Missing Without A Trace (6 page)

I am so hungry, I feel weak. I don’t understand why I can’t have some eggs and a bottle of water. My lips are cracking and I am tired. I feel blurry
.

I need help! I realize that I need to call for help. I reach through the steering wheel and pick up my phone from the dashboard. I call 911
.

“911,” she says. “What is your emergency?
”

“
I went off the road and I need help!
”

“
That’s stupid!” says the dispatcher, laughing at me before she hangs up
.

I am so mad! I can’t believe it. I want to tell Tom, so I call him
.

“
Hey,” he answers. He sounds happy and casual
.

“
What the hell, Tom?” I yell at him, furious
.

“
What do you mean?” he asks
.

“
Why are you taking so long to come and get me?
”

He doesn’t answer. The line goes dead. In an instant, the phone rings
.

The phone! Where is my phone? I see the blue light, over there. I try, but I cannot reach it. I am pinned in my seat and I cannot reach my cell phone. I claw at the seatbelt until my fingertips are raw and burning, then I pound on the window and yell. Finally, I am tired. I let my eyes close
.

“Hi, Lady!” I say. She looks startled but then she smiles at me. She has a cute smile and her teeth are white. Her tongue is hanging out and it glistens with wet saliva. I look out my window, where there’s just a bramble of bushes, but I see a reflection of Lady on the window. I realize that she’s sitting in the other seat, looking out the front window at the scenery, and then she turns her head in front of me and smiles again. “Aw, Lady,” I say, reaching for her. “You’re always right here!
”

I am cold. The night is cold and I shiver. It is harder to rest at night because the animal sounds scare me. My adrenaline flows and, besides, it is cold. I am wide-eyed, staring into darkness. I hear the brush rustle, as a critter moves through the darkness. Maybe it’s a squirrel. Or a rat. What if it’s a raccoon? They are mean, so I hope it is not a raccoon. A car passes on the road and the red of their tail lights flashes in the night above me as the animal scurries away. I reach for the clasp and try again
.

Forest animals make a lot of noise at dawn. A large bird lands on the hood of my bright blue SUV. Sideways, I see his head, his beak. His head is white with a little black streak. I don’t see the rest of him but I know that he is a bald eagle. He looks at me with yellow-green eyes and is very interested in me. I’ve never been so close to a bald eagle. He stays with me. His skinny legs try to keep their grip on the hood of my car. Now, he seems more interested in getting off the hood, and he is not looking at me. He’s looking down, in front of the car. He is focusing on what’s below and thinking about going. Why does he get to hop off the hood? I’m glad that he doesn’t. He stays with me. I look into his eyes and thank him in my thoughts
.

SoundBuilt was Tom’s Monday-through-Friday job so, on Saturday, he had the luxury of sleeping until eight o’clock. He planned to spend the day tackling those blackberry bushes. The agent who was handling the property needed the wetlands cleared fast and Tom was squeezing in the project between his regular job and his pizza job. At nine that morning, Tom was working on the blackberries when his phone rang. It was Tanya’s boss at Fred Meyer.

“Is everything alright?” she asked.

“’Course,” Tom said. “Why?”

“Well, Tom, Tanya hasn’t been at work for the last two shifts and—”

“
What?
” Tom said, shocked. “What are you talking about? That’s not like Tanya!”

“I know Tom,” she said. “She hasn’t been at work and she hasn’t called and it’s not like her, so I just wanted to make sure everything’s alright.”

“What?
” Tom repeated, his mind reeling as he jumped gears from the physical work to contemplating what he was hearing. “When is the last time you saw her?”

“She left Thursday morning, around nine,” the woman said, concern growing in her voice. “And, Tom, she’s not answering her phone.”

Tom’s mind went into overdrive.
When’s the last time I called her? When’s the last time I talked to her?

“I’ll try to get hold of her as soon as I hang up, and I’ll have her call you,” Tom promised. “Is there a number you can give me?” Standing out in the bushes, Tom wrote the number on his hand and then ran to his truck.

