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"Eva Rae," she said in her no-nonsense voice, "we've got a strange case of a missing thirty-six-year-old woman. Something about her disappearance doesn't add up, and I need your help to investigate. We can't figure out what is up and what is down. She's been gone for forty-eight hours now, and still no sign of her. I'm worried. She has three children. It has turned into a custody battle now since the sister doesn't want the dad around the children, claiming he has hurt the wife, and he might hurt them too."
My heart skipped a beat. When children were involved, you didn’t need to ask me twice.
"What can I do?" I asked breathlessly.
"Come down to the station as soon as you can," she said. "We need to get to the bottom of this. Bring Matt. We need the both of you."
I hung up the phone and told Matt about the urgent phone call. He nodded gravely and, without a word, stopped what he was doing, putting down the brush. I quickly put on my shoes and picked up my purse, and together, we drove to the police station.
As soon as we arrived, we were ushered into a small conference room where Chief Annie and two other detectives were waiting for us. Annie was a tall, intimidating woman with a no-nonsense attitude. She motioned for us to sit down and began briefing us on the details of the case.
"Thanks for coming, Eva Rae, Matt," Chief Annie said as she stood up to greet us. "Our missing person's case is a bit of a puzzle. The missing woman's name is Rachel Baker.”
I looked up at the chief with a small gasp. I knew this woman, or rather, I knew her son, Thomas, as he was in the same grade at Roosevelt Elementary as my son, Alex. Alex loved Thomas, and they played so well together that I often had the boy over for playdates. I often invited Rachel in for a glass of wine or coffee when she came to pick him up, and I enjoyed her company. This news made me feel sick to my stomach.
“She's a mother of three,” Chief Annie continued, “and she was last seen dropping off her twins at FUMC daycare on A1A with her husband at eight o'clock in the morning. She texted her sister at eight-fifteen—some silly cat picture and her sister texted her back. This was right before she left the daycare area. She was supposed to go to work that day as a nurse practitioner at Cape Canaveral Hospital, but she never showed up. A patrol found her car abandoned on the side of the road by the Air Force station at one-thirteen p.m., and that's the last sign of life.”
“At the Air Force station? But that’s in the opposite direction of the hospital,” I said. “You said she was going to work, right? From the daycare center?”
Chief Annie nodded. “Exactly. That’s one of the things that puzzles us. She was supposed to drop off her husband at Sunshine Real Estate downtown and then head to work. He showed up at work right after nine o’clock, which gives us forty-five minutes to an hour that he’s unaccounted for—from when he helps drop off the children until he makes it in for work. We've searched the entire area where the car was found, but there’s no sign of her. Her car was parked where we believe she left it, abandoned on the side of the road. Her phone and purse were left in the car. It's like she vanished into thin air."
Matt and I exchanged glances, knowing what we had to do. We asked the chief for more details about the woman and her family, and she gave us a file with all the information they had gathered so far. We looked through the file, trying to piece together any clues that could lead us to Rachel Baker. Her family background was pretty normal, with no signs of criminal activity or history. It seemed like she was leading an everyday life—if there ever was such a thing—with a loving husband and three young children.
"Where do we begin?” Matt said, running a hand through his hair. He still had some paint in it and on his hands, too. I realized I had splinters in my fingers from laying the wooden floors, and my hands were very dirty.
"We need to talk to the husband," I said, looking into his eyes. "But first, I think we need to shower."
Chapter2
THEN:
They could be punished for everything and nothing. They never knew when it would hit. The girls, living alone with their mother in the townhome, always tried their best to please her, but even their best simply wasn’t enough.
Emma first realized it when she was six years old, and her mother entered her room to check if she had cleaned it.
Emma sat on the edge of her bed, clutching her teddy bear tightly. Her mother's eyes scanned the room, taking in every detail with a critical eye. She held her breath, sensing that something wasn't right. Her mother scrutinized everything in the room, from the toys on the floor to the neatly made bed.
"Your bed isn't made properly," her mother said, her voice cold and sharp.
Emma's heart sank. She had spent so much time trying to make her bed look perfect, but apparently, it wasn't good enough.
"I'm sorry, Mommy," Emma whispered, tears welling in her eyes.
Her mother's expression softened slightly, but only for a moment.
"You need to learn to do things right, Emma," she said. "Otherwise, you'll end up a failure. No children of mine will be raised to be failures."
The words stung like a physical blow, and Emma buried her face in her teddy bear, trying to block out the sound of her mother's voice.
When her mother's eyes landed on the teddy bear in her hands, she pulled it from her and examined it closely.
"What is this doing here?" she asked, her voice sharp with anger. “Why isn’t it on the shelf?”
Emma's heart raced as she struggled to find an answer. "I-I don't know," she stammered, her eyes downcast.
"You don't know?" her mother repeated, her tone incredulous.That's when it happened. That was the first time Emma remembered seeing those dark eyes in her mother's face. It was like her entire face changed, and a dark curtain was pulled in front of her eyes until they turned black.
Her mother threw the teddy bear on the floor in a fit of rage, and Emma huddled in the corner. She then opened each and every drawer and emptied out her clothes, grabbed the boxes with toys and poured them all onto the floor, then left it all scattered in her room. Then she grabbed Emma by the arm and yanked her up from the bed.
