First Girl Gone: An absolutely addictive crime thriller with a twist (Detective Charlotte Winters Book 1)

by L. T. Vargus

  Sharon gestured to the man beside her, who stepped forward to shake.

  “This is Amber’s father, Ted Spadafore. We’re divorced,” Sharon explained.

  He was exactly what Charlie imagined when she thought of all the rich people from Grosse Pointe and Bloomfield Hills who owned vacation homes on the island. Overly tan, bleached teeth, expensive watch. He’d attempted to dress casual, but his jeans were just a smidge too perfect, straight off the rack.

  Glancing at the other two men, Charlie tried to fit them into the picture. The older of the two she figured to be Sharon’s new husband. The other looked to be around the same age as Amber. Her brother, most likely.

  When it became clear that Sharon wasn’t doing any further introductions, the older man cleared his throat.

  “Todd Ritter,” he said. “I’m Amber’s stepfather.”

  He instantly struck her as a discount version of Ted Spadafore. They were dressed in the same dorky dad chic. They had the same sandy hair. But Todd was shorter, a touch paunchier. Hairline starting to recede. Above all, he was plain. Unremarkable.

  “Even his name,” Allie said. “Tahhhhd.”

  She drew the vowel sound out, adding a little extra Midwest twang.

  Sharon rounded on him, teeth flashing in a snarl.

  “Oh, for crying out loud. Not everyone has to be formally introduced,” she snapped, and then she pointed at Todd and her son and rattled off an introduction. “Todd, my husband. Jason, my son. Can we move on to something more productive?”

  “Why don’t we all sit, and I can ask a few preliminary questions,” Charlie said, nodding to the leather couch.

  The space on the couch was soon filled by Sharon, her ex-husband, and their son, leaving Todd to perch awkwardly next to his wife on one of the arms.

  Charlie hadn’t expected quite such a full house.

  “I can go grab an extra chair,” she offered.

  Todd started to nod and said, “That would be—”

  But he was quickly cut off by his wife, who waved a dismissive hand in the air.

  “He’s fine. Can we please get started? Or am I the only one here who’s actually concerned about my daughter being missing?”

  “Honey, she was only trying to be polite. I think we’re all plenty concerned,” Todd said, his tone placating.

  Charlie held up a hand to interrupt and hoped her polite smile would break the tension.

  “Why don’t we start with something simple?” she said. “When was the last time anyone saw or spoke to Amber?”

  “Last Monday. We think.” Sharon flicked a gold-bangled wrist in the air. “She’s on holiday break, so she’s been home. But she left to go back to school on Monday. She’s very active in her sorority, and they’ve been planning a pancake dinner for the children’s hospital. She went back to do some work on that for a few days. It wasn’t until yesterday we even figured out that anything was wrong.”

  The old sofa creaked as Amber’s father shifted in his seat, uncrossing his legs.

  “I still don’t understand how you could have possibly missed that she was gone until yesterday,” he muttered, balling his hand into a fist. “It’s been a week!”

  Nostrils flaring, Sharon pursed her lips and said, “You’ve got a lot of nerve, lecturing me.”

  Ted Spadafore glared over at his ex-wife.

  “Yeah? And why is that?”

  “If we could get back to—” Charlie tried to break in, but they weren’t listening.

  Sharon scoffed. From the corner of her eye, Charlie noticed Todd wince. A Pavlovian response to that noise coming from his wife?

  “What? You think you’re father of the year? After you ran off with that tramp secretary of yours and abandoned your family?”

  “Don’t call her that. And I didn’t abandon anyone!”

  Ted’s face went from sun-bronzed to the red of an uncooked hot dog. By comparison, Sharon remained remarkably cool, running a hand through her hair.

  “You did, and I’ll call her whatever I want.”

  “Maybe if you weren’t such a controlling shrew, I wouldn’t have—”

  After sitting on the far end of the couch in utter silence, Jason Spadafore suddenly leapt to his feet, landing in a sort of karate stance.

