“That was man’s choice.”
“Are we interrupting?” a woman’s voice said. She had soft Southern accent.
Arden and Joe turned back to the guest room, seeing a gorgeous blonde and a tall, dashing man in their late thirties enter the guest area. The woman wore a dark purple dress. Highlights ran through her elegant blonde hair. Her red-rimmed blue eyes stayed low and downcast.
Arden gestured for them to enter her office.
The couple sat across from Arden, looking highly distraught. Joe pulled up a chair and joined Arden, and they introduced themselves.
Arden put on her best professional smile. “What can we do for you?”
Tears rolled down the woman’s cheek. “I need you to find my daughter.”
4
Searching
The woman’s name was Gracie Gales. By her chic hat, little pastel handbag, and perfect posture, she was a Southern gal through and through. Her makeup blended naturally with her skin. It was neither overbearing or too little. In her late thirties, she looked a decade younger. Arden guessed she spent maybe two to three hours on her make-up this morning. She dabbed her eyes with the corner of a napkin to keep from smearing her mascara.
She clicked open the button on her purse and removed a photograph. “Her name is Scarlet, you know? Like Scarlett O'Hara.”
The little girl was like a breathing Barbie doll. A little dimple formed on her right cheek. Great joy filled her blue eyes. Arden, usually a savant at reading people, couldn’t tell if her happiness was genuine or fake.
Arden tilted the photo Joe’s way. His brows rose. “That’s Scarlet Gales. From Broken Roses? I didn’t realize they filmed that here.”
Charles nodded soberly. “We do a lot of our filming in Atlanta.”
Mr. Gales had finely gelled hair and a chiseled face on par with the statue of King David. He wore a cardigan, slacks, and penny loafers. Arden was sure he got his eyebrows plucked. Much like his wife, he was a beautiful man.
Arden inquired about the show.
“It’s a historical drama centered around the Civil War,” Joe explained. “Think Gone with the Wind, but as a TV show. Scarlet plays the lead. She won an Emmy for her performance this season.”
Arden was surprised Joe knew so much about the show. She’d have something to tease him about later. Right now, the situation was dire.
“It was the perfect role,” Gracie couldn’t take her eyes off the photo. “It felt like it was made for our little flower by God himself.”
Charles and, surprisingly, Joe nodded along in agreement.
“How long has she been gone for?” Arden asked.
Charles squeezed his wife’s hand. “Thirty-six hours.”
“Smart,” Joe complimented. “Most people wait until after 48 hours before getting help outside help. By then, the chance of finding the person drops significantly.”
“We contacted the police immediately after…” Gracie’s voice cracked. She dabbed the corner of her eye with the napkin. “Lord, I’m such a mess.”
Arden pulled out a tissue box from the desk drawer and placed it in front of her. “Tell me about Scarlet’s disappearance.”
Charles took a deep breath. “We were at the Hyatt hotel. Scarlet won the Emmy for the first season finale. The executives hosted a private party in the Swan conference hall.”
Gracie sniffled. “Only lead investors and those above the line were invited. It wasn’t for the entire crew. Most of them are brutes anyway. My first suspicion was that one of them took my girl. You should see the way they look at her. Disgusting.”
Arden looked at the photo again. Today’s society had a way of highly sensualizing its youth.
Joe jotted down notes. “Anyone specific?”
Arden glanced up at him. “I’d like to hear more about the abduction before we start pointing fingers.”
Context was important for any investigation. The usual suspects could be refined based on the circumstance. Not every thug was bad and not every priest was holy.
Charles laid it out for them, starting with their arrival at 7pm to their departure at midnight. The ceremony started by showing the final episode of the season. After that, the director, assistant director, and producers applauded Scarlet. The girl gave a brief thank you speech and the other three acknowledged the other producers and such that made the show possible. Afterwards, a meal was served. They got catering from one of the local companies. The party continued with socializing that never had an official ending. According to Charles’s testimony, most of the people were gone by the time Scarlet went missing.
