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SAGE
My nerves were fried. Leaving Michigan two weeks ago had reignited all my fears. Actually, Niko finding me did that. And I decided I couldn’t try to survive by hiding anymore. It was time to do what I should have done months ago.
I was going to do what I promised and get justice for Lacey. For my mom. For all the other women.
After doing research, Chicago was where I ended up. My hands shook as I pulled out the paper I had ripped from the book that Alex had forced me to read. It only had four names on it, but it gave me more information to go on. My eyes went back to names scrawled on the page as their stories and my notes ran through my head.
Charlotte Miller: August will be two years missing. Was forty years old when she went missing. Went on a hike during vacation and disappeared. No foul play suspected. No living close family. No leads.
Anna Dailey: Disappeared in June. Missing for three years. Mother. Age thirty when she went missing. Never picked her son up from school. Last place seen was leaving the grocery store in her car. Foul play possible. No leads. Husband seems to have given up looking for her.
Valerie Taft: Disappeared in February. Missing for five years. Thirty-three years old. Was traveling home from a work conference in another state and never returned home. Car was never found. Foul play possible. Had longtime girlfriend who is still searching. Missing pictures are still circulating online.
Michelle Pemble: Disappeared in July. Missing for seven years. Twenty-three years old. Was an addict and prostitute. Homeless. Estranged from family for years. Missing date is best guess. No clues for disappearance. Don’t know where she was last seen. Presumed dead.
After searching them all online, I realized these were all the women who were killed before Lacey was. Sadness clung to me as I reread the notes because I knew exactly what had happened to them. Researching their stories proved how far a reach the society had. All from different states, all through the Midwest. Missing at different times of the year. The only thing they all had in common was red hair.
I used to think how it was impossible that this went unnoticed. But now it made sense. Four women in seven years. People went missing every day and were never found. I didn’t know whether the book was for the women who were killed in that house up north, or if it was every woman who was sacrificed for the society. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to find out how many other houses they had. It was terrifying.
What I’d been obsessing over was how the women disappeared at different times of the year. My mom went missing in June. The barred windows ran through my mind. It was to keep the women inside until the full moon in August. It was hard not to think of the pure fear that my mom and the other women must have felt while being trapped there.
I had stalked their lives as much as I could through social media. The plan was to go talk to the girlfriend of Valerie Taft and the husband of Anna Dailey. Anna Dailey’s husband was a bit of a mystery. Robert Dailey appeared to not use social media. I only knew what he looked like from the news articles I had found about his wife. And I knew that he was from Wisconsin. It was possible he had moved, but there was no way to know. There was no one I could talk to about the other two women. All I found were deceased family members.
Which left Kiara Jones. She was the girlfriend of Valerie Taft when Valerie went missing.
Kiara kept her social media locked down. All I was able to find out was that she lived in Chicago, was African American, and she had a kind smile. Her picture was the only thing that wasn’t private. I knew she went to a book club every week because another lady would tag her in a public post.
That’s why I was sitting in a coffee shop in Chicago. It was where Kiara went for book club. She was here last week, and she was here right now. I glanced across the café at her as I sipped my iced coffee. The bustling café was bright and airy. The tables and chairs were a rich white, and the floor was a beautiful copper color. I loved it and had spent a lot of time here since coming here.
My stomach was in knots, trying to find the courage to talk to Kiara. I had thought of how to introduce myself a hundred times, but the thought of talking to somebody and trusting them petrified me. Would it even help? I didn’t know what I would say. Or how it could help expose the society. But at the same time, I felt a connection to her, even though she had no idea who I was. We’d both lost loved ones because of the same people. I didn’t want to be alone with my sadness anymore.
Last week, I followed Kiara back to her house. She lived in a nice neighborhood, seemingly by herself. Her schedule was usually the same. Go to work, come home around dinnertime, and sometimes go for a jog if the weather cooperated. And of course, book club every week.
I absentmindedly flipped through a magazine, deciding I’d wait to talk to her. I wasn’t ready yet. A shadow fell across my table before someone sat down next to me. My head shot up in alarm; I was ready to run. It was Kiara Jones. Her black shoulder-length hair was pulled back into a loose bun, and her brown eyes seemed to be sizing me up. The kind smile that I remembered from her picture online was replaced with a suspicious frown.
“Who are you?” she asked in a firm, direct voice.
“Uh…what?” I tried to play dumb. After coming all the way here, I didn’t know if I was ready to trust anyone.
“You were here last week. And I saw you in your car a block from my house when I was running. Now, here you are again. So, tell me. Who are you and what do you want?” Her eyes narrowed as she waited for an answer.
“I’m sorry. Nothing. I don’t want anything.” I tried to think fast, but the shock from talking to her was causing my mind to go blank. I stood up, about to leave, but Kiara shook her head.
“You aren’t leaving until you tell me why you’re following me. See this? We can either have this conversation here or at my work.” She flashed a badge.
Blood drained from my face. “You’re a cop?”
“A detective,” she replied curtly.
“I wasn’t following you—”
“Yes, you were. And I ran your plates. You came all the way from Michigan. Why are you here?”
“Listen, I’m sorry,” I said, close to tears. She’d run my plates. A stab of fear sliced through me. I had tried so hard to stay away from this. To keep hidden.
“Just tell me what you want.” Kiara was not a woman who liked being messed with.
I paused for a long minute while Kiara looked on with impatience. I had to say something. She wasn’t about to let me walk away, and I couldn’t chance going to a police station.
“My mom disappeared over twenty years ago, and her body was found last year. No new evidence, no suspects, no leads. And I believe it’s connected to the case of your missing girlfriend. Valerie Taft.”
Her hard look transformed to absolute shock as I waited for her to respond. I didn’t tell her the whole truth and wasn’t sure if I was going to. Kiara being a detective changed things. What if she told someone on the force who was part of the society? It was a chance I wasn’t willing to take.
