For Money or Mayhem

{23} Runaway

Two mountain ranges, back to back across a continent with a vast high desert between—a desolate wasteland or a fertile playground? When I awoke on Sunday morning facing a wall, I glanced over my shoulder and on the other side of the bed saw Andi, still asleep with her back toward me. I felt a pang of… regret? No. Guilt. I’d betrayed our friendship. I’d turned my best friend into my lover. My love. And now we each hugged opposite edges of the same bed with a cold chasm between. I could feel a sob welling up in my throat.

Then she turned toward me, her eyes opening a slit and then her smile causing them to crinkle up as she looked fully at me and I rolled toward the center of her bed. We met in the middle with arms wrapping around each other and a kiss that welcomed more than bodies together.

“Hello, lover,” she whispered.

“Good morning, my love,” I answered softly.

“I’m not used to sleeping with someone else in my bed. Cali and I haven’t done it for so long, I’ve forgotten how.”

“Shhh,” I said. “I think it’s something we’ll learn. I felt so alone when I woke up and wasn’t touching you.”

“Oh, darling. Please let us never be alone like that again.”

Romance stories would have us immediately falling together in passionate sex—again—but they never seem to take into account basic needs of the body when it wakes up in the morning. I waited my turn and then used the bathroom after her, seeing the various cleansing products, hair products, and feminine products for the first time with my eyes fully open. I hadn’t seen a sight like that in a long time. When I returned, I was relieved to see that Andi hadn’t dressed and left the room. She sat in bed with a sheet pulled up to her chin, but when she saw me, she let it fall away from her. She took my breath away. The blood drained from the upper half of my body. Half faint, I stumbled back to the bed where she welcomed me into her arms and her body.

As we lay together in the afterglow we whispered softly.

“I could get used to this, you know?” Andi murmured.

“To sex in the morning?”

“That. And to seeing your face when I wake up. To smelling your scent on my pillow. To seeing you come out of the bathroom. To you.”

“I’d like to get used to that. Andi, you know I’ve been married. You know I’ve had a live-in girlfriend. You know I’ve had little trysts. So tell me—why have I never felt this way before? Why have I never woken up in the morning thinking this is where I belong for the rest of my life? Darling, why has it taken me so long to find you?”

“I love you.”

“Oh, and I do love you.”

There was a crash in the kitchen and a cupboard door slammed closed. Andi sat straight up in bed and my heart skipped several beats.

“Oh shit! Cali’s home,” Andi whispered. Before I could respond she pushed a finger against my lips and whispered “Stay!” She jumped out of bed, grabbed the plush robe and fuzzy slippers I saw her in only a few nights ago, and left the room. I didn’t try to listen in, but it was a small house and I couldn’t help but hear the conversation as I got up and quietly pulled on my clothes.

“Honey! I didn’t expect you home so early. Did you have a nice sleepover?” Andi asked. I could imagine her going over to hug her daughter.

“Where did you stash our computer geek? Or did you push him out a window when you heard me?”

“Cali! What do you mean?”

“Mom, it’s okay. I know Dag was here all night.”

“And how would you know that, miss know-it-all?”

“All my life there’s never been a time when you didn’t hear me come in at night and say hi,” she answered. “Not in all my life have you not been up waiting when I came home.”

“Cali, I thought you spent the night at Alex’s house.”

“I couldn’t, Mom. It was really super-nice of Alex. I mean, they really wanted me to come, but I just couldn’t do it. I mean… I’m just not ready. After the strike party we all went to Denny’s and I asked her to drop me off before they went home.”

“But that would have been at…”

“About 1:00.”

“Oh dear.”

“Don’t worry, Mom. You were quiet. I went right to sleep.” I’d finished dressing and was debating whether to try to sneak past or just boldly go out and face the music with Andi. I could tell that I needed a shave.

“Honey… Please, Cali. Understand this. No matter what my relationship is with Dag, you are my daughter and I love you. First. Foremost. And forever.”

“I know, Mom. I was going to make coffee for you, but I dropped the can.”

“We could all go to the Analog if it isn’t too early,” Andi said.

I decided that I could safely walk in now, but I stopped in the doorway as I saw them both on the floor sweeping up spilled coffee grounds.

“Mom, this is real isn’t it? I mean you aren’t just trying to prove something, are you?”

“Prove something? Like what?”

“Like, oh, that you aren’t gay.” I almost choked on my own tongue. I remembered my conversation in the car with Cali a week ago.

“What?!”

“Um, never mind.” Cali saw me in the doorway with a smirk on my face shaking my head. I didn’t expect her to rush on with the next thing she said. “It’s just that you’ve never had a boyfriend before, Mom.”

“Well, it’s a little early to call him a boyfriend.” Cali looked straight at me.

“It’s a little late to deny it.” Andi followed her gaze and jumped half out of her robe when she saw me.

“Agh! Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

“I didn’t sneak,” I laughed.

“I turned around and you were just there.”

“I walked in from the next room.” I avoided saying the word bedroom.

“You didn’t make any noise,” Andi said, now giggling as she came to me and gave me a morning hug in front of her daughter.

“You want me to wear a bell?” I asked. All three of us started laughing. I don’t understand how a hundred-and-ten-pound girl or her almost-as-petite mother can make so much noise walking in bare feet on carpet. I’m sure there were times I could feel the floor shake in my apartment on the third floor next door.

I caught Cali up in our hug as well and suggested we go have coffee at the Analog since there didn’t seem to be any to brew here. Andi went to change and Cali reached up to kiss my cheek.

