Escaping Our Reality (The Reality Duet #1)

Chapter 1

ELLA

I really don’t like what I hear.

Sometimes you just don’t care to hear the words that come from someone’s mouth. You want to pluck those words from the sky and stuff them back where they belong. Deep, deep down into the vacuum of the black abyss.

When I was little, I could cover my ears when I didn’t like what someone was telling me. I don’t really think that’s feasible—feasible, sure, but not necessarily mature—at seventeen.

“So, unfortunately, there’s really nothing further we can do until we get some new leads. New tips.”

I blankly stare at Detective Marcum as he looks between me, my mom, and my dad as I try to absorb every syllable of what he’s attempting to tell me, doing his best to use politically correct and placating language in front of my parents.

So, that’s it? No more looking for my sister? Nothing?

Caroline Olive Hill no longer exists?

I guess I should stop thinking in questions and start thinking in statements . Statement: Bogus tips and false leads stop coming in, and Carrie is gone. Done. Finished. Pushed to the back burner by the general public who have grown weary of seeing her face splattered all over the evening news.

My eyes burn and my throat constricts as I swallow and try to contain my unshed sobs. Marcum, with his kind eyes and graying temples, shifts to gently cover my trembling hand with his own. His movement stops suddenly when my mother’s shrill howl fragments the peaceful calm of the sheriff’s department family room. Marcum clears his throat and passes her a box of tissues. I immediately stiffen my spine and roll my shoulders, having a visceral reaction to her hollow antics. She can’t be serious with this Oscar-worthy performance, can she?

I glance in her direction, watching as her body shudders. Dad massages her back in large, exaggerated strokes. She fans her face, exclaiming loudly, “Oh, my heart. My heart is torn in two. I just can’t take it anymore!”

Oh, please. Dramatic much?

She shakes her tissue in the air like a pompom and dabs the sides of her eyes—her very dry eyes, very non-bloodshot eyes. You think she’d learn by now how to make herself cry. I’m sure there’s a YouTube on that very thing. I mean, someone needs to tell her that sobs without tears just look ridiculous.

Marcum tosses me a knowing look.

“Robert, this has been so hard on me. It’s devastating. Truly devastating. I just don’t think I can stay in this town right now, knowing that no one’s looking for my baby.”

Mom can play the most spectacular sympathy card with the very best of them. She’s a true Vegas card shark when it comes to that. And Dad feeds on her every word and whim, like a mangy mutt eating shit from the trash can. He doesn’t care where it’s from, as long as the results are the same.

“Darling, I completely understand. Susan, let me take you away for a bit. I’ll have Addison rearrange my surgical calendar, and we can leave for the Bahamas by lunch tomorrow.”

Mom tosses him a flippant look of disgust. “Ugh, not the Bahamas again.”

“Bermuda?”

She grins and nods. Thankfully she didn’t have to worry about any tears going into her mouth as she smiles like the Cheshire cat at his change of venue.

“It’s decided,” he says, asserting a fully professional tone. “Detective Marcum, I’m taking my wife on a much-deserved and needed holiday. I have our monthly news conference scheduled for two weeks from tomorrow. I suggest that the department does all it can between now and then to find some new leads on our daughter’s case. I’d hate for our local sheriff’s department to be cast in such a negative light on the national platform. I’m sure you understand what I’m trying to say.”

Marcum just sits there dumbfounded. He’s used to their dramatics, but even this episode was a bit much.

My parents make their exit from the room, briefly pausing in the doorway when they realize they’re forgetting one small, little thing—me, their other daughter.

“Ella,” Dad beckons me like a master calling his pet.

I politely smile. “I’ll be home soon. Remember, we drove separately.”

He nods curtly, and I’m left drowning in the residue of my mother’s $400 perfume. It takes only a few moments for the gravity of the situation to settle over me like a dense, heavy fog, and tears spring to my eyes. I cover my face with my hands and cry. Marcum quickly assumes the role of surrogate father, gently patting my back, hoping he can pound the sorrow from my soul and the demons from my home.

