
“I’d like to file a missing person report,” Kate said.
“Let me get an officer for you.” The receptionist picked up the phone.
Shortly, a big, burly man with a dark brown buzz cut approached the reception desk with a clipboard in his hand. Maybe now they could get to business.
“I’m Officer Delgado. What can I do for you ladies?”
“I’d like to file a missing person report,” Kate stated.
“Who’s missing?” he asked matter-of-factly, looking her in the eye.
“My sister, Whitney McAllister.”
“How long has she been missing, ma’am?”
“Since Saturday, I believe.”
“Saturday? Why have you waited so long to come in?” he asked.
“I was traveling, and we had a mix-up on who was calling you.”
“Um, sorry, sir, I thought we had to wait. Guess I was wrong. So, can we just get it done now?” Suki looked sullen, and Kate fought down the urge to say something cutting.
“Sure. Here’s the form,” he muttered, as if he’d done it a thousand times before. He handed Kate a stack of forms on a brown pressed-wood clipboard with a pen attached by a string. “Go sit over there.” He motioned to the chairs lined up against the wall. “Bring the form back to me when you’re done, and I’ll get a detective to talk to you.”
“Thank you,” Kate replied.
Suki just shrugged.
The young women each took a chair, and Suki helped Kate fill out the forms. When they were done, they handed the clipboard back to the officer.
“Wait here just a minute, ladies, and I’ll get that detective.” He disappeared through a doorway.
Kate looked at her watch, and then over at Suki, eager to get the process started. She figured her sister’s roommate had first-hand knowledge of Whitney’s activities—may have been the last person to see her—so she was glad to have Suki along. She just couldn’t figure out why she hadn’t filed the missing person report first thing Monday morning. It didn’t make sense…unless there was something Suki wasn’t telling her.
Suki stood abruptly. “I have to go to work. You can take it from here, can’t you?”
“What?” Kate was taken aback.
She had assumed Suki would want to be there to help her, to talk with the police. “This is important. Can’t you stay for a little while?”
“I can’t be late for work again, and I’ve told you all I know.” Suki started for the exit. “You can handle it from here.”
“Wait.” Kate called after her. “Please, don’t go.”
“I have to. Sorry.”
Kate knew she couldn’t make Suki stay. “All right. I’ll do what I can without you. Maybe the detectives can call you later if they have questions. Okay?”
“Sure, sure,” Suki agreed, backing toward the door.
“Wait! I need a key to get back into the apartment.”
Suki twisted a key off the key ring as she walked back to Kate. She handed it to her. “I know where the spare key is hidden.” She walked away.
It’s okay, I can handle this. Kate took slow, deliberate breaths. It’s my sister who’s missing—not Suki’s. I can take a cab back to the apartment. Just breathe—
“Miss McAllister?”
“Yes,” Kate answered, sticking the key in her pocket as she turned around to her name being called.
“Hi, I’m Detective Raj Patel.” He extended his hand. He was a man of average height, mid-thirties, sharply dressed in a dark gray suit with a black tie. “Why don’t you follow me back to my desk, and I’ll get a little more information from you. Right through this doorway,” he said as he pointed toward the opening.
Kate followed him into the large, open squad room. There was a buzz of activity, with a handful of detectives in the room working on other cases, some on the phone, others typing away at their computers. The smell of stale coffee hung in the air. Patel led her to his desk.
She sat down across from him and relayed everything she knew, from what Suki had told her. “It’s all there in the report,” she said, pointing to the papers he held in his hand.
“That’s not much to go on, Miss McAllister. But I assure you we’ll do everything we can to try to find your sister.”
Kate agreed that the information Suki had given her was sparse, but it just had to be enough. It had to. Whitney was all the family Kate had left. Trying not to panic, she focused again on Detective Patel.
“I’m kind of curious, though,” he said. “If she’s been missing since Saturday, why did you wait until today to report it?”
Kate told the detective the situation.
“I thought Suki would have come here yesterday to file the report, and I’m not really sure why she didn’t. She gave me some lame excuse that she was waiting for me. I thought that was really odd.”
“Yeah, it is,” the detective agreed, writing a note on the form.
“Maybe she was waiting for me to do it—I don’t know. I couldn’t really get a straight answer out of her.”
“It’s a shame we’ve lost a whole day that we could have been working this case,” Patel remarked.
“I know,” Kate responded, clenching her teeth. “I was furious with Suki when she told me she hadn’t filed a report yet. That’s why I made her drive me down here right away.”
