Chapter Two: Part Two

 

I looked quickly up and down the street.  Where was the detective?  Full-fledged panic mode was clicking at my heels.   I started to run.  I didn’t know where I was going or why I was going there.  I just ran.  Coming to the bridge that crossed the river just east of the Bridge Tender, I stopped.  Detective Quinn was standing there with an odd look on his face. 

“What,” I said.  “Did you find her?  Is she alright?”

He stood directly in front of me and put his hand on my shoulder, which I found annoying in my current state of mind.  I wasn’t a big supporter of men in general, much less those that tried to act more familiar with me than they really were.

“Mrs. Edwards,” he said.  “I need you to stay as calm as possible.  I called the station, and there’ve been no reports of an injured young woman.”  His words did little to comfort me.  “Let’s go back in the bar and sit down.  We need to decide what our next step will be.”

My intuition told me to keep running.  I wanted to run away from him and toward wherever my daughter might be.  Something wanted me to cover every square inch of the roads in that town.  ‘That miserable little town.  Tourist trap.  Beach town.  Town where my daughter disappeared!’  My thoughts were materializing faster than my brain could process.  Still, I followed him begrudgingly into the tavern.

I reluctantly sat down at the same corner table where the detective and I had met earlier that evening.  It felt as if it had been hours ago.  It was, in fact, less than 30 minutes.  It was as though I was in a time warp.  “I don’t know what to do,” I mumbled.  Tears were starting to well up in my eyes, but I didn’t want the other patrons staring at me so I tried to keep the waterworks in check. 

“Okay.”  There was that word again.  He said, “I want you to breathe.  Just sit here for a few seconds.”

“No,” I blurted out.  “I’m not going to sit here while Megan is missing.  Can you help me or not?”

  “Here’s what I know,” he answered.  He reached into a bag that I hadn’t noticed before, and pulled something out.

It was Megan’s black purse.  “No!!!!” I hissed, no longer caring whether anybody stared at me.  “Where did you find that?”  I was starting to have visions of her being kidnapped.  “We have to find her.  Now!”

“Listen, Mrs. Edwards…”  said the detective.                                                           

“Listen?  Listen?!!!  Damn you!  Damn this town!  Where is my daughter?” I roared.

“She’s not dead.  Yet.” he said.  I stopped crying long enough to glare at him.  What kind of a thing was that to say to a panic-stricken mother?

“She’s not dead YET?  Where is she then?  Is she in the hospital?  Is she in jail?”  I shot questions at him, never giving him a chance to answer. 

“No, I just want to reassure you that there’s very little chance that your worst fears have been realized,” he said.  “I don’t know exactly where she is, but I have a strong feeling that she’s very much alive.  I can’t explain how I know.  I just do.  Call it intuition.  I’ve been doing this kind of work for a long time, and I can tell you that this is not a murder case.”

I stared at him in dumbstruck disbelief.  My patience had worn thin, and my sanity was slipping rapidly.  “How do you know?  What’s in her purse?  What did you find that makes you know that she’s alive?”

“Nothing,” he said.  “Sometimes I just pick up a feeling by touching something that belongs to a missing person.  Maybe I’m psychic.  I really don’t know, but the feeling that I’m getting from her purse is not that of someone who’s been hurt.  The only things in her purse are her phone, a hair brush and some lipstick.  There’s also a driver’s license.  The cash is gone.  There are no credit cards…”

I interjected, “Megan doesn’t have credit cards.  She hardly ever has cash either.  That’s why Riley was paying the restaurant bill.  As far as I know, everything Megan usually carries in her purse is still there.”  I hung my head down.  “Megan is a recovering addict.  She’s been clean for over a year now, but Riley still handles all of the money for the two of them.”

I was picturing how the conversation would go when we got the police involved.  “Recovering alcoholic mother loses track of her recovering addict daughter.  That will undoubtedly put us high up on their list of priorities,” I thought cynically.

      “No,” he said.  “We’re not going to call the police.  Megan is an adult who’s only been missing for a few hours.  They wouldn’t be able to do anything yet.”

      How did he know what I was thinking?  This guy seemed a little peculiar, but I needed to trust him.  He was the only help I had right now.  Plus, he was a retired detective, so I elected to give him a chance.