  “Will you both just shut the fuck up?” he bellowed loudly enough to drown out his parents. “All you ever do is argue—everyone is sick of it! Amber probably ran off just to get away from you.”

  Mouth agape, Sharon looked like she’d been slapped.

  “What a disgusting thing to say.”

  He shook his head.

  “You know what? I’m out of here,” he said, turning on his heel and heading for the door.

  “Jason, don’t you—” Sharon started to stand, presumably to chase after her son, but Ted stopped her with a hand on her arm.

  “Let him go.”

  The door slammed behind Jason, and his mother settled back into her seat, blinking.

  Allie let out a nervous chuckle.

  “Holy shit. For a second there, I thought the kid was going to roundhouse kick his dad in those big white horse teeth of his.”

  With both parents shocked into an awkward silence for the moment, Charlie seized on the opportunity to get back to her questions.

  “OK, so you saw Amber last Monday. Could you tell me what time?”

  Sharon’s gaze moved from the door to Charlie. She folded her hands in her lap, regaining her composure.

  “She left in the morning to meet up with some old high school friends for brunch. But she came back in the afternoon to grab her things.”

  “And you saw her then?”

  Sharon shook her head.

  “No, but we have a doorbell camera. It showed her returning around two thirty and then leaving again around seven.”

  “And no one else was home at that point?”

  “I was at a real estate conference in Ann Arbor.” Sharon fiddled with a diamond earring. “Todd was working late, and Jason was out with friends. They didn’t get back home until after she’d gone.”

  Charlie could see the muscles along Ted Spadafore’s jaw clench, and Charlie forged ahead in an attempt to curtail further bickering.

  “Can I ask what you do, Mr. Spadafore?”

  His brow furrowed at the sudden change of subject.

  “I own a financial consulting firm.”

  “And what about you, Mr. Ritter?”

  “Ritter Custom Installations, owner and operator. We do dock installations. Boat lifts. That kind of thing.”

  Charlie made a pleasant face as she jotted this down, hoping her positive attitude might rub off on the family.

  “Tell me about yesterday,” Charlie said. “How did you discover Amber was missing?”

  “She’d wanted to invite a few friends from her sorority to stay for Christmas. Girls from out of town that aren’t going home for the holidays. I wanted them to feel included on Christmas morning, so I asked Amber to think about a few small gift ideas for them. I kept texting her about it, and she kept not responding. I finally called and got her voicemail. That was Friday. Yesterday she still hadn’t gotten back to me, so I called the house and talked to one of her sorority sisters. She told me no one had seen Amber since the start of break.”

  Amber’s father broke in.

  “That’s when Sharon called me, and I reminded her that Amber’s car has GPS tracking. I called up the company and got a location on it.”

  Charlie glanced down at her notes.

  “And it was in a park-and-ride lot just off the island, is that right?”

  Ted nodded.

  “We drove out there straight away. The car was there. But…” Eyes filling with tears, he shook his head.

  “How was the car when you found it? Locked? Unlocked?”

  “Unlocked.”

  “Were any of Amber’s things inside?”

  “All of her school stuff was still in the car,” Sharon said, clasping her fingers so tightly t
hat her knuckles blanched white. “Laundry, overnight bag. But her phone and purse and keys were gone.”

  Charlie set her notebook aside, folding her hands together.

  “Well, I can tell you right now that I’ve already spoken to the police. With two girls going missing in such a short period of time, they’re making this investigation their highest priority. But if you still want me looking into things, the first thing I’ll need is a list of Amber’s friends. A contact at the sorority house would be a great start. And I’d really like to talk to the people she met up with the day she disappeared.”

  “I think it makes sense,” Sharon said, glancing at her ex-husband. “Since you’re already looking for the other girl, I mean, it seems like we could pool our resources, so to speak.”

  “Absolutely,” Ted agreed.

  Charlie noticed Todd nodding along with this, as if he were part of the conversation.

  She wheeled her chair back from the desk and stood.