“One moment she was sitting at our table and the next she was gone,” Gracie said in complete disbelief.
“We checked everywhere,” Charles added. “We even talked to the janitorial staff and the various overnight guests. They didn’t see her.”
“And the security cameras?” Arden asked.
“The police reviewed them,” Charles said. “The last they saw of Scarlet, she was entering the emergency stairwell, but there was no recoverable footage.”
Joe slightly cocked his head. “Why?”
Charles shrugged. “It just wasn’t working.”
“And the cameras outside the hotel?” Arden asked.
“No sign either,” Charles said, turning green.
Gracie fought back more tears. “She was gone, investigators. It was like she just disappeared.”
“How would you describe her personality?”
“She’s a kid,” Charles said.
“She’s a star,” Gracie corrected.
“Give me some adjectives,” Arden fished.
The parents hesitated.
“Adorable,” Gracie said.
Charles thought about it. “Intelligent. She has exemplary grades. I make sure of that. We do memory drills constantly.”
Gracie chimed in. “Yes. I’ve taught her how to walk, smile, and display emotion. Driven!” Gracie snapped her fingers and put on a determined face. “Innocent.” She snapped again and appeared child-like. “Alarmed.” She snapped and looking scared. “Neutral.”
Charles nodded. “She didn’t become a cultural icon by chance.”
Gracie smiled to herself. “Her every movement is calculated, from the pace of her walk to the width of her smile. She’s a living masterpiece.”
The couple basked in their accomplishment.
Arden wasn’t sure if she should celebrate or be horrified they’d turned their little girl into a sociopathic art project.
Joe cleared his throat. He was battling with the same thoughts as well. “Arden was referring to behavior patterns.”
The couple stared at him blankly, as if their heads were completely hollow.
Arden interlocked her fingers. “Did she exhibit rebellious behavior?”
Charles’s face turned serious. “We stopped tolerating that years ago.”
“Has she ever tried to run away?” Joe asked.
The couple shook their heads.
“Is there any chance she would’ve run away the night she went missing?” Arden asked.
Charles and Gracie turned to each other for a moment, horrified. Then, they looked to Arden and spoke at the same time.
“Not our Scarlet--”
“--She would never!”
Arden spoke cautiously. “I’m just keeping our minds open.”
Charles adamantly opposed the idea that Scarlet departed voluntarily, but this was coming from a man who couldn’t talk about his daughter’s own personality. Arden asked about potential suspects. Gracie pulled out a long list from her purse.
Arden looked over the three dozen names. That was just the first page out of four pages. Gracie buttoned her purse. “This is just what I thought of now. I’m sure I’ll have more later.”
Arden was glad to have more than less, but the last thing she wanted was a witch hunt. “Who are these people?”
“Rivals, mentors, stalkers, cast, crew, and deviants of all sorts,” Gracie e
xplained. “They wanted my Scarlet, but I wasn’t going to let them have her.”
Charles nodded. “We knew that the police weren’t going to be able to get through the list that fast, which is why we want the two of you. We’ve talked to other investigators as well, but the two of you have the best reputation.”
Gracie looked disgusted. “A lot of your peers are just so…” she shuddered.
Charles let go of his wife’s hand for the first time since they arrived. He rubbed his palm sweat on his thighs. “So? Will you help us?”
Arden replied, “We’ll need full transparency.”
“Understandable,” Charles said.
“Like seeing Scarlet’s room, reading her diary, texts, etc.”
The parents got alarmed.
Joe, though an intimidating man, spoke softly. “We will do everything in our power to find this girl. You can have confidence in that. If you can’t agree to full access to her things, we can still help, but it would be a disservice to you.”
Gracie looked at Charles. He seemed hesitant. They traded looks. Gracie silently convinced him. Charles conceded.