“Don’t you ever, ever hurt her,” Cali whispered in my ear fiercely. I kissed the top of her head and she slipped out of my arms and followed her mother to the bedroom. She didn’t really whisper when she joined her mother, so I couldn’t help but overhear, even though I couldn’t see what transpired. In fact, I think Cali was speaking loudly enough for me to hear on purpose.”

“Mom. I think I owe you this,” she said.

“What is that for?”

“Well, he paid me back for the tickets you bought.”

“I guess you made a little spending money in the deal then, didn’t you?” They giggled.

The tickets? Andi paid for… Two devious women! I didn’t stand a chance!

I sat in my room with the drapes open—something I rarely did. Sunlight filtered through the needles of the giant sequoia outside my window. We’d had coffee as if we were one big happy family, but when we walked back it was obvious that Andi and I were not going to spend a lazy Sunday in bed reading the comics and making love. Cali was still hurting over the disappearance of Mel and that meant that I still had work to do.

I opened the log-on screen for Mel’s erotic forum account and entered CaliMel in the password box. A welcome message flashed on the screen with the announcement that she had 273 email messages. I read two and decided I didn’t want to read any others. It still wasn’t obvious she was supplying any of these perverts with the things they were requesting, but what they were sending her was sickening.

I downloaded all her email and private messages to a database and then started sorting the results. Most frequent contacts. Most frequent phrase used. Most recent outgoing messages. Any clues that I could pull together. I needed to know first if Mel went willingly or if she was coerced, and then I could worry about where she was.

By two o’clock, I’d pulled the drapes closed. It was the last day of April and it was going out like a lion as the wind picked up and the morning sunshine turned to a threat of rain. But more than that, even living on the third floor I had a sense that I didn’t want anyone able to look over my shoulder through the window. The crap on my computer was leaving me sick to my stomach and my bruised and stitched-up head was throbbing.

I’d found nothing that overtly suggested a rendezvous or enticement away from home, but there were dozens that suggested where they would be if she happened to find herself in the vicinity. There were also her own updates that suggested her locations. They called them ‘check-ins.’ “MayBeLegal just checked in at Jaqui’s Lingerie Boutique.” “MayBeLegal just checked in at The Rack.” I had news for these two or three thousand guys who followed her. MayBeLegal wasn’t. A person is guilty of sexual exploitation of a minor (under age eighteen) if the person aids, invites, employs, authorizes, or causes a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct, knowing that such conduct will be photographed or part of a live performance. It’s a class B felony. Jordan was going to have a field day when I turned this over to him.

I was dealing with a huge volume of information. The simple fact that every name on her site was an alias meant that identifying the voyeurs would be a project for more computing power than I could muster. But I wanted to find out who could possibly be an influence on her. It struck me that I was looking for Mel because she was missing. She wasn’t the only girl ever to go missing in Seattle. Unfortunately, less than half the missing persons in the country are actually reported because they are either not missed or family and friends assume they have left of their own accord. Of those who are reported, there is no coordinated effort to recover them unless foul play is suspected or the person is considered to be ‘vulnerable,’ as in developmentally handicapped or a child. The assumption of vulnerability, however, is that the older the child is, the less vulnerable, so a seventeen-year-old runaway is not as high a priority as a twelve-year-old missing person. Digging through the Internet for records of missing persons over the past five years was a painfully slow process and the results were limited.

It was part of a long shot plan, though. I wanted to cross-check the names of all these girls against the list of Mel’s followers. I had no expectation of getting results, but I was running out of options.

Her last check-in had been at a Gelato shop on Third Avenue Thursday morning. As far as I could tell, that was the last record of her whereabouts. I could find no more recent posts, messages, or updates on any of her accounts.

While my search and compare software ran, I decided I’d have to try the inevitable. I called Mel’s parents. I’d met Olivia and James at a play a couple of years ago. It was one of Cali’s first leading lady roles and the entire faculty lounge had come to support her. We’d done the same kind of field trips to hear Sara and Sandy in concert, to watch Jan and Donna’s son in his college football debut, for an art showing, and at other times. My meeting with Mel’s parents was brief and I felt they were a little standoffish, but even that did not prepare me for my conversation with Olivia.

“I heard about Melissa’s disappearance,” I said, “and I’m calling to offer my assistance if you need anything. Have there been any developments?”

“What kind of developments would there be,” Olivia snapped. “She left. She walked right out on everything we’ve done for her. She’s done irreparable damage.”

“You don’t think there was anything suspicious about her disappearance? She wasn’t having any difficulties at school was she?”

“The school, where we all send our children thinking they will be watched over, told us that her attendance record showed she was there for her first two classes and didn’t show up for third period. They saw no reason to let us know about that until the police interviewed them. The police say she ran away. Well, if that’s all she cares about her family, then so be it.”

“Olivia, this must be very hard on you. Has she made any calls or sent any messages on her cell phone since she left?”

“We disconnected her phone. If she thinks she can just walk out and that we’ll continue to pay her expenses, she has another think coming. We cancelled her credit card and put a stop on her bank account. She’s still a minor and without access to our money she can’t get far. She’ll come back when she finds out she can’t make it on her own, and when she comes home she’ll be grounded until she’s thirty. We never should have given her so much freedom.”

I couldn’t help but think that maybe if they had given her a little freedom, she wouldn’t have felt such a pressing need to rebel or to get free. It certainly sounded like Olivia and James believed she’d run away and they weren’t about to offer any other suggestions. I made one last attempt at expressing my sympathy and then disconnected. I thought about the difference between Olivia and Andi and the differences between their daughters who had become best friends. It just didn’t add up. I could see Mel running away from home, but I couldn’t see her running away from Cali. Runaways often seek shelter with trusted friends. Only in cases where there is no friend or there has been a big fight do they just disappear.

Or, as I suspected when Cali came home in tears, when someone makes them disappear.

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