Kate

KATE

11 YEARS BEFORE

May

Bea is in bed when the police finally come. It takes over an hour. With weather conditions as they are, emergencies abound. The police and paramedics have been kept busy lately, rescuing people from flooded roads and homes.

The officers arrive without lights and sirens. They slip nearly invisibly down the darkened street, pulling to the curb and parking in front of Josh and Meredith’s house.

When he called to report Meredith and Delilah missing, Josh was told that an officer was on his way, and so he’d left Bea and me and carried Leo home, to get him to bed before they came.

When will Mommy be home? Leo had asked as they left, chocolate on his fingers and lips, woozy with fatigue.

I open the front door and step out onto the covered porch with a throw blanket wrapped around me, my feet bare. I leave the porch light off, feeling invisible in the darkness, though I stay alert. It’s hard not to be scared after all that’s happened. I have to wonder if some monster is stalking women in the neighborhood, or if what’s happened to Shelby and Meredith are two isolated incidents. I back myself into the corner on the porch, where nothing can come at me from behind. The wooden porch is damp on my feet. It’s still raining, but the rain is slower now, the night more tame. It’s quieted down to a peaceful drizzle. I stand in the darkness, staring through the trees that disrupt my view of the street. I watch as two officers make their way to Josh and Meredith’s house, where Josh pulls the front door open before they have a chance to knock and wake up Leo.

I hear their voices, one male and one female. They introduce themselves. Josh says hello and tells them his name. He invites them inside. The officers step in and he closes the door. The blinds are open in their house, so I can see Josh and the officers, but I can’t hear what they say. There’s a chill to the night air, and soon I’m cold. I wait outside awhile, until five minutes turns into fifteen, and I step back in, watching through a window until, forty minutes later, they finally leave.

I wait in vain for Josh to call or text with news. I think about calling him, but don’t want to overstep. I try and work on my records, but my mind is too agitated to focus. All I can think about is Meredith and Delilah. It’s after eleven o’clock and they still aren’t home. After this many hours missing and this late at night, it’s hard to believe something innocuous has happened. My mind gets flooded with images of Meredith’s car submerged in the river or Meredith and Delilah taken along with Shelby. The thought terrifies me, and I force back tears, telling myself no, that whatever happened to Shelby is far different than what’s happened to Meredith and Delilah.

It was ten days ago that Bea and I first woke to the news. We hadn’t known Shelby, but it was all over Facebook and then, later in the day, in the paper and on the news: Local Woman Missing.

Bea and I watched as police cruisers surveilled the neighborhood, as police dogs went in and out of the Tebow home to pick up and track Shelby’s scent. The police came around asking questions. Until I saw her face on the news, I didn’t know what Shelby looked like; I’d never heard of her before. Ours is a large suburb, with a population that tops a hundred thousand. You can’t know everyone.

According to her husband, Shelby had gone for a run that night. From what we read, it was after ten when she left. It was dark outside. Bea and I both thought the same thing: that was too late for a woman to be out running alone. But, according to her husband, they had a new baby at home. Shelby stayed home with the baby. Her husband worked long hours. When he came home that night, they had a late dinner together and then she hung around until the next time the baby needed to be fed. This wasn’t the first time she’d gone running late at night, because some days it was the only time she had to herself.

Needless to say, she never came home.

Shelby’s husband, Jason Tebow, was the first to come under suspicion. The first and the only, as far as we know. He’s still a suspect. Secrets were quickly smoked out by reporters and the police, and became common knowledge. Friends of Jason’s reported that Shelby had a flair for the melodramatic. They said she was a liar and a con. There was plenty of gossip all over the social media sites. The police department posted the details of Shelby’s disappearance to their Facebook page. The comments were ruthless. That girl wouldn’t know the truth if it hit her in the face,someone said.

Shelby’s side fired back. They accused Jason’s friends of slander. Shelby, they said, was none of these things. She’s kind, loving. She always put others first. They said instead that Jason had been unfaithful since the baby was born, and probably before. Fatherhood was apparently not his cup of tea, and neither was monogamy.

It was easy to assume he’d done something to her.

But now, in light of Meredith and Delilah’s disappearance, a thought sows fear into my mind. What if it wasn’t domestic violence? What if there’s a serial kidnapper on the loose?