The Abduction Part 1

"Ma'am? My name's Officer Berkley; I work for USLEN, I'm sorry to bother you at this late hour but--"
    "It's four in the fucking morning!" the woman snapped, rubbing her eyes. "Can't it wait till morning or...or not at all."
    "It concerns your daughter, Maggie. Your daughter's name is Maggie?"
    A sour look crossed the woman's face as if she had tasted vinegar. She straightened her posture through the gap in the front door restricted by a gold coloured chain latch, her hand slipping out from her long, tangled, brown hair and sliding down the side of her body to rest on her slender hip. She closed the door for a moment, followed by the click of what Berkley assumed was either the door being unlatched or bolted shut. The door slowly opened, revealing the woman--who looked to be in her early forties--clutching together a pink bathrobe several inches longer than her stature, her pale, white skin illuminated yellow by the front porch light.
    "If she's gone out with her friends and been caught smoking weed, she can spend the night in jail for all I care," the woman barked, momentarily keeping up a brave front before pressing her hand to her forehead and faintly sobbing. "I swear to the good Lord I can't take it anymore. Always worrying about who she's with and what she's doing--she'll end up pregnant or worse, but not before she kills me with the stress; oh God the stress."
    "Ma'am--"
    "I won't take it, Officer. I shouldn't have to. No child should put their parents through what I have--not when I did my best to raise her right...and I have; I have done so!"
    "Ma'am your daughter's been reported missing," Berkley said, pausing for a moment to allow the message to sink in. He gripped his vest below his walkie talkie just as a cold, tingling shiver ran up his spine. "She hasn't been seen for three weeks by anyone I've talked to. I was hoping you could fill in a few of the gaps to the story I've got so far." His words had an effect on the woman as if he had stabbed her through the heart with a dagger, and her sobs turned to weeps as she cupped her mouth with both hands, not concerned that her bathrobe had floated apart, exposing her white, laced underwear underneath. 
    Berkley kept eye contact.
    "She was last reported to be heading south," Berkley continued, trying to speak in a calm and under-controlled manner, "towards Bernsaide Park with her boyfriend, a said...Craig Jenkins--of West Willows County, just north of Orangeville. His father reported them missing after they failed to return to his property this morning. Now...I've already been there and talked to Mr Jenkins, and he said that he gave them permission to take his truck up to the Park to meet a group of friends for a...celebration? Something to do with graduating high school. Now apparently they were just meant to be gone for a couple of nights but, he never worried about their not coming back until now because he was forced to take a vacation and only needs his truck for work tomorrow and well, he didn't seem all too concerned with much else. His son isn't answering his phone, and when Mr Jenkins tried phoning the Park they said they have no records of your daughter and Craig ever checking into their Hostel, but the Park's gardeners confirmed there was some kind of party going on in the Park which, I'm told, was fairly obvious since the gardeners live on the Park's premises. I just need some information from you. Anything that might help us in locating your daughter's whereabouts. When was the last time you had contact with your daughter?"  
    "Three...weeks...ago," the woman whimpered.
    "OK. What was the last thing she said to you?"
    "Fuck off!"
    "Excuse me?"
    "She told me to fuck off and stop interfering with her life, then she stormed out of the house without a single word as to where she was going--I ain't heard from her since."
    "Have you tried making contact?" Berkley asked, leaning against the outside of the doorframe.
    "I rang her every other day; she never answered her phone or texts."
    "Could you try calling her again now?"
    The woman nodded and wrapped her bathrobe around her again as she scrambled down to the end of the hallway and disappeared. 
    The early morning air was sticky and humid, and Berkley wiped the beads of sweat that kept forming on his forehead and brow with the back of his hand. Apart from the fireflies gravitating to the porch light and the lonely chirping of a single cricket, the neighbourhood was asleep. 
    It was Berkley's first time working the night shift, and his body-clock was having a mental breakdown like it had said, "fuck it, I give up," and done exactly that, leaving him to fight off the waves of tiredness that came and went as it pleased. He pushed himself off from the doorframe, nearly losing his footing on a particularly dodgy wooded floorboard that groaned under his weight; his left leg was asleep--the rest of his body was jealous. 
