Taken?

"We'll be notifying all of the newspapers, TV stations and radio stations about her disappearance. The Amber Alert has already been put out, and we've put a watch on her cell phone. We've brought both of your vehicles back for forensics analysis, and they should be done with them tomorrow. As I said, you can leave but you can expect that you will be back for a few more discussions over the next couple of days." Detective Maki opened the door and stood back to allow Rob to leave.

Rob started through the door, and then stopped to turn and ask, "How will I get back to my home? Will someone drive me back so that I can start phoning the family to let them know what's happened?"

Detective Maki replied, "Officer Aikman is here, and she will take you back to your house. The forensics team locked it when they left and here are your keys. We've kept the keys for both vehicles and will return them with the cars if it turns out they are of no further interest to the forensics unit."

Officer Aikman, a tall woman with black hair, came over to Rob's side and said, "Just follow me. We will take the stairs as it is quicker. My car is parked out front."

Rob followed the Officer down the stairwell. He had to walk quickly as she was hurrying down the stairs at a quick pace, and even so she beat him to the ground floor by quite a margin. He caught up to her at the car, and let himself into the passenger's door. He had just gotten his seatbelt on when she pulled away from the curb.

"Do you think they're going to have any luck finding her, my daughter I mean? I'm so worried about her. She's 14 and I keep thinking that it is some pervert that has picked her out and taken her away." When he finished speaking Rob looked at Officer Aikman hopefully.

She looked at him for a few seconds before turning to bring her eyes back to the road. A moment later she said, "I don't really know what to tell you. Missing person's situations can have so many different outcomes. Sometimes they turn out to be just a misunderstanding that is cleared up quickly, other times there is never a resolution. Pedophiles or perverts are always a concern, and that's something that we will be giving a lot of attention to. I have to admit that her age makes them a distinct possibility, but it's not by any means certain that you need to worry about that situation."

"I'm sure Detective Maki believes that I had something to do with the disappearance of my wife and daughter," said Rob. "I don't know what you think of it, but I want to assure you that I had absolutely nothing to do with their disappearance. I'm just afraid that because he believes that, he won't pull out all the stops to find either one of them."

Officer Aikman drove for another two blocks before she answered. "Well, I certainly don't want you quoting me on this, as I will probably deny having ever said it. My gut feeling is that you are telling the truth. I'm not considered experienced enough to be able to go to Detective Maki and tell him how to do his job, but I will make some suggestions to you. First, be sure to tell him everything that you can think of. Second, don't lie about anything, because he will be sure to find out about it and once that happens it is unlikely that he will consider anything you've told him to be the truth."

"I have told him everything I can think of, and have not told him anything that isn't true. I think when he found out that the forensics team didn't find any evidence of blood, or anything else violent, that he may be coming closer to believing me. At this point though, I'm getting desperate for some answers. My whole family has been taken from me now. I'm going home to an empty house and I don't know if I'm going to be able to handle that," Rob said.

Officer Aikman took one of her cards from her shirt pocket and handed it to Rob. "You can call me at this number if you'd like. I check it from time to time during the day for messages. I may be able to tell you how things are going with this case because they'll be keeping the patrol officers well informed. Also, my sister-in-law is a psychologist. A fairly good one I think." Officer Aikman handed Rob a pen and gave him the number. "You can write on the back of that card and give her a call if the situation gets to you too much. She's really good at helping people over what may seem like insurmountable problems."

Rob wrote down the number, and thanked her for giving it to him. He had a feeling he might need it, the way he felt at the moment. Dealing with the loss of Erin and Katy didn't even seem possible to him right then. The whole thing was like a bad dream, and Rob was beginning to wonder if he would ever wake up from it.

A minute later they pulled up in front of Rob's home, and as he got out of the patrol car Officer Aikman said to him, "Be sure to call my sister-in-law or myself before you do anything on your own. You're not likely to be thinking as clearly as you should be under the circumstances."

Rob thanked the Officer and closed the car door. As he walked up the sidewalk he stopped to turn and watch the patrol car drive away. As he did that he noticed that two of the neighbors who lived across the street were standing in their front windows watching him. He supposed that all the neighbors must certainly be wondering what was going on around his home. He turned back and walked up the steps to his front door, unlocked it and walked into his house.

He went into the kitchen and noticed that the light on his answering machine was flashing multiple times. He figured he may as well take care of these messages before he did anything else. Hopefully one of them would be from Katy explaining where she was, but he knew that that was likely too much to hope for. With a sigh he punched the play button.

The first two messages were from friends of Katy, telling him that they had called everyone in their circle of friends, and none had any information on Katy's whereabouts. He wrote down their numbers so that he could return their calls and thank them for their help. The third call was an apparent wrong number, as all he heard was, "Da... Hey!" And the phone was hung up. The next call was from his brother-in-law, asking him if he had heard anything yet about Katy. The last two calls were from neighbors, asking if they could be of help. He added the last three callers to his list of numbers he intended to make return calls to.

After he erased the calls from the machine he took a look in the fridge for something quick to eat as he realized he hadn't had supper. He settled on a cold pork chop and an apple, which he devoured quickly. When he finished he rinsed his fingers off under the kitchen tap and dried them on some paper towel. This was no time for formalities and he selected none.

