“… in a moment you’ll see the last images of the missing teenager as she left her job at the Lakewood Towne Center…”
The video, all grainy and practically useless, played for a second, and then another voice came on.
“If anyone has seen my daughter, please let us know.” It was Diana Rose, her voice cracking under the emotions that came with the discovery that Emma wasn’t where she was supposed to be.
The next shot showed Emma’s mother standing on her front porch.
“She’s all that we have.”
The cameraman panned to the mother’s hands. Inside one of her balled-up fists was a crumpled tissue.
“If anyone knows anything… I’m begging you… please, please help us find our daughter.”
The reporter got back on camera and somberly reminded viewers that the case was a top concern “not only of this family, but of the Tacoma Police Department, which has been investigating a series of missing girls’ cases.”
People connected to the case were watching that channel that night-Paul, Grace, the Roses. All were hopeful that someone would come forward with information. Emma didn’t just vanish like the fog off Commencement Bay. Someone out there had to know something about her whereabouts.
Someone watching did. A phone number was flashed on the screen.
Sienna Winters shut her phone and waited for a call back. She curled up on the sofa of her South Tacoma apartment. The neighbors were loud, as always, and it was hard to think, hard to figure out if she’d done the right thing. She was sick to her stomach about making the call, but there was nothing she could do. She felt that the Roses should have all the information they needed. They were nice people. An hour later, there was a knock at the door.
It was a pair of detectives from the Tacoma Police Department.
Grace spoke first. “Are you Sienna?”
“Yeah. You the police?”
“Yes, we are. I’m Detective Alexander and this is my partner, Detective Bateman. We got your message.”
“I thought you’d just call me. Kind of weird that you’re here.”
“Sorry, but your message was so…” Grace stumbled, uncharacteristically, for the words. “So disturbing.”
Sienna, a cranberry-headed girl with pale, pale skin, green eyes and twitchy nerves, didn’t blink. “Yeah. I guess it was.”
“Can we come in?”
“Yeah. Just don’t let the dog out,” she said, indicating a terrier mix behind her legs.
“No worries.”
Sienna and the dog led the detectives to the living room portion of the studio apartment. It was a dark space with a wall draped in icicle Christmas lights, a TV on mute, and a pile of dishes on the floor next to the sofa.
“Obviously, I wasn’t expecting company,” Sienna said.
“That’s all right.”
“Am I supposed to offer you something? All I got is sweet tea.”
“No, we’re not here to visit. We’re here about your message.”
“Yeah that. I kind of regretted it after I left it,” she said, settling into a molded plastic chair across from the detectives, who were now seated with the dog on the sofa.
“Sienna,” Paul said, “let’s go over what you told us.”
“You mean about her telling me she was going to run away? Hated her mom. I know that sounds ugly, but I just had to say it. I saw Diana crying on TV and it made me puke. Those two hated each other.”
“Really. And you know this how?”
“We used to work together. Before she went big-time and got the Starbucks job.”
“Where was that?”
“Food court. I was, still am, at Hot Dog on Stick. She was over at Mandarin Wok,” she said. Grace’s eyes landed on the ridiculous hat that was placed on top of the rest of Sienna’s work clothes.
“Don’t say how dumb the uniform is. I already know.”
Grace smiled. “No, I won’t. So you were friends with her?”
“Not BFFs, but pretty tight.”
“And she told her that she hated her mom?”
“Yeah. It was no big deal. I hate my mom, too.”
Grace nodded. She pretended to understand, when of course, she didn’t. She always loved her mother.
“Anyway, she started telling me about her mom being sick and demanding. How she didn’t get go to college because her mom was such a bitch about everything. A total control freak. One time she told me that she thought her mom was crazy enough to have faked her cancer just to keep her around.”
“That’s a pretty ugly thing to say,” Paul said.
Sienna shrugged it off. “So, ever heard of the ugly truth?”
“You said on the message that you thought she was a runaway. Why do you think that?”
“Because she told me she was going to.”
Grace narrowed her brows. “Told you, specifically?”
Sienna nodded. “Yeah. She said she was going to just walk away and disappear. She was going to start over somewhere. New name. New everything. She said she’d never be found because if she ever did her bitch of a mom would be right there telling her what to do.”
The dog, whose name they learned was Toby, started to scratch and Grace was sure that she was going to end up with fleabites on her ankles. Bugs of all kinds loved her blood. She was a veritable smorgasbord for mosquitos, too.
“When did she say this to you?” Paul asked
“When didn’t she? She was always complaining about her mother. She thought her stepdad was nice, but stupid to be stuck with that witch of a wife.”
“Did she share this with anyone else?”
“How would I know? I told you that we weren’t that close.”
Grace made a few notes, asked a few follow-up questions, and the interview was over.
When they got out to the car, she stopped before getting inside.
“She’s such a liar,” she said. “If she’s not, then I can’t read people at all. Diana Rose is no bitch mommie dearest. She just isn’t.”
Paul got inside and turned the key.
“Get in, let’s go.”
“Are you listening to me?”
“Yeah. I am. But honestly, you know that no one has a clue about what goes on behind closed doors. Remember Candee?”
Grace slid into the seat. How could she forget?
Candee Getz was a seven-year-old girl who had been held captive by her father and stepmother for four years in a back bedroom of her Browns Point home. Patty Getz simply hated any reminder of the first Mrs. Getz, a woman who had died in a traffic accident and had never even been a rival of Mrs. Getz number two. When she and Don Getz married, she sold everything that was even remotely connected to Geneva Getz. Literally everything. Every. Little. Thing. Geneva’s family would have loved to have had the old silver, the china, the family antiques, but Patty couldn’t be bothered with returning any of the treasures. She wanted it all gone and she wanted it done fast. She ran an advertisement on Craigslist and let complete strangers pick the bones of her husband’s first wife’s memory. All gone but Candee, of course.
And yet, the small blond toddler simply disappeared. As far as the neighbors knew, Candee had gone off to live with relatives in Idaho. The Idaho family had given up on trying to stay connected to their sister’s little girl.
Don Getz had been adamant that it was better for Candee to start over.
“She’s been through enough. She needs to be part of a new family.”
The family, heartbroken beyond words, didn’t know what else to do. Don had always been a decent guy. If
