Chapter 5
It was Wednesday afternoon in the break room at the forensics center.
A few people were gathered around the water cooler, chatting. There was Ben Collins from the forensics team, Linda Taylor from the admin department, and Frank Morris from the tech team.
Ben was the youngest tech at the center, twenty-five and only a year into his permanent position. He was always lively and never held back his thoughts. "Seriously, where do you think Samuel's wife went? It's been over a month. That's pretty harsh, right?"
Linda poured herself a cup of water. "That's their business. You shouldn't get involved."
"I'm not getting involved. I'm curious. Didn't Emily bring us those pastries before? They were delicious. Now she disappears without even saying goodbye?" Ben said.
Frank leaned against the wall with his hands in his lab coat pockets. "You didn't know? They've been on the rocks for a while.
"At last year's Thanksgiving dinner, Emily came to pick up Samuel, and Winona was holding a cake and singing. Emily's face fell right then and there."
"What happened next?" Ben asked.
"Emily pulled Samuel aside in the hallway, and they talked for twenty minutes. When he came back, his face was dark. He told the whole team that someone was making a big deal out of nothing," Frank said.
"He was talking about Emily?" Ben asked.
"Who else?" Frank replied.
Just then, Winona walked into the break room with a cup of coffee.
Everyone's voices dropped at once.
Winona smiled, acting as if she hadn't heard a thing. "You guys are talking about Emily?"
Ben scratched his head, looking a bit embarrassed. "Winona, we were only chatting."
"It's fine," Winona said, settling into the chair and warming her hands around her coffee cup. "Honestly, I can understand why Emily did that.
"Some women, when their husbands are always busy with work, feel neglected and don't know how to express it. So they choose to vanish to make their presence felt."
She paused. "But honestly, this way really hurts Sam. He never talks about it, but I can see he's worn out."
Linda nodded. "True. Samuel really hasn't been looking well lately."
Frank chimed in, "Work is already a handful. If things are a mess at home, too, who could handle that?"
Winona looked down and took a sip of coffee. She didn't say another word, but she didn't need to. Those few words said it all.
Right then, everyone in the room was mentally lumping me in with the clueless wives.
I hovered above the break room doorway, watching them nod, sigh, and give Winona those pitying looks.
I'd brought them pastries before.
When they were working Christmas shifts, I made roast turkey for them.
When Linda's kid had a fever, I was the one who drove her kid to the children's hospital in the middle of the night.
Now here they were, sitting in the break room, sipping their water, and talking about how insensible I was.
With a few words, Winona managed to turn them against me.
She spoke without any curse words or insults. Every word seemed like a defense on my behalf, but to everyone else, it was a blade, subtly cutting me down.
That was her skill. Slowly, she erased me from Samuel's life.
I heard footsteps at the doorway.
Richard walked in with a stainless steel thermos. He was here to fill it up with water.
He became so absorbed in their conversation that he didn't notice the water overflowing from his thermos under the water dispenser outlet.
"Captain Carter, your thermos is overflowing," Ben warned him.
"Oh," Richard replied, screwing the lid on.
He didn't join the chat. Instead, he glanced at Winona, who happened to turn to chat with Linda and didn't notice his gaze.
Then Richard turned around and walked out.
Water dripped from the outside of his thermos, leaving a trail all the way to the end of the hallway.
Ten minutes later, he was back in his office. He pulled the preliminary report out of his briefcase, turned on his computer, and logged into the city's internal missing persons database.
He typed two words into the search bar: [Emily Foster.] The system showed: [No case filed.]
He searched again, this time adding filters: [Female, aged 28 to 32, missing in the last two months.]
Eleven records popped up. He clicked through them one by one.
When he got to the seventh record, he stopped.
Under the case number, there was a note in gray text: [The reporter contacted the precinct, but since it hadn't been 48 hours, the case wasn't officially accepted. Reporter: Chloe Reed. Relationship: Friend.]
He took a screenshot of the record and saved it to his encrypted folder.
Then he turned off his screen and took a sip of coffee from his thermos.
He rubbed the back of his neck again.