Joe pulled out the paperwork. Coming from the film industry, Charles read the document thoroughly. Arden wanted to check out the hotel first. It would also give the Gales some time to rest before Arden visited their home. The staff would’ve already cleaned the conference hall. Also, the police would have done their sweep. Either way, Arden wanted to check it off the list and see if there was some way Scarlet would’ve gotten extracted without being seen.
Arden and Joe decided to put all their time into this case. The Gales would pay well, and Arden had a strong feeling that they wouldn’t approve of her multi-tasking.
Joe walked them out to their luxury car. Arden watched from the window. She sipped her coffee.
After Joe returned, Arden put on a light jacket. It was springtime, and sometimes the air could get a little nippy.
“Piece of work. Both of them,” Joe replied. “Perhaps we should be rescuing Scarlet from them. No wonder these Hollywood kids turn out so dysfunctional.”
Arden turned off the light and flipped over the closed sign. She stepped past Joe. “We can lecture them on parenting after we find the girl. Until then, it’s the girl’s survival that matters.”
Joe, finding no place to argue, shut the door behind Arden and locked it.
They reached the parking lot.
“Wait,” Joe said.
Arden paused.
Joe fished a quarter out of his back pocket. “Call.”
“Tails.”
Joe flipped the coin. It landed in his palm. He put it down on his forearm and pulled back his hand. George Washington’s bust looked back at them. “My car it is,” Joe said.
Arden couldn’t remember why they started the coin toss game, but it had become a tradition. Honestly, Arden didn’t mind driving. She had to do it often she became unaffected by long hours in the car. She spent a lot of her time tailing someone or waiting during a stakeout. Joe’s driving was a bit more reckless. He drove a 2004 black Mustang he’d taken to the streets many times. Sometimes, after a long case, Joe would just drive. He wouldn’t have a purpose or destination. Arden didn’t ask him about it. She understood the need to clear one’s mind.
Joe kept his eyes straight ahead as he headed to the massive hotel in the distance. It stood like a tower amidst other skyscrapers, making up the crooked teeth on a giant’s lower jaw. They arrived and paid the twenty bucks for the daytime parking. Keeping their P.I. identification on their persons, they ventured inside. Nice carpet covered the floor, and pretty glass shades covered the hall lights. They inquired of the woman at the front desk and asked her about the party. She told them about the flood of guests that poured in at 7 pm and then left between 9 pm and midnight. None of them brought children, and there was no sign of Scarlet. Arden was trying to figure out how the girl was smuggled out. She walked down the long, massively wide corridors to the Swan conference hall. As she suspected, the event staff had cleaned the place of all tables and chairs. It was just a massive room with unique light fixtures on the ceiling. Arden hiked around it once, but that was more for good measure than to find anything specific. She tried to imagine where the girl was sitting in hopes to map out her route out of the room.
The security cameras had already captured it. It showed her leaving while her parents chatted. Arden traced Scarlet’s path out into the hall while Joe passed through the door to the emergency stairs. Arden eventually passed into the emergency stair shaft and looked down at the stairs descending down six flights and going up four. Without the camera working, the kidnapper—if there was one—would've gotten out at any floor they wished. All they needed was some way to hide the girl. Arden and Joe headed to the top and found the roof access door locked. On her way back down, she asked the hotel manager if any of his employees were under investigation. The man replied yes but reassured her that they didn’t do it. Nonetheless, Arden convinced him to unlock the roof for her. Arden and Joe walked around. There was a second exterior flight of stairs that went down, but it ended at a raised ladder. If the abductor took that route, he’d either have to drop fifteen feet or find a way to pull the ladder back up without causing a scene.
“Whoever took her either tampered with the tapes or hid,” Joe said.
“Yep,” Arden agreed. “I’m more concerned with the who than the how.”
With nothing to gain from the Hyatt, they drove to the Gales house. It was in a wealthy area in Atlanta. The house was modern, perhaps built within the last decade, but took a lot of influences from the Antebellum era.