I honestly don’t know where I’d be without him. I couldn’t have survived the past six months of torturous hell without him and my Uncle Ray’s family.

Eventually, my flooding tears subside and my hysterical hiccups fade. Together we move from the conference room and make our way through the sheriff’s department to one of the detectives’ rooms where Marcum shares an office with three other major case detectives. I sit opposite him, kicking my feet up on the edge of his desk, and pick up the latest framed picture. I smile at the toothless little baby boy staring back at me. Marcum’s grandson, born the same day Carrie officially went missing.

“Six-month pictures,” Marcum explains. “Makes no sense to me,” he shrugs. “Why do Brent and Stephanie want to pay a photographer every single month for pictures when they can just take a Kodak themselves?”

I snort. Normally, I’d reply back with a smartass comment, but I agree with him. I rub my swollen eyes, then stretch my arms high above my head, trying to ease the tension from my muscles.

Softly chuckling, he mumbles more to himself than me. “Do your parents even know who you really are?”

It has to be a rhetorical question. We both already know the answer is no. I guess being the family man that he is, he can’t understand coming from parents who are so disconnected from their child.

Knowing me better than I know myself, he reaches in his bottom drawer and tosses a protein bar at me. “Eat lunch?”

“Of course not,” I say with a smile as I take it from him.

He walks to a small fridge in the corner of the room to grab me a bottle of water. “So, I wasn’t kidding when I said that we’re stuck. No new tips have come in to us, the University police, or the FBI in the past month. The lab rechecked all of the evidence from the SUV to make sure they didn’t miss anything.” He sighs heavily, sweeping his arm through the air. “And nothing.”

I gulp a large swallow of water, toss my wrapper in the trash, and then hold my hands across the desk, palms up. Marcum grunts and does the same thing he has done multiple times a week since my sister went missing. He pulls the large, copied stack of evidence photos from the same third desk drawer as always and slaps them in my hand. And for the hundredth time, I carefully study the pictures of my sister’s expensive-ass SUV, willing myself to have an ‘Aha Moment’.

I close my eyes and picture everything that I remember from the last time I rode with her—the day she drove me to Uncle Ray and Aunt Teresa’s house for the cruise. I open my eyes and slowly and methodically flip through the pictures, looking for any clues. Any small remnant that might tell us what happened to Carrie, who took her, who has her. The pictures show the same scenes, over and over. The doors are closed and locked. On the passenger’s seat is her purse and powered-off cell phone. A few receipts are stacked in the corner slit of the console. A large Styrofoam cup with watered-down Diet Coke sits in the cup holder. The sunglass clip snuggly holds her Ray-Bans, and the glove box contains no significant papers, other than her insurance card and tag registration.

“And the restaurant, where her car was found, had closed how long ago?”

I know the answer. Marcum knows I know the answer, but he still repeats the same thing he’s said to me multiple times. That’s just the kind of man he is.

“Over five years. And the owners no longer live here. They’re in Florida. Just saving the land and the building in case their kids wanna do something with it one day.”

I nod. “Right.” I sit back in the chair and look around. “Where’s Leary today?”

“Field trip with his kid.” Marcum laughs. “I remember those days.”

I bite my lip. I don’t remember those days. My father never went on one single field trip with me. My mother did, but she never did it to spend time with me. She just did it because the other moms were going, and it afforded her an avenue to gossip and play the over-doting mother card.

I tilt my head at the picture that shows all of the receipts found in her car. As always, two particular receipts annoyingly tug at the periphery of my mind. Travis Boys Gas and Country Mart. Both receipts show where she bought gas, filling her tank. One’s dated for the day she was last seen by friends. The next day—the day after buying this gas—she was supposed to go to Dakota’s apartment for a cookout and didn’t show. That’s when they knew something was wrong. The other receipt is dated eleven days prior to that. It’s not shocking to me that Carrie saved her receipt. She typically saved all of her receipts until she could reconcile them with the monthly credit card statement or bank statement. It’s just one of the many life lessons she was teaching me.