    Berkley hated this part of the job. After three years you'd think it would be easier, but it never was; telling parents their kids had been killed in a car crash, hurt in a fight or mysteriously vanished from the face of the earth, agonised his soul. The hardest part, though, was when he had to ignore his intuition tuned by his experiences dealing with cases like this and pretend there was more hope than there actually was. 
    Guilt riddled him when his conscience convicted his selfish side that jaded his thoughts. He had no reason to pity himself for the hard tasks the job entailed but, he did--far more than he had provocation for; so long as he was never on the other side of the door, he truly had no right to complain. That, was the truth. He just had to convince himself it was.
    "Officer," the woman said, returning to the front door with a small black cellphone in her trembling fingertips. She sniffed profusely and her cheeks were stained by the tears she had clearly endeavoured to wipe away and hide from Berkley while she was in the other room.
    "Now ma'am I need you to calm down--" Berkley said.
    "Calm down," the woman interrupted, composing herself long enough to give Berkley a glare that said, go fuck yourself, before the sobbing started again.
    "Just take a few deep breaths; try and lower your heartbeat; then dial the number."
    The woman nodded and took several fluctuant breaths in, followed by a muttered, "sorry," and dialled the number.
     Officer Berkley could hear the phone ringing from where he was standing several feet away, and after a few moments without an answer, her phone relayed the following message: 
    "Sorry, I'm not able to talk right now, leave a message and I'll get back to ya'."
    "Her phones shut off," the woman gasped, keeping her eyes on the phone as she lowered it from her ear. "Just went to...voi-ce-mail."
    "Ma'am--" Berkley's voice cracked and he cleared his throat. "--ma'am...the thing is, none of their friends saw either Maggie or, ah, Craig, that night--apparently they never showed up to the party."    
    The woman's eyes glazed over and her facial features turned blank--unreadable. 
    "Then...the why didn't they try and ring em' and, and...and report it to the Police?" she said, her neatly trimmed, dark eyebrows sloping down and inward towards her stubby nose.
    "Well, I wasn't able to talk to them directly, but an Officer drove out to each of their homes--seven to be exact--and got their statements. They all have the same story or, excuse, depending on how you put it. Supposedly there were quite a few invited to this...party. Half never showed up, including Maggie and Clark--"
    "Craig," the woman corrected him.
    "Craig! My apologies it's ah...it's been a long night. Anyway, their friends, they say they thought nothing of it, happens all the time with these social events. You invite friends and friends' friends and it's all very informal. The point is, with Maggie being rather sweet on this Craig fellow--to put it less crassly than the terms I read in one of the statements--their friends just assumed they were...well, you know...spending quality time with one another and didn't bother turning up."
    The woman turned the cellphone around and around in her hand. Berkley wasn't sure if she was following.
    "Look, Mrs?" Berkley inquired.
    "Baxter," the woman replied. "Gwen Baxter--my maiden name. Maggie's surname is Smith after her father's, he died a few years back in a car accident."
    "I'm truly sorry to hear that Mrs Baxter. Look...the thing is it's probably nothing more than a couple of kids in love, in possession of a car with a new found sense of freedom after finishing their high school education which, I might add, is quite an accomplishment considering all that y'all must have been through. I doubt there's any foul play and I'm sure they're fine. It shouldn't be hard to track them down."
    "Then why would they turn their cellphones off all this time? They're glued to the fucking things 24-seven," Mrs Baxter said, gesturing to the phone in her hand like it was the Devil. 
    "They may have wanted to be alone? Who knows. But it's like I said: I'm sure they're fine--and rest assured we'll do our best to find them, you have my word," Berkley said.
    "Thank you, Officer, I'm...I'm sure you'll find her."
    "I'm positive we will ma'am. Now I, or someone from the local Police Station, will be in touch with you tomorrow. We do take these things seriously. We'll keep you informed. And if you need anything, or simply need someone to talk to, please don't hesitate to contact the Station--there's always someone on duty there willing to help, day or night."
    Mrs Baxter nodded, wiping away a tear from the corner of her eye.
    "Goodnight, Mrs Baxter. And again: sorry to have bothered you at such a late hour."
    "G'night," she whispered.
    The door clicked shut.