15. Chapter 15
fifteen
Warm morning sunlight bathed the parking lot of the police department. There was a chill in the air in the earlier hours, but the rays quickly burned it off. The temperature had risen to the upper fifties by the time Gene had picked up Amanda. It would be in the high sixties by the time they started their hike.
But first thing first.
“Are you ready?” Gene asked Amanda when they got to the front entrance of the police station.
Amanda had said little during the drive—probably nerves, or perhaps she just didn’t feel like talking to him. She nodded, and they went inside. Within five minutes, Patrick met them in the lobby and escorted them through the bullpen. The atmosphere buzzed with uniformed officers going in and out, and plainclothes officers either on their computers or talking on the phone or with each other.
The buzz quieted down slightly as Gene, Amanda, and Patrick walked through. Some eyes followed them. More than a few knew Amanda and said hi. Gene didn’t realize how popular Amanda’s baking was among the plain officers. They were all excited about the big box of assorted baked goods she brought with her.
“You’re too generous. Thank you for bringing us goodies,” Patrick said to Amanda.
“I don’t know how you make money if you keep giving your goods away,” Gene teased as they followed Patrick to a private interview room.
“It’s nothing and costs me little.” Amanda brushed it off. “Many of them often come by and spend their money at the store.”
Patrick gestured them to seat. “And thanks for my special box of cinnamon buns.”
“It’s the least I could do. I truly appreciate your helping me out with this,” Amanda said.
“Well, I don’t know how much I can help,” Patrick said from across the table. “Without an official missing persons report, there isn’t much we can do. Unfortunately, NamUs, that’s the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, is saturated with girls of similar descriptions like the one you gave us. Though the open cases we found from our area are older than the age range you said the girl is.”
“If you have their pictures, I’d like to see them, please,” Amanda said. “I’m fairly certain she’s in her mid-teens, but I could be wrong.”
“Okay.”
Patrick opened a file folder he’d brought in with him. He pushed a piece of paper with an array of pictures of girls with blond hair and brown eyes.
Gene recognized three of them from the search they’d done the day before. There were two more added. Had Patrick found more cases, or were they new? His heart grew heavy seeing the pictures. Those girls might be in their early twenties now, but some of them were mere children when they’d gone missing. Two had run away when they’d been in high school, while one had vanished when she’d been thirteen.
What happened to them?
Gene looked away, knowing the likely sinister scenarios thatcaused these girls’ disappearances. The depravities of humanity never failed to boggle him.
“Did you see any of the girl in these pictures?” Patrick asked Amanda.
Lines appeared on her forehead as she studied each picture carefully. But after a few seconds, she pushed the paper back to Patrick.
“No, she’s not here,” she said, disappointed. “Her hair is slightly similar in shade to this one, but the hairline is wrong. The eyes are more similar to this one, but they’re not quite right, either.”
“This was a long shot,” Patrick said, understanding. “That’s why I asked you to meet with Julia. I’ll go get her now. Would you like a cup of coffee?”
Both declined the offer and waited for Patrick to return with the sketch artist.
“You okay?” Gene asked, wanting to reach out and comfort her, but he wasn’t sure if that would cross the boundary Amanda had drawn between them.
“Yeah. Looking at those girls’ pictures just made me wonder if they’ll ever be found.” Amanda turned troubled eyes to him. “Will their families ever get to hug them again?”
Gene didn’t have an answer for her. He couldn’t even come up with something comforting to say.
“I don’t know,” he said instead.
Silence fell upon them again.
“I assume you didn’t find anything at the shelters last night?” Gene asked, filling in the void.
“No.” She sighed. “There were many displaced families, a few with teenagers, but none of them are her. The director I talked to said runaways come and go, and sometimes they prefer to flock together. You may be on to something with the campground.” Amanda pulled back her shoulders and sat up straight. Though her face was still grim, there was a new determination in the way she looked at him. “Thanks for doing this with me, Gene.”
She put a hand on his arm, and the touch sent warmth throughout his system, just like the sun did to the morning air outside.
Was it weird he missed their earlier connection before he’d ruined it? How she’d trusted him to take care of her. How easy it’d been for her to relax in his arms. He was used to interrupted relationships—if he could call his previous dalliances relationships—and he would just move on. But this time, Gene couldn’t seem to walk away.
What is it about you, Amanda?
The door opened and Patrick walked in with a woman in her forties holding a large sketch pad in her arms. Patrick did a quick intro and let Julia take over.
“Hi Amanda.” Julia offered a hand and a smile. “I heard you need to put a face onto paper.”
Amanda shook it, returning the smile. “I heard you’re the person to help me do that.”
“That I am.” Julia sat at the seat Gene vacated. “Let’s get to work, shall we?”
“The bottom lip was slightly fuller than the top,” Amanda told Julia as she watched the artist erase part of the bottom lip of the face she’d been sketching and redid it as per Amanda’s instruction.