“She didn’t come in with you?” he asked.
“She did, for
a little while. She helped me fill out the report. Then, all of a sudden, she claimed she had to leave to go to work.”
“Sounds like you don’t believe her.”
“I don’t really know her well enough to know for sure, but it just seemed out of the blue. Nothing makes sense.” Kate worried her hands in her lap.
“I see. Hmmm. We’ll definitely want to talk to her.” He made another note on the report.
“If you let me borrow your pen, I can give you her number,” Kate offered.
Kate jotted down Suki’s phone number from the call records on her cell phone.
“Thanks, I’ll give her a call,” he said, looking at the pad. “Well, if you have nothing more, Miss McAllister, I think we’re done here. We’ll keep you posted.”
Kate stood up, thanked him and shook his hand once more.
“Oh, wait. Before you go,” Patel said, almost as an afterthought, “let me introduce you to Will Porter.” Patel motioned to an African-American man to come over to them. Porter was tall and thin and looked to be about forty years old. He was standing across the room speaking with another detective. “He’s my senior partner.”
“Senior partner? Does that mean you’re new at being a detective?” Kate asked Patel, her confidence in him waning a bit. I need somebody who knows what they’re doing.
“Well, yes, but Detective Porter will be on this case with me. He’s been doing this for about ten years, so between the two of us, we’ll get the job done. Don’t you worry.”
How could she not worry? Her sister was missing. She bit down on her lips to keep those thoughts to herself.
“Miss McAllister, this is Detective Will Porter.” As Patel introduced them, the senior detective reached out and shook hands with Kate, a serious look on his face.
“Will,” Patel said, “Miss McAllister has just filed a missing person report for her sister. I told her we’ll do everything we can to find her.” Patel handed the file to Porter.
“Miss McAllister,” Porter started, glancing over the forms she filled out.
“Call me Kate, please.”
“Okay, Kate. Detective Patel and I will read over the report. We’ll be in touch. Oh, and make sure we have your cell number so we can reach you.”
“It’s on the top form, there,” she told him, pointing at the file. “I’d appreciate being kept in the loop.”
“Certainly,” Porter promised, opening the folder. “I don’t see a photo of your sister in here.”
“Oh, sorry, I forgot to ask about that,” Patel apologized. Kate frowned at the critical oversight.
“We’ll need one we can use to get the word out, Kate. We’ll send it to our network of law enforcement agencies, the news media as well,” Porter told her. “Do you have one with you?”
“Yes, I think I have a couple in my wallet,” Kate replied, opening her bulky leather handbag and rummaging around inside. She pulled two different photos out of her wallet and handed them to Porter. He clipped them inside the file.
“Do you know if your sister has a computer or iPad or anything?” Porter asked.
Kate rolled her eyes up, searching her memory. “Oh, yes, I remember seeing a laptop in her bedroom.”
“We’ll need that. I always like to start with checking the subject’s calendar and e-mails. Can we come with you right now and pick it up?” Porter asked.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Patel interrupted sheepishly, “I, uh, have a lunch appointment in a few minutes. I won’t be long.”
Porter frowned at him. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Let me walk out with you guys,” Patel offered.
Once outside the station, Kate paused at the bottom of the front steps. She wanted to thank the detectives for their help, but before she could utter a word, she heard a man’s voice calling her name.
She turned, to find out who it was, and was stunned to see it was the man from her flight.
“Kate, what a surprise!” Ryan’s pleasure in seeing her was evident on his face.
“Ryan? What are you doing here?” Kate asked.
“You know each other?” Detective Patel questioned.
“Yes, we met on the plane from Boise this morning,” she answered.
“Small world. Ryan is my lunch appointment,” Patel said. “He’s helping me buy a condo.”
“It is a small world,” Kate commented.
“I missed you at the baggage claim area…I wanted to get your phone number so we could have that coffee you promised me.” He winked at her.
Kate pulled one of her business cards out of her purse and handed it to him.
Ryan’s expression quickly changed, as if it had just dawned on him that she was coming out of the police station with a couple of detectives. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”
“You didn’t,” she replied.
“Is everything okay?” Ryan asked.
Kate looked at Patel, then at Porter, wondering how much she should divulge. She didn’t find the answer in their faces, so she went ahead and told Ryan.
“Not really. My sister is missing. That’s the real reason I came to Seattle.”
