Page 18 of Caged

“You’re welcome.” My tone matched hers.

After a few minutes of nothing but country music filling the cab, I asked, “Do you think Darling has something to do with her disappearance?” I didn’t get that vibe, but Maxwell was the profiler.

“What’s your gut tell you?” she asked.

I didn’t expect her to ask my opinion.Or was she testing me, waiting for me to fuck up?

“I don’t think so. He seems genuinely concerned and I think he feels guilty for not realizing she was missing sooner.” Not that he was to blame. I couldn’t imagine many nineteen-year-olds giving their parents a play-by-play of their weekend plans.

Not that I’d know from experience. I was serving my country at nineteen, and the only time I spoke to my parents was when I had down time and a signal strong enough to call from a computer. Not exactly typical.

“Agreed.” At least we agreed on something.

“Is that your gut talking or your degree?” It came out snarky, out of habit. But I really wanted to know which it was.

She barely turned her head when she looked at me. “Both.”

“What’d you notice in the jewelry box?” I asked, remembering she’d spent a lot of time examining one of the small drawers before making a note.

“Wendy had a lot of costume jewelry crammed in the box, but the bottom drawer was empty. I don’t know what it means yet, but it doesn’t fit.”

The idea didn’t hoist a red flag for me like it did for Maxwell. “She could’ve been wearing whatever was in there.”

“Maybe, but every other drawer was crammed full and messy. It doesn’t make sense for one drawer to be empty.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it.” I didn’t own any jewelry beside my watch and dog tags, but Maxwell probably did.

She always wore the same diamond earrings and a watch but no rings or bracelets, and only occasionally wore a necklace. Which fit her severe work style.

“Was anything else you saw useful?”

“Not really. So far she seems like a typical nineteen-year-old living at home. Because most kids live in the digital world, I won’t know any more until I look through her phone and laptop.”

What she didn’t say, what neither of us was saying, was that from what we’d seen so far, it looked like Wendy went out with the mysterious Mr. R. and never came home.

The question of the hour was, did Wendy choose not to come home or did someone decide for her?

I hated that we still had more questions than answers.

We couldn’t ignore the possibility Wendy had decided to leave this life behind and run away with Mr. R. If he lavished her with gifts, an assumption I made based on Maxwell’s cell phone theory, then he may have promised her an easy life.

“Do you think she ran away with her mystery guy?”

She thought about it a good minute before answering. “Maybe. But I don’t have a good feeling about it.”

When she didn’t continue, I asked, “Care to elaborate?”

“What would you pack to run away?” she asked instead of answering.

Great, another test.

“Clothes, wallet, phone, laptop-”

She cut me off, “Exactly. Wendy left her phone, makeup case and laptop. And Mr. R giving her a cell phone is a controlling move.”

I was afraid she’d say that. We might not have a lot to go on, but my gut was telling me something had gone wrong and Wendy was in trouble.

Chapter 8

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