Chapter 2
Holly Braden walked down the stairs of her
home to the musical sounds of cartoons drifting up from below. She entered the
family room to find her son wrapped in a blanket, sitting on the floor in front
of the television.
Coming up behind him, she asked, “Are you up
already?”
“I woke up when Dad was leaving,” he
answered.
She tousled his hair. “Well, turn down the
TV. Your brother and sister don’t have to be up for another hour yet.” She
continued to the kitchen and began making herself a lunch while taking an
occasional bite from a container of yogurt she had retrieved from the
refrigerator.
Standing in front of the pass-through bar,
she said, “Make sure your sister gets up by seven. I have to open the shop this
morning so I’m going to leave in a few minutes. And remind your brother to
brush his teeth after he eats breakfast.”
“Okay,” the boy nodded, without taking his
eyes from the screen.
After packing her lunch into a small tote
bag, she headed back up the stairs to brush her own teeth. When she reached the
top she made a right turn and entered the first bedroom. She kissed the cheek
of her sleeping five year old son and brushed his hair from his forehead before
making her way to the end of the hallway where she carefully opened the last door
and peeked in. She could see her daughter’s sleeping form snuggled under the
blankets. Knowing how she hated to be wakened, she closed the door quietly and
returned to her own bedroom.
Once she was ready, she retraced her steps
back down the stairs. When she passed through the family room, she bent to give
her oldest son a hug. “See you after school, Oliver. I love you.”
He turned his face up for her kiss. “Bye,
Mom. I love you, too.”
“Don’t forget to watch the time. I don’t want
anyone to miss the bus this morning.” At his nod, she continued to the door and
left to begin her day.
***“Holly, there’s a
phone call for you,” a sales clerk informed her. “Line two.”
She placed a stack of neatly folded sweaters
into a display bin and went to answer.
“This is Holly. May I help you?”
“Mrs. Braden, I’m Miriam Kashar, the
assistant principal at P.S. 56. I’m calling concerning your daughter, Corinna.
She hasn’t attended any of her classes this morning and I was wondering if she
was sick today.”
Even though her mind was instantly flooded
with a wide variety of ways in which to punish her wayward daughter, she
managed to answer cheerfully, “I left for work this morning before she got up,
but I’m sure she probably is sick and just hasn’t called yet to tell me she
stayed home. She wasn’t feeling well last night,” she lied. “I’ll call home and
check on her.”
The suspicion in the voice of the other woman
was impossible to miss. “All right. If she is sick, she’ll need a note signed
by you or your husband before we can let her back in class tomorrow. But if she
isn’t, I don’t think I need to remind you that this will be her second offense
for an unexcused absence. There will be detention involved this time, and a
third offense will earn her two days suspension.”
“I understand, but I’m sure she’s sick today.
She seemed to be coming down with something last night.”
After she had hung up the phone, she
immediately picked it back up and dialed her home number. She let it ring more
times than necessary before angrily replacing the receiver. Probably at the arcade again, she
concluded. Her stomach began churning
as it always did when dealing with her daughter’s antics, and she tried to
decide on a course of action. If she left work, she knew it would mean losing
her job. The only other clerk in the store had already locked up the
cantankerous cash register twice that morning with simple mistakes – she was
too inexperienced to leave alone. Getting in touch with her husband was next to
impossible due to his varied schedule with the Health Department’s inspection
team. The only option was to simply wait and deal with the situation upon the
completion of her shift.
As a customer approached with a question,
Holly Braden temporarily pushed her irritation aside. The inevitable
confrontation would have to wait a few more hours.
***She slammed the
door leading from the garage into the kitchen and dropped her purse and lunch
tote on the counter. Continuing to the bottom of the stairs, she called through
clenched teeth, “Corinna!”
When an answer was not immediately
forthcoming, she stalked to the family room where she found her two sons
engaged in a video game battle.
“Where is your sister?”