  “Let me go grab a service agreement for you to sign. I’ll be right back.”

  Ducking into the back office, Charlie grabbed one of the pre-printed contracts Frank kept in a filing cabinet. She went over the form, filling in the blanks, pausing when she reached the space for the client’s name.

  “Decisions, decisions. Do you put down just one of the parents? Both parents, but leave off poor Todd? List all three?” Allie asked. “Tricky situation.”

  In the end, Charlie put down all three names: Ted Spadafore, Sharon Ritter, and Todd Ritter.

  Charlie fixed the papers to a clipboard before returning to the main office. She passed it to the family and returned to the chair behind her desk.

  “Our rate for this kind of investigation is seventy-five dollars an hour. We’ll also require a thousand-dollar retainer at the time of signing.”

  Ted Spadafore nodded along with this as he scribbled his signature at the bottom of the contract.

  “I can write you a check right now,” he said, handing the clipboard to his ex-wife and getting out his checkbook.

  Sharon signed her name like she did everything else: with a fierce efficiency. The pen scratched over the paper like a sharpened claw.

  Todd took the clipboard last. Where the other two had simply signed it after a cursory glance, he was apparently intent on reading it in full.

  Amber’s father slid a check across the desk to Charlie.

  “Theodore Spadafore!” Allie chuckled, then repeated it several more times in a sing-song. “No wonder he goes by Ted.”

  “If we’re finished here, I’ve got a meeting I have to get to,” he said, getting to his feet.

  “Typical,” Sharon said, muttering under her breath.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, nothing. Write your check and then slither back to your bimbo. That’s what you do, isn’t it?”

  He bared his teeth, on the brink of responding, then seemed to decide he’d had enough for one day.

  “I don’t have time for this,” he said, spinning on his heel to face Charlie. “You’ll keep me in the loop?”

  “Of course.”

  With that, he grabbed his coat from the rack and left.

  Sharon watched him go, letting out a small puff of breath. Then she turned her sharp gaze on Todd, pen in hand, his eyes scanning the lines of legalese printed in black ink. With his face buried in the contract, he didn’t realize his wife was staring him down.

  “What are you doing?”

  His eyes flicked up briefly, and he flashed an awkward smile.

  “Reading the contract.”

  Thrusting her lower jaw out and rolling her eyes, Sharon shook her head.

  “For the love of God, Todd. Will you just sign the damn thing?”

  He looked at her in earnest now and tapped the top page with the tips of his fingers.

  “I’m just looking it over, honey. I think it’s always wise to—”

  “Look, I appreciate the overly concerned stepfather act you’re putting on, but she isn’t your daughter. I don’t even know why your name is on the contract, frankly.”

  Todd’s face tightened. He glanced at Charlie, then back at his wife. Charlie cringed inwardly.

  “Honey, why would you say that?”

  Sharon pinched the bridge of her nose.

  “Here we go. Mr. Sensitive! I didn’t mean anything by it, Todd. It’s just a simple fact. You are not Amber’s father.” Finished with him, her focus shifted to Charlie. “Now I expect you’ll get started on all of this immediately?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll be—”

  To Charlie’s surprise, Todd interrupted.

  “Excuse me, Sharon, but I’m the one who noticed the flier for the other missing girl in the first place.”

  Sharon sighed heavily and rolled her eyes.

  “Jesus Christ, Todd! My daughter is missing. Do you think you can put your hurt feelings aside until our next therapy session and focus on that, please? We’re wasting this poor woman’s time.”

  Face flushing the shade of raw ground beef, Todd blinked down at the clipboard.

  “You’re right,” he said, quietly. “I’m sorry.”

  He signed the contract and handed it back to Charlie. Sharon was already on her feet and slipping her coat on.

  With one final disdainful look around the grungy office, she wrinkled her nose and muttered, “I need some fresh air. I’ll be outside.”

  Todd stared after her for a moment, then reached for his own jacket. Zipping it, he turned to Charlie.

