Chapter 14

Mercy knocked twice, then waited for a reassuring groan from inside Cindy’s apartment—or even an angry rebuke—for any sign her usually perky protégé was nursing a hangover, and therefore in possession of an excuse for not answering her phone earlier when Mercy had called.

What she did not expect was for Cindy’s normally dead-bolted door to creak open in response to her knuckle-rapping. Cindy wasn’t in there. Mercy called out her name in a tone familiar to anyone who’s ever been startled by a prankster jumping from behind a door and yelling boo!

But she knew she was gone.

Not just one-night-stand-gone; the kind of gone where you wish you would have told someone you loved them the last time you parted.

And someone had taken her. Why else would the door be unlocked? This was Ocean Beach, after all. People locked their doors behind them to retrieve the morning paper.

Instinctively Mercy went for her cell phone, thought better of it, and placed her finger over the trigger of her keychain pepper spray instead. Whoever nabbed Cindy could still be in here. Mercy crept over to the bathroom and flipped on the light, allayed her morbid dread that Cindy would be limp beneath cold gray water in the bathtub, and saw there was no one hiding behind the shower curtain. She was alone in the apartment.

Now she went for the cell phone. Dialed the ‘9’ and the ‘1’ and then hesitated over the final digit.

This is ridiculous. What would she tell the 911 operator? They would confirm that she was in no immediate danger and then transfer call to a police dispatcher, who would then tell her to wait twenty-four hours, and only then come down to the station to file a missing persons report if Cindy hadn’t turned up. Mercy had been through the process before in the aid of parents of teens she’d counseled.

Now, if Cindy was still a minor, and Mercy her legal guardian, she’d have more options. Press coverage of the Jon-Benet Ramsey murder and the Natalie Holloway disappearance, though sensationalized, had forced legislators to pass laws requiring timely and robust attention be given by the police to cases involving missing children.

Which gave Mercy an intriguing idea…one of questionable ethical merit—and one which might burn a few bridges with the juvenile unit at San Diego PD—but this was Cindy after all, and what wouldn’t she risk for Cindy?

First she felt the need to do some due diligence on her part. If police resources were to be diverted to a cause they technically shouldn’t, the least Mercy could do was find a little physical evidence to back up what her gut already knew to be the case. And common sense dictated she first eliminate the most obvious suspect in Cindy’s abduction: Golden Boy.

Cindy’s message had made it sound like he’d dropped her off and left, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have come back for her later on. Mercy could call him, of course. His number would probably be on file at the youth center—not that she knew Golden Boy’s name (he was a recent addition to the regulars at the center), but someone would.

But first I need some evidence, she thought. Something material to make what happened more than just a plausible scenario playing out in her own head. The door was still ajar so she closed it now. Locked it too, deadbolt and chain. She needed uninterrupted privacy. Finding anything out of place in a room where everything was out of place would take some time.

She started with the refrigerator. If they’d gone out to eat, maybe Cindy, not known for her appetite, might have boxed up what she couldn’t finish to bring home. Then Mercy could go to the restaurant whose name was embossed on the box lid and interview anyone who might have seen her there. The police would do the same thing, Mercy knew, but she was already here and they weren’t.

Nothing but a week old box of Little Caesar’s pizza greeted from inside the fridge, aside from the usual sparse assortment of single woman groceries.

Mercy turned her attention to the bed. It was made, but the indentation at the foot of it revealed that someone had sat on it like a chair. Nothing strange about that—there wasn’t much place else to sit. Mercy ran her hands over the quilted surface of the comforter where Cindy had probably sat to put her shoes. She hoped for warmth, an indication the bed had been disturbed recently. There was none. Mercy bent over to smell the bed, but the odor was indistinguishable from the fabric softener Cindy must’ve used. Perfume might cling to the fabric for a time, but there wasn’t a whiff of it.

Next the pile of laundry in the corner drew her attention. There was something familiar about it. Not the ubiquitous presence of the pile itself, there every time Mercy had visited, but rather, the items of clothing on top of the pile. In particular the spaghetti string black blouse and the gray distressed denim skirt.

Cindy had left High Hopes wearing them, and earlier, Mercy’d seen much more than she’d cared to of what Cindy had been wearing underneath: black silk panties and a matching strapless bra the two had picked out together at Victoria’s Secret in the mall. The possibility existed that Cindy had come home and changed outfits but had kept wearing the panties and bra, but only if you were dealing with some other girl named Cindy. This Cindy took the time to match an outfit with her undies, which made sense when you considered how revealing many of her outfits were. Cindy had even chastised her on occasion for not spending a little extra on their shopping excursions to likewise compliment her wardrobe with coordinated underwear. So Cindy must’ve left her apartment in nothing but her bra and panties. If that didn’t scream foul play, Mercy didn’t know what did.

Though it was little consolation, Mercy knew the cops would have never picked up on the missing bra and panties, and this knowledge at least, made what she was about to do seem more forgivable.

The picture of Cindy was three years old. She was sixteen then, clean for the first time in four years, and most importantly, photographed with an expression on her face cuter than a cocker spaniel puppy licking a baby seal. The harsh lighting didn’t hurt either, washing out her Latina skin so that it shone completely white.

“She’s beautiful,” the detective said. His phlegmy baritone sounded sincere. Mercy could see the small frame on the far side of his desk which held a picture the detective’s teenage daughter—also pretty—but not in the exotic way of Cindy’s beauty.

“Yes. She is.” she said.

“Tell you what we’re going to do…Eileen Sepe over at Fox 6 owes me a favor. You mind if I giver her this picture?”

Mercy started to cry. “Thank-you, detective. Thank you.”

“We’ll find your daughter.”

Cindy looked a little older now than she did in the picture, but Mercy hoped not so much older that people wouldn’t recognize her.

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