Lessons that should come from parents.

Lessons like balancing your checkbook, doing your own laundry, properly cleaning your house, and mowing the yard.

I tap the image with my pointer finger and make a clicking sound with my tongue. “You checked how many months of our checking account statements and credit card statements?”

Our meaning mine and Carrie’s joint account.

“About three months before she disappeared. You still fixated on those gas station receipts?”

Tossing it on the desk, I stand and walk to the window, passing by Detective Colson. He’s distracted on the phone, so I use the opportunity to aggravate him by turning the framed picture of Sparky, his golden retriever, upside down. Colson is anal-retentive and extremely protective of his desk, so everyone within a ten-mile radius of the station makes a special effort to annoy him on a daily basis.

Detective Peele, Colson’s partner, tosses me a dirty look. He doesn’t hide the fact that he thinks Marcum and I have grown too close, that Marcum lets me know too much about the investigation.

I ignore him. And avoid him. Like a hooker running away from Sunday School.

The lights from the Christmas tree on the plaza sparkle against the midday sun. Christmas was last week, so we still have three weeks before they take down the decorations, storing them for another year. “It still doesn’t make any sense to me. Why travel to the whole other side of the county just to go to one particular gas station?” I hold up my hand before Marcum can respond. “And yes, I know they are the only station in all of Central Alabama that carries Slayton’s Southern Blackberry Tea,” I say with a completely bitchy, sarcastic attitude.

“That’s right. And apparently, your sister isn’t the only one who travels to that shit-hole area for that special drink. I told you we watched ten different tapes from ten different days when Carrie went there. I bet a dozen people buy that drink each day. Tried it myself. It was damn good. I’m not willing to drive thirty minutes for it, but it was good sweet tea. They’ve got good fried chicken too,” he says with a rub of his belly. “Plus, their gas is a good five cents cheaper per gallon than here in town.”

I raise my eyebrows, pinning him with a stare. He holds his own hands up in surrender, almost mimicking me. “I know, I know. Carrie isn’t penny pinching on her gas savings, but still.” He heaves a loud sigh and tugs on his belt.

I make my way back over to his desk and sit down. “And you saw her on camera?”

“You know I did, Ella. She always came out with that drink. Sometimes she bought gas, sometimes she didn’t. Sometimes she bought something to eat, sometimes she didn’t. But she always had that drink. Nothing unusual. I’ve heard of people driving all the way down to Gulf Shores just to eat a good seafood lunch and then turning right back around to come home.”

I shake my head. “If this $4 gourmet drink has such a hold on my sister, why not buy more than one at a time? Why not buy everything the gas station has so you don’t have to go back there, over and over? Like you said, it’s not in the best area.”

Marcum shrugs his shoulders. “Ella, she’s still a kid. Kids don’t always think of the big picture.”

“I just don’t get it. She goes to the gas station, always uses the ATM, and then pays for her stuff with cash. Why not just use the credit card? She buys gas from there on the credit card.”

“That’s not unusual, honey. Sometimes, people prefer to pay cash in a seedy place. Then, you don’t have to worry about a cashier stealing your credit card number. I actually saw tons of people using that ATM machine on the videos.” He scratches his jaw. “The gas pumps have card machines built in. She wasn’t handing her card over to anyone to buy gas outside the store. That’s safer.”

Unable to think anymore, I let Marcum walk me to my car. He nods at nothing in particular. “So, they’re serious about leaving town and going on vacation?”

I wish I could say they were kidding, but they weren’t.

I snort in disgust. Ironic that Addison will be rearranging his surgery schedule so he can cart his wife off to some tropical island. I wonder what he’ll have to give Addison to make up for it? It’s common knowledge that Addison, my father’s personal assistant, is one of his many mistresses.

Marcum shakes his head in disbelief. “Well, I’ll send a uniform by your place a couple of times a night just to check on things.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

His words are simple. “I know.”

I open the door to my own expensive-ass SUV and climb in.