“I don’t know,” the oldest shrugged without
turning.
“Put the game on ‘pause’,” she ordered in a
tone that commanded obedience. Once they had complied and turned their
attention to her, she asked, “What do you mean you don’t know? Is she here or
not?”
The younger one shook his head. “Rina isn’t
here.”
“Was she here when you got home from school?”
“No.”
She rubbed her forehead and let out an
exasperated sigh. “I can’t believe she pulled this again.” Before she turned
around, she snapped, “Pick up those chips. You know better than to get them on
the carpet.”
She was fuming as she headed up the stairs.
Since there hadn’t been a note in the kitchen, she wondered if her daughter had
instead chosen to leave one on the door of her and her husband’s bedroom. Upon
confirming that she hadn’t, she made her way to Corinna’s room to check for
clues as to her whereabouts. Upon entering she quickly glanced around, looking
for a change of clothes on the floor or the contents of her backpack spread on
the bed…
The sight of the bed stopped her in her
tracks. The covers were pulled back, revealing three pillows arranged end to
end. For the first time since she had received the phone call from her
daughter’s school, her anger was joined by concern.
She quickly made her way down the stairs and
confronted her sons as they were returning a bag of chips to the pantry.
“Oliver, did Corinna make your breakfast this
morning?”
“No. She wasn’t here when I went up to wake
her. I thought she was in bed, but it was only pillows.”
Growing concern caused her to sound angrier
than she intended. “Why didn’t you call me at work before you left this
morning, or at least tell me that when I first came in?”
“You didn’t ask me,” he answered meekly.
“So you made your own breakfast and got to
the bus by yourselves?”
The two regarded her with solemn eyes as they
nodded their agreement.
“And you haven’t seen or heard from her since
you got home?”
They shook their heads in unison.
“Is Rina in trouble?” Nicholas asked, his
eyes on the verge of tearing.
Her expression softened somewhat and she
stepped forward to embrace both. “Yes, she’s in trouble. But you know that’s
pretty normal for your sister. It’s all right; she’s probably at Kayla’s house.
Why don’t you two go play your video game?”
As they happily darted off to comply, she
stood in the middle of the kitchen and tried to calm her churning stomach. The
nagging concern was quickly escalating.
***“What do you mean
there’s nothing you can do yet?” Joseph Braden demanded as he and his wife sat
beside the desk of an on-duty police officer at
“I understand,” the uniformed officer patiently
explained. “But she only left this morning. She hasn’t even been gone for
eleven hours. We can’t declare her missing before she’s been gone for
twenty-four. In most cases like this, the kids show up in time for dinner.”
“Are you kidding me?” Braden asked
incredulously. “She just turned fifteen! Surely such an idiotic rule can’t
apply to a minor!”
“If she were much younger, it wouldn’t.” The
officer shook her head. “I sympathize with you, Mr. Braden, but kids these days
grow up fast. Corinna probably has friends you don’t know about; she could be
anywhere. Does she have a boyfriend?”
“We don’t allow her to date, yet,” Holly
Braden answered, her voice shaky with fear and worry. “We asked all of her
friends to call their classmates and anyone else they could think of. None of
them had seen her since she left school yesterday afternoon. She wouldn’t be
gone this long without calling and telling us. Something is wrong, I just know
it.”
“You admitted that she had cut school once
before to spend the day at the arcade,” the officer reminded them. “She
probably did something similar today. I’m sure she’ll turn up soon. Why don’t
you go home and wait for her there? I have all of the information and the
picture you provided. I come back on duty at
Joseph Braden stood up and glared down at
her. “What the hell are you people doing here? We came to you for help and you
refuse to do anything. We can’t just go home and wait patiently. If you won’t
do your job, we’ll do it for you.” He
gently took his crying wife’s arm. “Come on, Holly. We’ll organize some of the
neighbors into search teams and drive around to look for her. If she’s anywhere
in the neighborhood, we’ll find her.”