“Who the hell are you?” he asks again.
I reach into my back pocket and pull out that shiny badge I adore so much. “Detective Gabe Hoffman.” He’s visibly knocked down a notch or two. I smile. God, do I love my job.
He plays dumb. “Is there a problem with Mia?”
“Yeah, I guess you can say that.”
He waits for me to continue. I don’t, just to piss him off. “What did she do?”
“When’s the last time you saw Mia?”
“It’s been a while. A week or so.”
“And the last time you spoke to her?”
“I don’t know. Last week. Tuesday night, I think.”
“You think?” I ask. He confirms on his calendar. Yes, it was Tuesday night. “But you didn’t see her Tuesday?”
“No. I was supposed to, but I had to cancel. You know, work.”
“Sure.”
“What happened to Mia?”
“So you haven’t spoken to her since Tuesday?”
“No.”
“Is that normal? To go nearly a week without speaking?”
“I called her,” he confesses. “Wednesday, maybe Thursday. She never called back. I just assumed she was pissed off.”
“And why would that be? Did she have a reason to be pissed off?”
He shrugs. He reaches for a bottle of water on the desk and takes a sip. “I canceled our date Tuesday night. I had to work. She was kind of short with me on the phone, you know? I could tell she was mad. But I had to work. So I thought she was holding a grudge and not calling back...I don’t know.”
“What were your plans?”
“Tuesday night?”
“Yeah.”
“Meet in a bar in Uptown. Mia was already there when I called. I was late. I told her I wasn’t going to make it.”
“And she was mad?”
“She wasn’t happy.”
“So you were here, working, Tuesday night?”
“Until like 3:00 a.m.”
“Anyone who can vouch for that?”
“Um, yeah. My boss. We were putting some designs together for a client meeting on Thursday. I met with her on and off half the night. Am I in trouble?”
“We’ll get to that,” I answer flatly, transcribing the conversation in my own shorthand that no one but me can decipher. “Where’d you go after you left work?”
“Home, man. It was the middle of the night.”
“You have an alibi?”
“An alibi?” He’s getting uncomfortable, squirming in his chair. “I don’t know. I took a cab home.”
“Get a receipt?”
“No.”
“You have a doorman in your building? Someone who can tell us you made it home safe?”
“Cameras,” he says, and then asks, “Where the fuck is Mia?”
I had pulled Mia’s phone records after my meeting with Ayanna Jackson. I found calls almost daily to a Jason Becker, who I tracked down to an architectural firm in the Chicago Loop. I paid this guy a visit to see what he knew about the girl’s disappearance, and saw the evident perception on his face when I said her name. “Yeah, I know Mia,” he said, leading me back to his cube. I saw it in the first instant: jealousy. He had himself convinced that I was the other guy.
“She’s missing,” I say, trying to read his response.
“Missing?”
“Yeah. Gone. No one has seen her since Tuesday.”
“And you think I had something to do with it?”
It irritates me that he’s more concerned with his culpability than Mia’s life. “Yeah,” I lie, “I think you might have something to do with it.” Though the truth is that if his alibi is as airtight as he’s making it out to be, I’m back to square one.
“Do I need a lawyer?”
“Do you think you need a lawyer?”
“I told you, I was working. I didn’t see Mia Tuesday night. Ask my boss.”
“I will,” I assure him, though the look that crosses his face begs me not to.
Jason’s co-workers eavesdrop on the interrogation. They walk slower as they pass his cube; they linger outside and pretend to carry on conversations. I don’t mind. He does. It’s driving him nuts. He’s worried about his reputation. I like to watch him squirm in his chair, becoming antsy. “Do you need anything else?” he asks to speed things along. He wants me out of his hair.
“I need to know your plans Tuesday night. Where Mia was when you called. What time it was. Check your phone records. I need to speak to your boss and make sure you were here, and with security to see what time you left. I’ll need the footage from your apartment cameras to verify you got home okay. If you’re comfortable providing me with that, then we’re all set. If you’d rather I get a warrant...”
“Are you threatening me?”
“No,” I lie, “just giving you your options.”
He agrees to provide me with the information I need, including an introduction to his boss, a middle-aged woman in an office ridiculously larger than his, with floor-to-ceiling windows that face out onto the Chicago River, before I leave.
“Jason,” I declare, after having been assured by the boss that he was working his ass off all night, “we’re going to do everything we can to find Mia,” just to see the expression of apathy on his face before I leave.
Colin
Before
It doesn’t take much. I pay off some guy to stay at work a couple hours later than he’d like to. I follow her to the bar and sit where I can watch her without being seen. I wait for the call to come and when she knows she’s been stood up, I move in.
I don’t know much about her. I’ve seen a snapshot. It’s a blurry photo of her stepping off the “L” platform, taken by a car parked a dozen or so feet away. There are about ten people between the photographer and the girl and so her face has been circled with a red pen. On the back of the photograph are the words Mia Dennett and an address. It was handed to me a week or so ago. I’ve never done anything like this before. Larceny, yes. Harassment, yes. Not kidnapping. But I need the money.
I’ve been following her for the last few days. I know where she buys her groceries, where she has her dry cleaning done, where she works. I’ve never spoken to her. I wouldn’t recognize the sound of her voice. I don’t know the color of her eyes or what they look like when she’s scared. But I will.
I carry a beer but I don’t drink it. I can’t risk getting drunk. Not tonight. But I don’t want to draw attention to myself and so I order the beer so I’m not empty-handed. She’s fed up when the call comes in on her cell phone. She steps outside to take the call and when she comes back she’s frustrated. She thinks about leaving, but decides to finish her drink. She finds a pen in her purse and doodles on a bar napkin, listening to some asshole read poetry on stage.
I try not to think about it. I try not to think about the fact that she’s pretty. I remind myself of the