It was fascinating how Julia had turned the face only Amanda had seen into something tangible. After some trial and error, Amanda learned to describe what she remembered about the girl in detail. The drawing samples of eyes, noses, jawlines, and lips Julia had brought also helped. That way Julia could at least use them as a base before she tweaked them according to Amanda’s memory.
“Is there any other feature on the face that made it more distinguishable?” Julia asked.
Amanda closed her eyes and thought back. It was a miracle she remembered this much detail about the girl.
“There’s a slight scar on the right side of her right eyebrow. Like a slash at the end.”
Julia made an adjustment. “Like this?”
“Yes! That’s her.”
Air felt trapped in her chest as she stared at the finished face. The eyes, though Julia managed to add a light in them using her shadowing skills, looked too neutral to Amanda. This girl didn’t have the terror in the eyes, but that was her.
Patrick and Gene, who had left them to work privately, returned to the room after Julia called them in. They both looked at the sketch of the girl.
There she is.
Gene turned his gaze and locked eyes with Amanda. “This is her?”
Amanda nodded. “As close as I can remember.”
Though he didn’t say it out loud, somehow she understood the shock on his face. The girl in the sketch was young, with a healthy roundness of youth still on her face. Not what people would think of a runaway. Maybe she wasn’t a runaway. Maybe she was in a different type of trouble. Amanda didn’t want to think what that could be.
Patrick studied the sketch; his face revealed nothing. But when he spoke, his tone was measured and professional.
“We can run the sketch against the database and see if we get a hit.”
“Can we have a copy of this?” Gene asked. “We’re checking shelters and encampments. Maybe somebody will recognize her.”
“Of course,” Patrick said. “I’ll distribute this within the force. Patrols may see her if she’s around town or the surrounding area.”
“Thank you both,” Amanda said to Patrick and Julia. “I truly appreciate this, especially since many of the residents here didn’t believe me.”
“I apologize if you felt we weren’t listening, Amanda,” Patrick said. “We’ll let you know if we find anything.”
“Thanks, Patrick,” Gene shook his friend’s hand. “Thank you for all the help.”
He did the same with Julia, then Patrick escorted them out.
Amanda was surprised it was barely ten. She’d been so focused on Julia sketching; she’d thought more time had passed.
“That was kinda surreal,” Gene said once they were sitting in his car. “Seeing the sketch makes the girl you’ve been telling us…”
“Real?” Amanda finished for him.
He glanced at her with a sober expression. “For lack of a better word, yes.”
“I’m gonna send the picture to Jo and Liam. Ask them to circulate it, to see if anyone recognizes her.”
“I’ll send it to my mom, too. She’s been invested in this, pumping me for updates every night. She’s asking around the middle schools. Who knows, right?”
Amanda turned to him. “Your mother?”
“Yes, she’s your staunch supporter. Told me I was an idiot for making you angry. Said I must’ve screwed up big time since I’d be the only person who had gotten that sweet Amanda Garner to lose her temper.”
Gene gave her a small smile.
Amanda laughed. “She didn’t say that.”
“She did. Obviously, she’d never spent enough quality time with you to see how stubborn and hot-tempered you can be. I still remember how red Officer Penn’s face got when you threatened to file a complaint with his sergeant when he wouldn’t take you seriously.”
“Well, he would’ve deserved that, too,” Amanda commented under her breath.
“And Mom also doesn’t know underneath all this sweet outer shell of yours there’s a hot-blooded sultry woman who keeps me up at night,” he added. Amanda’s eyes sharpened at his remarks, but Gene wasn’t finished. “But she got this right about you. She knows you won’t stop until you find this girl.”
“She’s right,” Amanda agreed.
“I realized that, too. She’s become a mission to you because you can’t ever stand by and watch when someone needs help. And you think she needs help. Most people would scratch the girl off and moved on. Let someone else worry about her,” he continued. “But not you.”
Amanda sighed, sat back, and looked straight through the windshield.
“To tell you the truth, I started doubting whether I really saw her myself. But working with Julia this morning, everything became clear again.” She turned her head to him. “Could my brain have created that girl, Gene?”
She showed her phone screen where the photo of the sketch was displayed.
“Could it? Yes,” Gene said. “But did it? I don’t know.”
He started the car. “Let’s find out, okay? Ready for that hike?”
Amanda nodded. “Yes, let’s do it.”
A bark from the backseat made them both grin at Loki, who had been patiently waiting for them in the car with the windows cracked and the cool air filtering in.
“You’re ready for some exercise, buddy?” Gene asked the dog, then said to Amanda, “He was completely zonked out when I checked on him earlier.”
“He loves his sleep, but he loves to hike, too,” Amanda said. “If nothing pans out from this, at least we get to enjoy a beautiful day in nature.”