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She liked to test my worth, and I liked to prove it. So, no, it wasn’t surprising or worrying that she didn’t respond. She’d probably wait until lunch, I figured.
I didn’t actually know when she took her lunch, but by 2 pm, I figured she had to have eaten by then. I didn’t like that I didn’t get a response, but I made myself calm down.
I didn’t ignore the feeling in my gut, but I didn’t let it control me either.
Either she was leaving me to wait a little too long, which would earn her exactly the punishment she deserved, or she had gotten caught up in her work and forgotten to text.
After talking with my father, I texted her again, my mind already devising backup measures to keep her safe. I didn't want to tell her she was in danger because someone might be watching her text messages,but I was curious if she knew any self-defense.
So I sent her a simple, Do you know how to shoot?
The text failed to go through, and my stomach jolted.
I sent it again, and it failed again. I checked my signal, the problem wasn’t on my end. I doubted she’d blocked me. Had she put her phone on do-not-disturb for a meeting?
I chewed on my lip for twenty minutes before trying again. Once again, the text came back in red. It didn’t go through.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck?—
I called her and got sent straight to voicemail. Was her phone off? I listened to her voice message audio, her voice telling me to ‘please leave a message, and I will return your call within 24 hours or on the next business day.’
“Lauren,” I said, trying to hide the worst of my anxieties. “I’m trying to reach you. Please call back as soon as you can. It’s an emergency.”
Was it an emergency? God, I fucking hoped not. But if I said it was, then she’d respond quickly, so if her phone had just run out of juice or something, she’d call within an hour of getting home and plugging it in.
My paranoia was mounting, but I could wait that long. Just that long, then I could let loose. She’d hate it if I got overprotective already; I could wait until I’d exhausted reasonable suspicion before jumping into action.
She got off work at five. I gave her fifteen minutes in case she got wrapped up in something.
Then it took her twenty-five minutes to get from her office to her building if she got right on the subway and didn’t have to wait for her connection, so I decided on thirty to give her a little extra wiggle room.
That meant she would be home about 5:45, and then she’d plug in her phone, and it would take about ten minutes to power back on.
She might not listen to the voicemail right away, she might eat or get in the shower while the phone was charging up, but I figured I could send her another text at 6:30. The noise might make her look, and even if she wasn’t close enough to hear it, the text would show that it went through so I could stop worrying so much.
Then, assuming she didn’t look when I sent that text, I was sure she’d look at it by seven.
By seven o’clock, I’d hear back from her.
I struggled to focus on my work for the rest of the day, thoughts of her always taking over my mind. I kept thinking about how every second mattered in a missing person’s case, and I felt myself fraying at the edges.
Should I just call? But Lauren was an independent woman, the kind who didn’t like men trying to keep tabs on them, and it wasn’t like she knew the kind of situation she was in.
I didn’t want her to think I would overreact any time I didn’t hear back from her.
But what if she was hurt, and I was just sitting here, twiddling my thumbs while she was fighting for her life?
I caved at 6:15, unable to take it anymore, and dialed her number. It didn’t even ring once.
Panic gripped me. Her phone was still off, and that meant she’d either turned it off on purpose or had never made it home to plug it in.
I gave in to the paranoia, sure now that it was more than a figment of my imagination. Something was wrong, and I needed to know what.
I grabbed my keys, shot Dad a message, and clambered into the nearest car. It was almost a half-hour drive to Lauren’s home, not that I had any intention of following the traffic laws, and as I buckled my seatbelt, I remembered that Lauren had given me her friend Jennifer’s number.
Jennifer was the tech wizard who provided us with that footage for the trial, and Lauren had given me her contact information in case I needed her again. I had the phone ringing almost instantly.
Jennifer was abroad right now and would be for another few days at least, but she was still Lauren’s best friend.
