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I eye the man, aging him to be late thirties to early forties.
“How old is your niece, Mr. Stewart?”
“Twenty-four.”
“And her name?”
“Rebecca.”
I jot the information on the pad.
“What makes you think Rebecca was abducted? Is it possible she just hasn’t had the time to contact you?”
His eyes water as he twists his hands together in his lap. “No, Detective. She lives with me. I’ve seen her every day since she was eleven years old. Something’s wrong. Something’s happened to her.” Silent tears slip down his cheeks.
“It’s okay, Mr. Stewart. We’ll see what we can find out. Do you have a picture of her with you?”
He shakily grabs a picture from his shirt pocket and slides it across the desk. I pick it up and examine it. Rebecca looks younger than what I expected the twenty-four-year-old to be. She has medium-brown, shoulder-length hair with blue eyes. Although she’s smiling, it looks stilted as if she wasn’t too happy when the picture was taken but was trying to play if off as if she was.
I hand the picture over to Tavers then regard Mr. Stewart. “Is that her most recent picture?”
His eyes drop to his lap, but I still see his lip quiver when he answers.
“No,” he says quietly. “That one is several years old. She looks… different now. She didn’t like having her picture taken.” His voice cracks at the end.
“Can we keep this one?”
He nods silently.
I take the picture back from Tavers, rip the paper from the pad, and paperclip the picture to it to be put into a new file.
Thirty minutes later, we have Mr. Stewart’s full statement, including what her daily life looks like. After a promise from us that we’ll call with any questions or updates, an officer escorts him out.
Cases like these are the hardest, but when we solve and close them, it can be the most rewarding. The answers may not always be what we want them to be, but at least they’re answered and not left open in the air.
I chuck my half-full coffee in the trash with a good riddance and grab the pad of paper. Tavers and I load up to check out a couple of places Mr. Stewart believes Rebecca may have visited. According to him, she was bullied in school quite a bit and never made friends because of it. She had no job, no boyfriend, and was a hermit, choosing to rarely leave the house. It left us with hardly anything to go on. The places we visited and the people we spoke to came up a dead end.
Oftentimes, situations like these remind me of Aislin’s case. She’s never far from my mind, and I can’t help but to compare them. Since my phone call with Tripp, I’ve gotten no more leads. The more I come up empty, the more the rage takes hold of me. Especially during times I’m interrogating suspects in sexual assault cases. Captain’s warned me several times that if I don’t cool my temper, he’ll put me on a temporary leave of absence and not let me come back until the station’s resident psychiatrist clears me. I want to tell him to fuck off and send me home, but people depend on me. I refuse to let down anyone else.
“How’s the house coming along?” Tavers asks as we walk back to the car after another empty lead. This was the last place on the list.
“Got the floors done and the walls painted. I’m tearing out the cabinets in the kitchen this weekend.”
“You know if you need help, you can call me.”
He’s offered several times to help, but fixing Aislin’s house—and to me, it will always be her house—is something I need to do on my own. It helps me when the anger takes over, and the ache in my chest overwhelms me. It calms me to be inside the same house where she’s been. I haven’t been in her presence in over fifteen years, but I still feel her there. It’s where I feel the closest to her.
When I bought the house, it came with most of the things her mom had left behind. Besides getting rid of the outdated furniture, I still haven’t gone through the more personal items. I packed them up and stuffed them in the attic to deal with later when my mind is in a better place. Aislin’s room hasn’t been touched. I haven’t even gone in the room. I know it’s the same as it was before she left from the quick peek I took inside when the realtor showed me the house. I don’t know if it was because her mom was too lazy to get rid of her things or if a small part of her did love her daughter and couldn’t bear to part with her things. If I’m honest with myself, I’m scared as fuck to step foot into the room. Seeing her old things, the way it was the last time I was in there, the small things she’s collected over the years of our friendship. I’m scared shitless it’ll send me over the edge. Maybe once I find her killer, I’ll be able to handle it, but until then, her room stays closed up tighter than Fort Knox.
“I’ll let you know,” I tell Tavers, but we both know I won’t call him. No one besides me has been in the house since I bought it.
“Know what you want to do with it yet?”
“Not yet.”
He checks his mirrors before pulling away from the curb and into traffic.
“Let me know if you want to sell it. Mindy has a realtor friend.”
