“You’re brutal, you know that?”
“Now you know why I work alone,” Arden said. “I’m not always the best at making friends.”
Joe chuckled.
Arden could see him slipping back into sorrow. “Hey.”
Joe looked up at her.
“Eat up,” Arden said. “We’re making good progress, but we need fuel if we want to keep going.”
In the silence, memories splintered in Arden mind. Her sister’s cold body lay face down in a ditch. Arden blinked and it went away. The flashback was almost random, but it was enough to nearly murder Arden’s appetite.
Joe said, “Jessica would’ve liked you.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re a lot like her mother.”
“In what way?” Arden asked.
Joe thought on it as he chewed. “Sherry was a free spirit. She didn’t care what people thought of her. I think Jessica got her quiet side from me.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to her?”
Joe hesitated, “Breast cancer.”
“I’m sorry,” Arden said.
“That was five years ago. Jessica was only nine at the time.”
“My parents were killed in a car accident before I could remember them,” Arden relied. “My younger sister Patricia and I spent most of our childhoods moving from orphanage to orphanage. Our independent nature didn’t earn us any favors.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Joe replied with a wry smile.
“Tell me more about Sherry.”
Joe spun the wedding ring on his finger. “She was gorgeous, almost to the point that it made me nervous to take her out anywhere. She also had this very dry humor, you know? She’d always wear this little grin every time she was joking. I can still see it, like I was looking at her face today.”
Talking about it brought some color back to Joe.
“How long were you two together?”
“Since I was eighteen. I was finishing high school and getting ready to sign up with a recruiter when I decided to go my mother’s church for the first time in forever. For her sake. I remember scooting in next to Sherry, almost shocked to see someone so beautiful in a small Baptist church. I asked her out that afternoon. Much to my surprise, she said yes.” Joe leaned back and basked in the memory. Slowly, his expression darkened. “For a moment there, I was almost tricked into believing God was real. The world sobered me up.”
Arden didn’t have any easy answers. “Just because He’s all powerful doesn’t mean that everything is His will. We have a real enemy.”
“You believe in that stuff?”
Arden shrugged.
“Look at the world around you. War, murder, rape... and you say that God’s in charge.”
“I’m under the suspicion that He’s a lot more active than we think, but He won’t violate our free will. If He did, it wouldn’t be a real choice. For example, I could shoot you, but that doesn’t mean God wants me to. If He struck me down the moment the thought arose, it would violate free will. He can’t do that. So the solution to these problems is to understand God’s love and live from that place.”
Joe’s tired, haunted eyes locked on hers. “You’re projecting goodness on something that’s either absent or uncaring.”
“Its your right to believe that,” replied Arden. “Even if you’re wrong.”
Joe seemed offended by Arden’s response. Silence lingered over the table like an invisible fog as the two ideologies battled a secret war.
“Let’s talk about Jessica,” Joe suggested.
“I agree. Is there anyone you suspect? Anyone from your past? Old rival? Creepy neighbor? What about your time overseas?”
Joe’s face turned stony. “Nothing from my time in the Marines.”
“It seems like a worthwhile conversation,” Arden replied. “The more you tell me, the more I can help you.”
Joe glared at her. His stare was unrelenting. The topic was obviously a sore spot. Arden could sense that today was not the day to get those answers.
“There’s no one wanting to blackmail me,” Joe replied. “If they did, they would’ve left a ransom letter.”
Arden fished out a few dollar bills to tip the waitress. “If it’s not someone connected to you, that would mean we’re looking for a child abductor or a human trafficker.”
“How do we stop them?” Joe asked.
Arden stood and stretched. “Research.”
They returned to Arden’s office.
She had pulled up the Missing Persons database on her computer screen. Joe walked around and hovered over her shoulder. Arden went through every picture and read about the circumstances surrounding the disappearance. If the abductor had taken children before, her goal was to establish a pattern that mimicked Jessica’s vanishing. Maybe witnesses from similar cases could help connect the dots.
She said to Joe, “You want something to do?”
Joe nodded. “Whatever it takes.”
Arden smirked. “Find everything you can about Halloween night in Macon. Search social media tags for Halloween and any press covering the event. We are after coverage and photographs of the concert and the surrounding area.”
Joe sank into one of the chairs and pulled out his smartphone.
“Oh,” Arden remembered. “Keep an eye out for the girls who were with Jessica. I want to know where they went after they left her. Perhaps they saw more than they were letting on.”
“Gotcha,” Joe replied.
Keeping a notepad out next to her laptop, Arden jotted the names of any local girl around the age of fourteen who went missing over the past decade. She also looked at abductions that occurred on Halloween night years prior. She even searched the seediest part of the web to see if anyone was boasting about a violent Velma fantasy, but it was impossible to separate the incessant humor and real stalkers.
Minutes quickly turned into hours and soon it was dark out.
Arden’s eyes burned from staring at the screen. She’d been so caught up in her research that she didn’t turn on the light to the office. Joe was too engaged in his own study to care.