He walked through his home to see what signs there were of the investigative team having checked out the house. He saw very little beyond what he guessed to be fingerprint powder on the bathroom taps. Both the sink and the tub appeared to have been checked that way. It was also apparent that someone had checked the drawers in both his bedroom and Katy's. He didn't notice anything that was missing.

When he had finished checking out the rest of the house he returned to the kitchen. The cupboard above the fridge contained a small selection of partially filled bottles of liquor. He chose his favorite, a bottle of Scotch. He sat at the kitchen table and poured himself about an ounce of the liquid. After he took a sip of it he picked up his cell phone and began to make the calls he had listed from the answering machine. When he had reached and thanked each of the callers, he leaned back in his chair and had another sip of the Scotch.

He sat and reflected on the events of the day, and grew more depressed about the likelihood that the situation would be resolved anytime soon. He turned on the radio to one of the more popular local stations, to listen for any mention of Katy's disappearance. He only had to listen about five minutes before he heard the Amber Alert message he had hoped the police would have arranged to have made. At least Detective Maki had kept that promise. He got up and walked into the living room so that he could see if similar messages were broadcast regularly on the local TV stations.

As he clicked his way across the local TV channels he saw that two of them had information about the Amber Alert crawling across the bottom of the screen. Again he was very pleased to see that the commitment had been fulfilled. He sat in his favorite chair and picked up the photograph on the table beside it. As he looked at the photo of himself, Erin and Katy, he felt his eyes once again begin to fill with tears.

Before he set the photo back on the table beside him he made a pledge to himself that he wasn't going to just sit back and allow the police to handle everything the way he had when Erin disappeared. This time he was going to do everything he could to try and push this investigation, so that Katy's disappearance would not fall by the wayside in the manner that Erin's had. He decided to become very much more proactive.

He went back to the kitchen and poured himself another ounce of Scotch, then pulled out a notepad from a kitchen drawer and began to make a list. The first thing he wrote down was that he should try to track down Katy's cell phone. Having said that to himself, he immediately took out his own cell phone and tried her number again. He got the same result as he had on the previous tries. He vowed to continue trying her number regularly.

The second item on his list was that he would attempt to contact all of the surrounding neighbors on his block to see what they might have heard or seen when Katy disappeared. After having written that down he realized he should also ask them if they could remember seeing anything strange around the time that Erin had disappeared. Before long his list had grown to include five items that he would start taking care of immediately and continue with in the morning.

He sat there mulling over his list and taking small sips from his glass of Scotch until he realized something he had already done may have been a big mistake. He was thinking about his decision to call Katy's phone regularly, when he remembered the strange message that had been left on his machine. It occurred to him that the first voice, the one saying "Da...," had sounded familiar to him and he began to wonder if it could possibly have been Katy on the phone. He went to the answering machine and pressed play, but nothing happened. That was when he remembered he had already pressed the erase button!

Panic began to set in as he came to terms with the fact that he may have destroyed a clue to Katy's disappearance. He popped the cassette tape out of the answering machine, and rushed into the living room where they had a cassette player as part of their stereo system. He put the tape into the tape player, and crossed his fingers as he pressed play. He breathed a big sigh of relief when he heard the first of the messages coming from his stereo speakers. He seemed to remember that when he read the instructions for his answering machine it had said that the messages were not actually erased, but rather that the tape was rewound and the play button reset.

When the tape arrived at the third message, the one that he hoped had come from Katy; he listened carefully and was now virtually certain that it was her voice. The second portion of the message, the word "Hey!" was a male voice that he didn't recognize. Once that third message had finished playing Rob stopped the tape and rewound it. He headed back to the kitchen with the tape in his hand and a bit of hope in his heart.

With the tape on the table in front of him, Rob quickly dialed the Police Department number from Constable Aikman's card, but asked to speak with Detective Maki. When he reached the Detective he hurriedly explained to him about the message on the tape. The Detective didn't seem to be quite as enthused as Rob, but agreed to drop by and pick up the tape shortly. Rob felt a new flush of optimism surge through his body. Maybe things wouldn't be quite as hopeless as they had felt.

While he waited for Detective Maki to arrive, Rob searched for and finally found a spare tape to place in the answering machine. He did not want to run the risk of missing any messages that might come his way, especially if there could be another one from Katy. He used his cell phone to verify that the recorder did indeed work with the new tape. Rob was quite content with his efforts as he sat waiting for the Detective. His wait wasn't very long as he soon heard a knock at the door.

Rob strode quickly to the door and opened it for Detective Maki. The Detective walked right in and then said, "So, you think you have something on the tape for me to hear?"

"Yes, I'm sure it's Katy's voice. There is a man's voice on it as well. Let's go into the living room and I'll play it for you on our stereo," Rob answered. He picked up the tape from the kitchen table and took it with him as the two man walked into the living room. After putting the tape into his stereo player, Rob fast forwarded past the first two messages, then stopped the tape and told Detective Maki that the first partial word was Katy's voice but that he didn't know who the second word was spoken by. Rob pressed play and then stood silently as the brief message played. When it ended Rob stopped the tape again.