He called Tanya’s cell phone. No answer. He called again and, again, she didn’t answer. After a few tries, he left a message. He climbed in his truck and started to drive, without really thinking about where he was going. Tom thought to call Tanya’s boss at her second job, at the Nordstrom Rack. He found out that Tanya hadn’t been scheduled to work the day before, Friday, but that, at the moment, she was late for her shift—and she hadn’t called. Tanya’s boss, like everyone, knew that Tanya would never miss work and not call in. That’s just not
her
.

Worry flooded his senses.
No way
would Tanya miss work. If she had, he would have seen her at home! Where could she
be
?

Finally, Tom realized that Tanya was missing—and that she had
already been
missing for thirty-six hours.
Thirty-six hours!
Starting to search for her, Tom knew that this gap in time would be a great disadvantage. Far too much time had passed. Their crazy life had gotten in the way. While they were both working two jobs, she had disappeared from the radar and he had kept on working, assuming that everything was going according to plan.

I am hungry—hungrier than I have ever been. I didn’t know a person could be this hungry. I know that it is making me weak. I look at my wrist and see that I am even thinner than I was. I don’t understand. I am so healthy, how can I feel so sick? I don’t deserve to be this sick, since I am so careful about eating well, choosing organic foods, exercising every day
.
But I am so tired. I cannot exercise today. I am going to rest. Right after I get a drink of water. That’s all I want, a drink of water. My tongue sticks to my cheeks and the roof of my mouth. My lips are cracked and when I try to move them, I feel them rip and bleed
.

Tom ended up at home. He ran into the house and darted through every room, searching for her.

“Tanya!” he called. “
Tanya?
Are you home?” His panic grew. Time started to lose meaning. He jumped back in his truck to drive the routes to her jobs. While driving, he called 911 and asked for the Highway Patrol. They told him that they’d had no reports of Tanya and no accidents that matched her car or name. Tom called all the local hospitals, but no one had seen her. What else could he do? Again, he called 911.

“Bellevue Police Department.”

“My wife is missing,” Tom choked out.

“Sir,” the dispatcher asked, “when was the last time she was seen?”

“Thursday,” he swallowed. “She left work at nine in the morning, after her shift.”

“Did anyone see her leave?”

“I don’t know yet,” Tom said. “I’m on my way to her second job, at the Factoria Nordstrom Rack. She’s missed her last two shifts there. She hasn’t accessed our accounts and all she has is her Nordstrom Visa card. I can’t check that one because I’m not on it.”

“When you get there, we’ll send over an officer to take your statement.”

“No problem,” Tom said, grateful. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

After Tom arrived, he only waited about five minutes before a Bellevue police officer found him. Nordstrom personnel escorted them into a room in the security department.

“So,” the police officer asked Tom, “when was the last time you
heard from your wife?”

“Around ten
PM
on Wednesday,” Tom said. “She called me when she was leaving for work. I was staying at work that night because I had an early morning homeowner walk scheduled and I had to work late to get it ready.”

“What did she say?” the officer asked. “Was there any kind of fight? Did she say anything that might make you think she was leaving you?”

“No,” Tom said, his heart sinking. “All she asked was, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘sleeping’ and she hung up. It was quite normal for her to just check in to hear my voice.”

“So she just hung up?” the officer asked.

“We’ve been married for a long time,” Tom said, “and she’s been mad at me at
least
half of it. We fight. We’re married.”

“So, you’re sure she didn’t just leave you? Like she’d had enough, kind of thing?”

Tom
knew
that Tanya wouldn’t leave him—at least not before giving him a reason. But where was she? He couldn’t imagine where she was or what she was doing, and all these questions about her leaving got to him. “But, if she’d left,” he reasoned, “she would have taken some—if not
all
—of the money! She didn’t take anything except her Nordstrom Visa.”

“So when was the last time you know where she was?”

Tom told him that the last he could track was that she’d left her job at Fred Meyer in Bellevue at nine in the morning. “If she was using her card since then,” he added, “I can’t check that and that’s why I need to get a case started so you can check.”

“Which card? Her Nordstrom card?” the officer asked.

