Page 37 of Love Undecided
Chapter 15
Kat
The Carter Family lives in a two-story Tudor style home on a quiet street at the end of a cul-de-sac. Today, the street is unusually busy due to the search command center that had been set up in their home shortly after Sofia had been abducted.
Dozens of volunteers have been taking phone calls with tips, scouting the wooded areas behind the house, and searching the surrounding streets in the neighborhood. But there has been no sign of her or the white car. She's been missing now for almost forty-eight hours.
We talk to both parents for a while; as expected they are extremely upset and not able to give us much information. They've not been contacted for a ransom and have no clue as to who might have taken their daughter.
They do, however, give us permission to inspect her room. Unfortunately, that doesn't yield much either. Her room is clean, organized, and tidy.
A twin bed with a white ruffled comforter was pushed in the corner, bookshelves with a built-in desk on the same wall as the door, windows on the opposite wall from the doorway, and a closet taking up most of the fourth wall. Her bookshelf is filled with books, stuffed animals, a few knick-knacks, and a Bose speaker system for her iPod. A MacBook Air sits on the desk along with a calculator, pad of paper, and a pencil cup filled with brightly colored pens, markers, and pencils with fuzzy animal heads stuck over the erasers.
"She's got a better stereo system than I do," I joke with Bauer. He doesn't respond.
"Totally kidding," I say. "I have a killer system. Rock on!" I flash him the rocker sign and stick my tongue out Gene Simmons style. He doesn't even look at me.
"Tough crowd."
"Uh, working here," he says, clearly irritated.
"Sorry," I mumble. Nothing like a good tangent to make me look like an asshole.
God, what is it about this guy that makes me act like such a juvenile idiot? I graduated from a top ten law school, fifth in my class. To see me with this guy, you'd think it was a top ten rodeo school and I was head clown.
I keep looking around. There is nothing shoved under her bed; her clothes are all neatly hung in the closet and nicely folded in the drawers. Her shoes were in a rack on the closet floor seemingly arranged by style. Her nightstand held an iPad, a charger for an iPhone or iPad, alarm clock, and a bedside glass/carafe combo that she must use for middle of the night water breaks. No diary as far as I could tell. Although these days, kids probably put all of that online.
I am amazed at the order and cleanliness of it all. There is nothing unusual about Sofia Carter's room. In fact, it seems to be the perfect room for a twelve-year-old girl who is well cared for and loved. I still know we are missing something, I just can't get a beat on it.
Bauer finds me after speaking with Mr. Carter, I’m still standing in Sofia’s room trying to figure out what I’m missing.
"Well, there goes that theory," he says. “They were never visited by the shower stealer. So much for tying the two together. I guess we are back to the proverbial drawing board now."
"Sorry, Bauer. I really thought we had a connection here."
"No worries, Cookie, I did too. We'll figure it out."
“God. I just want something to click in this whole situation so I don't feel like we just wasted our time."
"Welcome to police work," he says. “Where things rarely click and you always feel like you’re wasting time.”
