The police won’t do anything.
She isn’t deemed as missing, no matter what I say or how I plead. She’s active on her phone therefore not at risk. Her family are satisfied that she isn’t missing, work has signed off suddenly on late annual leave, paid for even when she has no more holiday days left to take. How the police didn’t see this as unusual was strange to me.
I go through the rest of the day in some sort of trance. I’m stuck in my head, working but not really focusing. I attend meetings and I greet visitors, I do my reports and I file my paperwork, but if you asked me how it went and what I actually did, I couldn’t tell you.
Finally, when the clock strikes five, I pack my stuff into my handbag and join the file to leave the office. Once outside I take a large breath of fresh air and hurry back to my apartment. I don’t expect Tate to be there, but I have a little bubble of hope that she will be. When I get there, dropping my coat and bag at the door that bubble bursts. She’s not home.
I couldn’t figure this out on my own, but I knew, for a fact, that something had gone wrong. She was missing and no one was taking it seriously.
Tate had been my one and only friend. After I moved to the city all those years ago, she had been the only one to guide me through the chaos, the only one to offer me her helping hand and I would not brush this under the rug.
I make myself a coffee and sit on the couch, crossing my legs underneath me as I think everything through.
What could I do? Realistically, what could one girl do in this situation? What if she wasn’t really missing and her text was true earlier?
No, that wasn’t right. She calls me Ellie and always has, even in our disagreements, and there had been plenty over the many years of friendship we’ve had. Then there was the formal, cold text message which didn’t sound like her at all and the fact that it happened only after I had called out Garrett.
Could Garrett have something to do with this?
He was a billionaire, successful and surely doing something like hurting his girlfriend would be too risky for him, but he snagged my attention, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that he had something to do with this.
I take a sip from my coffee and pull my phone from my pocket.
I needed to do something, find out something, just something more, so I could take it to the police so that they would take this seriously.
I hoped I was wrong. I hoped with a deep-rooted need that Tate was safe and well, and she was just taking time away even if that hurt me. I needed her to be safe. She may not be my blood, but she was my family.
I open google and chew my lip, what can I do?
My fingers type automatically, and I put Garrett’s full name into the search bar. The results are endless.
Garett Franco: Heir of Tobias & Son enterprises. Intelligent, Kind and Fair.
I scoff at the first result and continue scrolling through the results. There are countless articles praising him, articles telling the world about how generous he is, how he helps charities and people in need, how he employs a number of people from all different backgrounds but with each word I read, I can’t help but think that it is all a lie. A ruse.
I’ve worked with his father, Tobias, for long enough that I know not everything is as it seems.
On the seventh page of google I come across an article that must have been suppressed. They had a lot of money, enough that they could suffocate bad press, but nothing, no amount of money could take it away.
Garrett Franco in cuffs, is what the headline reads.
I click it and open an article dated six months ago.
Garrett Franco, heir of Tobias & son enterprises was tonight arrested on accounts of domestic violence and false imprisonment.
The article goes into detail about one of Garett’s former girlfriends who had been beaten so excessively you could hardly recognize a single feature on the girl. It says that she had several broken bones, bruising, swelling and lacerations, but also that she had been kept in a cold dark room for a number of weeks, that she had been dating Garrett for a short time before he had her held and beaten.
I couldn’t understand how someone could get away with it. How was he still walking free if they had this evidence against him?
Money.
Money made the world go round. If you had it and enough of it, then all your wrong doings could go away. It was a lesson no one taught, a lesson that life could only give you. I had never seen it in true form, but perhaps that was because I wasn’t willing to see it.
Garett was released only a few days later without a single conviction, no warning. All charges against him were lifted, and the incident was forgotten and then buried. The girlfriend, her name not mentioned in any article was forgotten. I couldn’t find out her name or where she lived to figure out whether or not she was still alive. There wasn’t a single thing about her online.
I knew there was a reason I didn’t like Garrett. Just like I didn’t like his father.
I needed more though. An arrest that proved false wouldn’t help me here.
I delete my search and replace it with Private investigator.
Perhaps someone else can help me. Get enough on Garrett to convince the police to look into Tate’s disappearance.
I go through several before I pick one at random and dial the number. I have no hope of them answering so when they do, I’m stunned to silence.
“Hello?” They answer.
I sit with my mouth open slightly before I snap back to it and respond, “Hi! I need your help!”
His response is automatic, “What can I help with?”
I explain the situation, I tell them about the article and the company and the names of the people I think are involved. Silence greets me on the other side of the line.
“Hello? I hedge.
“I can’t help you.”
“Wait, what?”
“If I were you, I would let your friend go, she’s gone and there’s no bringing her back.”
“What do you mean?”
An audible swallow on the other end of the line, “Miss, I don’t know what you’re playing with or who, but you’re in deep enough as it is, get out while you can. Forget about your friend. Walk away. If you value your life, walk away.”
“So, you won’t help?”
“I value my life, you should value yours too. I’m going now.”
“No! Please. Wait!”
The line goes dead, the dull beep ringing in my ear.
I stare at the phone, but I can’t waste this time. I try several different investigators and companies, each one have a similar story. They either hang up on me the moment I mention names, or they try to deter me from my path. After the tenth call, I groan in frustration.
What am I supposed to do now?
The police won’t help. Private investigators won’t help and I’m not good at this. I don’t know where to look or what even to look for.
But after all these calls, hearing the various warnings, I understand now how dangerous Tobias and Garrett truly are.
I wasn’t so naïve to believe they were completely innocent and good men, but I had hoped that I hadn’t been working for complete monsters.
But what is hope when you’re swimming in a sea of corruption?
I wanted to see the good in people. I wanted to see the things that made them shine under a light rather than the things that cast them in shadows, but all this tells me is that there are only a few that are good and whole lot of bad.
Maybe Tate was already dead.
Maybe she had been murdered, tortured and cut up, made to suffer.
The thoughts make me shiver and my gut to churn.
I had to hope she was alive. I had to hope she was surviving.
Surviving is not the same as living.
The thought slams into my head without permission, and it’s enough to have me gunning for the bathroom to throw up the contents of my stomach.
_