“Yes,” Tom said. “That’s the only card she has with her and, like I said, I’m not on it so they won’t tell me anything.”

“Wait here,” the office said. “I’ll check a few things out and be right back.”

Tom waited, talking with Tanya’s boss, who thought it was not in Tanya’s nature to do this. “I’ve only known her a short time,” he said. “But she seems to be very dependable.”

Tom asked the manager if they’d noticed anyone who stood out, who seemed strange, but the manager said that they keep a close eye out for that kind of thing and saw no signs of it.

“Thanks,” Tom said. “Please, if you hear from her, please call me.”

The officer came back into the room, looking at his notes. “We’ve found video footage of Tanya getting into her car at the end of her shift and driving out toward the highway,” he said. “My sergeant has informed me that our involvement has to end. You have to contact King County Police to follow up since our jurisdiction ended when she left work. Since we have evidence that she left our jurisdiction of her own volition, we have to hand you off to King County.”

“So, you’re telling me I have to call 911 again once I get back into Maple Valley?” Tom asked, incredulous. He felt helpless and frustrated. “Can I ask
why
I have to wait?”

“Because with cell phones, 911 calls connect you to the office based on the tower your call goes through, and not based on your phone number,” the officer explained. “This way, you get the right department to assist you.”

Tom headed for the door—and for Maple Valley.

Finally, again, my eyes close and I drift off into peaceful unconsciousness. But, soon, my phone rings. It snaps me back to my agony of excruciating pain. Where is my phone? Tom! Are you calling me, Tom? I want to answer but I can’t reach the phone. I feel a wave of dizziness and I panic. I flail with my hand to grab the steering wheel. Finally, the dizziness calms
.

When he got home, he called 911 again, connecting this time with the King County Police Dispatch and Communications Center.

“My wife is missing,” he said. “And the Bellevue police said I need to file a missing person report with you.”

The operator didn’t sound very concerned. “Have you checked the hospitals and jails?” he asked. To Tom, the operator seemed cold, as if he was reading a script. Tom didn’t want to answer as his anger was rising.

“Yes,
of course
, I checked the hospitals,” he finally spat out. “And the State Patrol. Those were the first calls I made! I haven’t checked the jails but, if my wife was in jail, she would’ve called me for bail money. My wife’s
not
in jail. She’s never been in trouble. The only contact she’s had with the police is being stopped for
speeding
!”

Tom’s helplessness was making his hostility rise. He had to work to hold it back as he spoke with the operator and it took more patience than he knew he had.

“You can’t file a report until you have checked all the jails,” the operator insisted. “So, I need you to do that and then call back.” With that, the operator hung up.

Tom was furious, but he used the energy to do what he needed to do. He ran upstairs and got on the Internet, to search for phone numbers for the jails. On the websites, he found out that he could conduct a prisoner search online. He checked all the jails’ records for any record of “Tanya Rider.” Over and over, from every jail, the result was the same: “N
O
R
ECORD
F
OUND
.”

Trying for the second time to report Tanya’s disappearance to the King County Police, Tom punched the numbers 911 in his phone again. As it rang on the other end, he yelled at his handset, “
Why won’t you just do your job and file a report so we can start searching for my wife?
” All he wanted was for them to start looking for Tanya! As the stress tore at his sanity, he felt himself losing control. He felt his old self coming back—the angry man he used to be, before Tanya. He didn’t want to be that guy
again but why, he wondered, were they were making such a simple task so damned difficult?

The operator answered. “911 what are you reporting?”

“I called earlier,” Tom said, sucking in a measure of calmness and patience. “My wife is missing. I called all the hospitals, the jails, the morgue, the State Patrol. No one has any information on her. She is missing.

“Okay, have you called her friends and family?”

What the hell?
Tom thought.
Every damned time I call, they come up with something else for me to do! Would it kill them to tell me all of this the first time I call?
But he didn’t say it. He kept it in, sucked in yet another breath and gathered his patience. “She doesn’t really have any friends,” he said. “And she doesn’t talk to her family.”