“Oh, Kate. I had no idea. I thought you were just here to visit her.”
“I wish—but no.”
“If there’s anything I can do to help, anything at all, just ask.” Ryan pulled his business card out of his shirt pocket too and handed it to her. “My cell phone’s on there.”
“We’ve gotta go,” Porter spoke up, tapping his wristwatch. “Time’s a-wasting. I’ll see you back here in about an hour, Raj. Take it easy, Ryan.”
Chapter Four
Back at the apartment, Kate turned Suki’s key in the door, letting herself and Detective Porter into the loft.
“Nice place,” he said, glancing around the main living area and open kitchen of the small loft. “Where’s the laptop?”
“It’s in Whitney’s bedroom. Wait here and I’ll get it for you.” She started off down the hallway.
“Do you mind if I take a look?” Porter asked. “Maybe I can see if there’s anything that would give us a clue to where she went.”
Kate stopped mid-way and spun around. “Sure, it’s right this way.”
Porter followed her down the short hallway and stepped in behind her. He stood still for a moment, surveying the room.
Queen-sized bed, neatly made, with a couple pieces of luggage on it, a chair with a coat thrown over it, a dresser with a plant and some framed photos—nothing out of place, as far as Kate could see.
“Have you moved anything since you arrived?” he asked.
“No. We just put the suitcases on the bed,” she answered. “Well…that’s not totally true. I did make the bed and put a few of her clothes and shoes away.”
“Hmmm. Hopefully that won’t matter,” he said.
The open laptop sat on a small desk, a few sticky notes adhered to the desktop and a couple of pens next to it. Porter seemed to be reading one of the sticky notes. He frowned and tilted his head.
Kate wondered if that meant something.
“Who’s Suki?”
“My sister’s roommate,” Kate replied. “Why?”
He pointed to one of the notes. On it was written ‘Suki & guy (?)’. “I ask because your sister wrote her name on this sticky note with a question mark. It’s probably nothing, but I’m going to take the note with me.” He put on a thin latex glove, gently pulled the sticky note free and placed it in a small plastic evidence bag that he took from his jacket’s breast pocket. After sliding the bag back into his pocket, he closed the laptop and picked it up.
“I hope you can find something—anything—in that computer that’ll tell us where she is.” Kate was desperate for any clue, no matter how small.
“I’ll get one of our forensic techs on it as soon as I get back to the station. And if you think of anything else, let us know right away.” The detective began to walk toward the door, and then he stopped and turned back to Kate.
> “Do you know the roommate’s full name?”
“Suki Gorman is all my sister ever told me.”
“What can you tell me about her?” he asked.
“Not much. Whitney didn’t talk about her very often, and I’d never met her until I arrived today. Why do you ask?”
“We just want to be thorough and cover all the bases. She was the last one that we know of to see Whitney—I’ll run a background check on her, just to be safe.”
Kate walked Detective Porter to the door and said good-bye as he walked out. She closed the door, and rested her back against it, wondering if Suki could have been somehow involved in Whitney’s disappearance. It didn’t seem likely, but at this point, she couldn’t rule anyone out.
* * *
Suki worked the afternoon shift at Seattle’s Underground Tour. It was a tourist attraction sitting about twenty feet below a portion of the current downtown area, known as Pioneer Square. The tour of the underground gives visitors a look at parts of the original city of Seattle.
Her final tour of the day was over, and she watched the last of her group go into the basement-level souvenir shop. She looked around to make sure no one was watching her, then ducked back into the tunnel and returned to the underground city.
Making her way through the web of corridors, she came to a locked door that she had blocked with an old diner’s sign, a remnant from an historic café. The word Dino’s in broken blue light bulbs outlined the marquee.
As a tour guide, Suki was familiar with all the tunnels and boarded-up areas not open to the public. However, a tour guide did not get a set of keys to the buildings and locked areas. So, in order to carry out her part of the scheme, she needed to get her hands on the keys. She and her brother, Ethan, had spent a long time setting up their revenge on Kate—those keys were an important step in that plan.
Thinking back on how she had had to flirt with surly old Gus, the forty-something head maintenance man, to get his keys, she felt a little sick to her stomach, but it had to be done. Once she had him sufficiently interested, she invited him to have drinks at the nearby Lucky Shamrock Tavern, a bar she knew he frequented. After snuggling with him in a booth and plying him with liquor, she actually found it rather easy to lift his set of keys.