Joe shielded his eyes with his hand. “Just think about all the money they made off of their daughter. This alone is at least a two-million-dollar home.”
Walking past the expertly trimmed hedges and rose bushes, Arden rang the doorbell. The paint was a coral pink color. It had a nice wood finish and a porch with roses carved into the trimming. Arden imagined Gracie worked hand and hand with the architect and got just what she wanted.
The Gales opened the door and invited them inside. The interior had massive TV posters and family portraits on the walls. There were flower vases on different side tables and lamp stands. A large white piano sat in the living room. There was another room that had a waxed floor. Arden imagined that was for dance lessons. The house had an art room, too. It was like each room was different training center for Scarlet.
Gracie led the investigators up the lavish staircase. It was white and glossy with a custom handrail etched with different flowers. They entered Scarlet’s bedroom. The girl lived like a princess. Everything was glossy white accented by a very light pink. She had a canopied bed. Her closet was nearly the size of Arden’s bedroom. Row after row of shoes seemed to extend forever. Arden feared touching the dresses after Gracie named the prices. Some were a few hundred dollars. One cost seven grand.
“And she only wore it once,” Gracie remarked.
Arden walked around the bed and slid her hand between the mattress, looking for a note or anything they girl might’ve tried to hid from her parents. “Did she ever have friends come over?”
“Scarlet?” Gracie asked, almost shocked. “She gets to enjoy her peers when she’s at pageants and parties. There are few gatherings we host here, but I try to keep the place clean. I don’t like her playing outside, either. She can’t afford to break something or get any scars. One on her face could ruin her entire career.”
Arden could tell that the parents were still partly in denial about Scarlet’s disappearance. In many ways, she couldn’t blame them. After her own sister’s death, it took weeks before she could make sense of anything. It was just like she was a zombie wandering around, talking to police and reporters. The Gales had it worse. The news would probably be blasting the story everywhere soon, if they had not already.
Not finding anything around the bed, Arden checked the girl’s wardrobe and make-up desk. She looked at her bookshelf packed with classic
plays from Shakespeare, playwrights, and greats dozens of hardback movie scripts. There was no sign of a diary. Gracie said that she wasn’t sure if Scarlet kept one.
Arden inquired about the girl’s cell phone. She owned one, but her parents made sure she wasn’t texting. Gracie gave the investigators a history lesson on how dangerous cyberspace was and how it could derail the little girl’s career if something were to come out. It was the same with social media. Scarlet had all the big-name platforms, but every post was calculated to maximize viewership. There were millions of followers. Any one of them could’ve been waiting for her in that hallway.
Joe asked if Scarlet had any stalkers.
Gracie replied, “Check the list I gave you.”
Arden eventually found some drawings at the bottom bin of Scarlet’s trashcan. They weren’t the best in the world, but still better than the average eleven-year-old. The drawings were of nature, birds, trees, and mountains. They made Arden smile. “She liked nature, huh?”
Gracie seemed slightly perplexed. “I didn’t…” Suddenly, her face scrunched in on itself and she started weeping.
Joe turned to Arden with an alarmed look.
Arden put aside the pictures and stood up.
“I’m such a bad mom,” Gracie wailed. Snot and tears rolled down her face.
Arden didn’t speak. She just gave the woman a hug and let her cry into her shoulder. It wasn’t the pretty crying you’d see on TV. The woman’s face was cherry red and ugly. Her perfect mascara was streaming everywhere.
She bawled and slobbered all over Arden’s shoulder. “I just wanted to give her the perfect life. Not like me. She had to be better. I wanted to make her better.”
“It’s okay,” Arden replied softly, rubbing the woman’s back.
Gracie bawled harder. “I never had the chances she had. My parents hated acting. They never let me go to beauty pageants or auditions. It was all fantasy is what my father used to say.”
Arden kept holding her.
Joe watched in silence.
Secrets Boxset: A Riveting Kidnapping Mystery Collection Page 13