  “I don’t know if we said thank you, but… thank you.” He made eye contact briefly, then looked away again. “My wife isn’t always able to express her true feelings. She can be… brusque sometimes to hide her vulnerability. Underneath that tough exterior, she loves her daughter more than anything. She’s terrified, and it means the world to have you out there looking for our girl. It really does.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  After the Ritter-Spadafore party had departed, Charlie sat at her desk, absently bouncing a pen against her cheek. Two missing girls. Were the cases related? There was no proof yet, but Charlie’s gut said yes.

  Based on what the family had just told her, Amber Spadafore had gone missing first—a full two days before Kara Dawkins. That was probably significant. And it meant Charlie was already a week behind on Amber’s case. She swallowed in a dry throat. Pressure.

  She knew the police had Amber’s car. She needed to talk to Zoe, see if they’d found anything of interest. But she hated to ask for another favor so soon. She didn’t want Zoe thinking she only ever called when she wanted something.

  She pulled out her phone and the list of Amber’s friends Sharon Ritter had written down for her. The name on the first line was Julia Prior. She was Amber’s roommate and sorority sister.

  When Charlie explained who she was and why she was calling, the girl let out a squeak of distress.

  “I can’t believe this is real. None of us can. We’re in shock!”

  “How well do you know Amber?”

  “We’re both nursing students, so we’ve been in all the same classes together since we were freshmen. So yeah, I’d say I know her pretty well.”

  “And how would you describe her?”

  “Oh, Amber is smart as hell. She’s the only girl who aced our big pharmacology test the first time through. If it weren’t for her, I don’t know if I would have passed that class.”

  An achiever, Charlie thought. Book-smart. It fit with everything else she’d found online. Quite the opposite of Kara Dawkins when it came to type.

  “What about socially? Does she have a lot of friends?”

  “I mean, I think everyone in the house would consider her a friend. Everyone loves Amber.”

  “And outside of that?”

  “Nursing school isn’t really like other programs. We have our standard course load, plus clinicals. Our nursing class alone accounts for twenty hours every week. It’s basically a part-time job in addition to our othe
r classes. And then we have the house activities. Volunteering and whatnot. My point is, we don’t have quite the amount of free time other students do.”

  “So would that mean a boyfriend would be out of the question?”

  “Not necessarily. We do a lot of the house activities with the Zeta Psi guys. So we’re friendly with a lot of them. Amber has a few admirers. But nothing serious.”

  “Admirers?”

  “Let’s just say I know of at least one Zeta Psi who would love to date her.”

  “But she’s not interested?”

  “I don’t know if I’d say that. It’s not like he’s a creepy stalker or something. They’re friends. But I can tell by the way he looks at her and how he is around her that he’s, like, totally infatuated with her.”

  The word set off alarm bells in Charlie’s head.

  “What does Amber think of that? Or hasn’t she noticed?”

  “Oh, she’s definitely noticed. I don’t think you could ignore it. I think she likes it. The admiration. I mean, who wouldn’t?”

  “What’s his name, this admirer?”

  “Paul… shoot, I can’t think of his last name right now. I think it starts with a T, though.”

  “Would you happen to have his phone number?”

  “I think I do. Hold on.”

  When Julia returned, she rattled off the digits, and Charlie copied them down in her notebook. She thanked the girl for her time.

  “You’re going to find her,” Julia said. “If something had happened to her, I think I’d know it. Amber has that kind of energy, you know? It’d be like a light went out in the world or something.”

  After Charlie hung up, she said to herself, “I hope you’re right.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Charlie’s next call was to Paul T., Amber’s not-stalker. He sounded genuinely upset to hear of Amber’s disappearance, though Charlie wasn’t willing to stake an entire investigation on the shakiness of his voice.

  “When was the last time you saw or spoke to Amber?”

  “We hung out a few days before break started. That would have been the last time I saw her in person. But we texted a few times after that. I sent her a picture of me in front of the castle at Disneyland. She’s a Disney freak.”