"See, I told you she called. She must be with that man who broke into the message. Is there any way we can find out where that call came from?" Rob was visibly excited as he spoke to the Detective.

"Well, I can't really tell anything from that. What I'll do is I will let our technical people look at it and see if they can even determine if the first word is spoken by a different person than the second. As for tracking down the number that did the calling, I suppose we can see what's possible on that. Don't expect a lot though," said Detective Maki.

Rob was visibly deflated by the less than supportive words from the Detective. "Oh," he said, "I would have thought you could tell it was a girl's voice. I just know it's Katy on the phone. Can you check and find out if it's her cell phone that the call was made from? I still haven't seen her phone here anywhere, so I'm sure she has it with her."

Rob played the tape a second time, but Detective Maki was no more enthusiastic after hearing it twice that he was after the first time. Rob removed the tape and gave it to the Detective. Together the two of them walked out to the door. When they got there Rob said, "Be sure to check on the phone call, to find out if it was her cell phone that made the call."

Detective Maki assured Rob he would check into it thoroughly, and left. Rob walked slowly back to the kitchen and sat down at the table. He made note of the time that he had given the tape to Detective Maki. From now on he was going to keep good notes of everything that happened with regard to Katy's disappearance. He took a look at his watch and saw that it was only quarter to nine. Perhaps he could still talk to one or two of his neighbors.

He knew both couples that lived in the homes adjacent to his. He didn't think that either couple would retire for the night this early, so felt safe in going to their doors. He went first to the neighbors on his east side, and knocked at their door. His conversation with them was brief, as neither one had seen nor heard anything at all unusual that morning, nor indeed at any time during the day. Rob had only given them the basics of the situation, and asked them to please call him if they thought of anything else.

He went next to the neighbors on his west side, who also didn't recall seeing anything unusual during the day. While they wanted to be helpful there wasn't really anything they could tell him. Again Rob asked his neighbors to call if they thought of anything else they could add. Rob walked home feeling rather useless, as his attempts to find some new information were not yet producing any results in all.

When he got back into his home Rob took his notepad of things to do and a fresh scotch into the living room and got comfortable in his recliner chair. Now that he had decided to do whatever he could to help find Katy and Erin he knew he would have to make up a good game plan. He started by first recalling everything that had gone on while he was at the central police station. He jotted down notes to himself about all of the types of questions that Detective Maki had asked, and what had been agreed upon between him and the detective.

He knew he was going to have to keep in touch with everyone that he could, and as easily as he could, so he spent a while programming telephone numbers into his cell phone so that he would have them at his fingertips. He made himself a note to purchase a spare battery for his cell phone so that he wouldn't have to worry about having a usable phone. He also began sketching out the design for a new missing person's poster, a poster that would include both Erin and Katy.

He was writing furiously into his notes, stopping to rest and think whenever his hand caught up with his ideas. During these breaks he would have a sip of Scotch and then sit back to try and formulate further plans. Rob continued with this process until 2 a.m., when he finally decided he would have to sleep. During his hours of thought and planning he had made a number of decisions that would influence the course his life would be taking for the foreseeable future.

He placed his notes on the end table and headed to the bathroom to have a shower. Once he had refreshed himself he headed for bed feeling renewed and hopeful for the first time since he found out Katy had disappeared. He got between the sheets and was asleep quite quickly. It was a much more restful sleep than he expected he would get that night.  

--Day 3--

He awoke at his usual time on Wednesday morning and got up quickly, anxious to get started at fulfilling the plans he had drawn up last night. By 6:45 he was dressed, his personal grooming complete, and a fresh cup of coffee in his hand. He was looking forward to getting at his list, and the first item on it was to be at the office precisely at 8 a.m., at which time he would be paying a surprise visit to his boss, Henry Brown. Since his cars were both being investigated by the forensics department, Rob arranged for a taxi to pick him up at 7:30.

By 8:05 he was in Mr. Brown's office, explaining the situation. He would require an indefinite period of time off, and wanted to take all of his vacation as part of it. Rob explained that he was willing to help get someone else prepared to tackle the job he had been working on, and he would also be available as a resource person when absolutely necessary. His last words to his manager were, "I don't really have a choice in this matter. I simply can't work while both my daughter and my wife are missing. It is my intention to devote whatever time is necessary searching for them. If we can't work out something, then I will have no choice but to quit."

Rob's manager knew he would be unable to make this decision on his own, so he requested some time to run it by the other management people and decide what should be done. Rob was happy to give them some time to make these arrangements as it permitted him time to get started on the top priorities of his list of things to do. While they decided what form his absence from work would take, either leave of absence or termination, he had things he intended to get done.

As the cab drove out of the parking lot he wondered if he would ever be back there again. At this point in his life his career should have meant a lot to him, but without Erin and Katy he really couldn't have cared less about it. As the building where he had spent all of his working hours for the last eight years faded in the rear view mirror, his mind was on what he would have to do first in order to get the most advantage out of his list of tasks for the day.