Arden watched him work for a moment. He scratched his beard as his eyes stayed glued to the screen. She had to give him kudos for sticking with the research. If done poorly, it could compromise a case. Laying a proper foundation was key to success. For that reason, Arden kept her mind open until there was a solid motive. If she became so caught up in her personal theories, she could get blindsided, so she kept exploring various avenues and motives as to why Jessica, out of every girl in Macon, was taken. Keeping her options open was also a risky move, namely for her own psyche. If she ventured too deep down the rabbit hole, she could get mixed up in what was true and what was fiction. She had to trust her instincts. What they told her now was to take a break. It had been a long day. As much as she wanted to spend every second looking for this girl, she needed time for herself.
She went to voice these concerns to Joe, but he was so lost in his research that he hardly noticed her looking his way.
“Ready to turn in for the night?” Arden repeated herself.
Joe chuckled numbly. “Whether I’m ready doesn’t matter.”
“Well, I’m gonna call it,” Arden said, yawning. “We don’t want to burn out on day one.”
“The human body is a lot more resilient than you think,” Joe replied.
Arden checked the clock. It was almost midnight. “You don’t have to go home…”
Joe got up from his chair. “But I can’t stay here.”
“You got it,” Arden replied.
Still hunched over his phone, Joe headed for the door.
“Joe,” Arden called out.
At the threshold, he glanced back.
Arden said, “You find anything, let me know.”
“You’ll be the first one I call.” Joe left.
Arden rubbed the sleep from her eyes and ran her hand up her ginger hair. After a moment of standing and doing n
othing, she called Derrick.
“Yo,” he replied.
“Markle’s?” Arden asked.
“Phew… Sure, give me fifteen.”
“Don’t sound too excited,” Arden replied with sarcasm.
Arden hung up and slung on her jacket. After locking her office and getting into her car, she saw that Joe’s Mustang was still parked. Seated in the driver seat, the light from the screen reflected on Joe’s face.
Arden drove through the city. She passed by the clubs and bars and reached Markle’s, a low-key restaurant/bar she’d been visiting for years. It had red booths inside, jazz music, and a hazy atmosphere full of misfits.
She arrived and was greeted by Larry, the large Sicilian man running the bar. “I thought you’d forgotten about me.”
“Been busy.” Arden removed a small box from her purse. She put it in his hand. “For your wife.”
“What is it?” Larry asked.
“You trust me?” Arden asked.
Larry nodded. “All the time.”
“Then give it to her,” Arden replied.
Knowing Larry’s wife, she thought a necklace would cheer her up after the recent mugging.
She walked to her favorite booth. It had a picture frame full of dollar bills with all sorts of people’s names on them. Not a drinker anymore, she ordered a Coke and waited for Derrick to arrive.
Her lanky friend eventually slipped into the booth. He adjusted his rectangular glasses. Tonight he wore a purple button-up, dark jeans, and Nikes. He ordered a beer and, as he settled, said to Arden. “Here to congratulate me on that bust last night?”
“That was last night?” It felt like weeks ago.
“Long day?” Derrick asked.
“I got a new client. Military guy.”
“What’s his angle?”
“Desperate father who is tired of waiting on the police. What makes it interesting is that he’s paying me to allow him to work with me.”
“Huh,” Derrick processed that. “Sounds like you found that intern you were looking for.”
“We’ll see,” Arden replied. “Even with his help, his girl has been gone for a week. Without the proper resources, it’s hard to say what chance of survival she has.”
Derrick raised a brow. “You’re asking for my help?”
Arden grinned tiredly, “You know me too well.”
“Digging into the police’s current investigation is out of my sphere of influence. You’ll have to become a consultant if you want to get in on that,” Derrick replied.
“C’mon, Derrick. Help a poor girl out.”
“I’m always a phone call away, but a desk jockey can only do so much,” Derrick replied. “Enough about business. Take a load off.”
Arden struggled to shift gears in the conversation.
For the next three hours, they just chatted and joked. Derrick was like a big brother to Arden. They met years ago when Arden consulted in a small investigation regarding a few stolen heirlooms. Arden decided to consult with the police after appraising the expensive items, and thus her friendship with Derrick began. Though they didn’t have much in common, it was the jigsaw aspect of their relationship that kept them together. Derrick was a huge nerd. He loved talking about Star Wars, Star Trek, and the latest cartoons. Arden enjoyed listening, even if she didn’t care about those things. She hardly watched TV and enjoyed spending time away from the desk. After a series of late night conversations, their friendship became centered on stopping traffickers and saving prostitutes. Since then, Arden and Derrick had developed a sort of code, shorthand speak to help each other track various suspects without the permission from police authorities. Because Derrick worked as a dispatcher in the police department, he was a reliable source of information and a good ally.
With Arden’s sister gone, Derrick, though not blood, was the last family she had.
It was nearly 4 am when Arden arrived back at the parking lot of her office/home. She exited her car, turned, and immediately looked up at an ominous figure. Arden’s instinct was to put her kickboxing training to the test. However, she quickly realized it was Joe.
He spoke quickly. “I was going to call you, but I realized I never got your number.”
Arden glanced around the lot. “Space, please.”
“Oh,” Joe said and took a few steps backward. “I wanted to show you something.”
He showed her his phone screen.
It showed a picture from the concert.
“I did what you said,” Joe explained with excitement. “I looked through hundreds of pictures from different local students and participants around Halloween night. Eventually, I found this.”
Arden zoomed in. Standing amidst the mob of people was a blurry image of a girl dressed as Velma and a man wearing a rabbit mask standing behind her.
“No way,” Arden said.
Joe tapped the screen. “That’s Jessica. And the man, look where his hand is.”
Most of the image was blocked off by the people from the mosh pit. It had been taken by one of the partygoers with a selfie stick. Arden was able to see that the man’s hand was low on the girl’s lower back. It was like he was guiding her or holding something against her. A gun? It was impossible to tell with the photograph.
“Did you find any more?” Arden asked.
“No, and believe me, I tried.”
Arden glanced back down at the man with the rubber bunny mask covering his whole head. A small smile rested on the animal’s rubber mouth. The man's baggy black hoodie bunched up at his waist. Arden felt her stomach twist as she looked into his hollow black eyes. She was looking at Jessica Carmon’s final photo.
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A look of silent terror held on Jessica’s face. The picture made it seem like she couldn’t breathe. The man in the bunny mask probably held her at gunpoint.
Arden contacted the police tip line. She sent the photo and time stamp.
Joe eyed her with suspicion. “You’re letting them take over.”
“I’m just putting irons in the fire,” Arden replied. “We’re not working against the police. We’re just not as bound up by their bureaucracy.”
The wind blew gently, brushing Arden’s bangs across her forehead. Joe clenched his jaw shut and looked down the street. He wasn’t keeping an eye out for anything in particular; he was merely lost in thought.
Halloween night made it easy for the abduction to occur. No one would question a man in costume. It was impossible to tell his age. If Ashlyn’s testimony regarding the man she saw outside the school proved true, he was most likely Caucasian.
Arden checked her watch. She needed to sleep, but the latest revelation invigorated her.
She invited Joe back into the office. They continued their research until sunlight breached the windows. Arden grimaced as she moved her stiff neck. Joe yawned and stretched his arms high above his head. They’d gone through a few pots of coffee and had another brewing.
During the course of the night, Joe had printed out a collage worth of photographs from the concert and taped them across the wall. Only three had images of Jessica and the Rabbit. They only showed a small portion of them, like Jessica’s elbow or one of the rabbit’s ears. As Arden had theorized, the abductor wasted no time leading Jessica through the crowd. A quick online search showed that most Halloween and costume stores sold the same mask, meaning that following the receipt trail was hopeless. Arden then moved into researching the white rabbit’s significance. Obviously the Alice in Wonderland reference was the most prevalent, but that wouldn’t help her. She needed something solid. With Joe’s help, Arden started to look into older abductions where someone in a rabbit mask was the suspect culprit. They found a few results. Arden turned back to Joe with a look of awe. They uncovered an article from four years ago where a Macon child was almost abducted by a man in a bunny mask during the summer. The suspect was never found.
Joe shook his head. “There must’ve been others. Freaks like this don’t
just strike every four years.”
Further research proved that Joe was right. The Missing Persons database revealed six “known” abductions scattered across middle Georgia. The victims were between the ages of 8 and 16 over the last eleven years, and they had claimed to have seen someone in a bunny mask days prior to their disappearance. There was no documentation listing any demands or ransom being made to the public.
Four of them were still missing. One overdosed in her apartment a few days after she got home, and one was still alive. Her name was Tosha. She had been arrested multiple times and was currently incarcerated for sex trafficking. Reports showed she’d been drugging girls’ drinks at the bar where she worked and selling them to the highest bidder for the night.
“The state penitentiary is two hours away,” Joe pointed out.
Arden folded her hands behind her head. “We’d need to be approved on the visiting list. The process will take too long.”
“So we can’t talk to Tosha?”
Arden shook her head. “That’s just the realities of working within the law.”
She glanced back at the busted paper with Tosha’s photograph. Something stood out. There was a small tattoo on the woman’s earlobe. It was of a small rabbit head with the letter S in the middle. The ends of the S had a sharp barb.
This piqued Joe’s interest. “Stockholm syndrome.”
“Possibly,” Arden said.
She researched the symbol. Buried on the eighth page of the Google search engine, she found the link to a small massage parlor/spa located in Macon. The spa’s symbol matched the one on Tosha’s ear.
“Looks like we found our next stop,” Joe said.
It was a twenty-minute commute from Arden’s, and it didn’t open until 10am. It was 8:32am.
Secrets Boxset: A Riveting Kidnapping Mystery Collection Page 4
