Page 31 of Ask for Andrea

He glanced around one more time, then knelt down and pressed the blade of the seatbelt cutter into all four of her tires.

“Bitch,” he whispered softly.

Then he turned back around and walked toward his parked car down the road.

I followed him. Because I didn’t know what else to do. Because I had chosen this path and wasn’t ready to give up yet.

Before he drove away, he blocked Elle on the dating app. Made me uncomfortable.

When he got home, he went straight downstairs and started sending out new messages on MatchStrike before even saying hello to April, who must have just gotten home from the bonfire with the girls since their bedroom light was on.

When the first woman responded, he eagerly opened up the app to read the full message.

She had shoulder-length light-brown hair and was wearing bright pink lipstick. Her lips were quirked in the kind of grin that told me she had a sarcastic side.

Her name was Meghan.

18. SKYE

Kuna, Idaho

Now

My dad spent so long in the FroYo first asking, then demanding the security camera footage, that they nearly missed Officer Willis—despite almost getting the police called on to the FroYo.

The kid working at the counter reminded me of a boy I’d had to partner with in science one year. Rail-thin, expressionless, and uptight to the point of total unreasonableness. He just kept repeating, in monotone, that he would have to speak to a manager—who wasn’t in right now—about the security footage. At one point, when my dad finally thundered, “We’re going to meet with the police right now, goddammit, can you please just help us out?” the kid calmly plucked his cell phone from his apron pocket and threatened to call 9-1-1.

At that point my mom dragged my dad out of the FroYo, promising that Officer Willis would help.

“What if it’s only twenty-four hours of footage, Mari?” my dad kept repeating, looking at the clock on the dash and then dragging his hands through his thinning brown hair. “That gives us less than two hours.”

My mom stared straight ahead but drove ten over the speed limit back to the house, where Officer Willis was standing in the driveway. Across the street, I could see Mr. and Mrs. Schmalz sitting on their porch, trying not to appear too interested in what was going on.

My dad was out of the car before my mom put it in park. “David, be calm,” she whispered, hurrying to unbuckle her seatbelt.

I watched the officer’s eyes while my dad frantically explained about the footage they’d seen from the Daily Grind. And the FroYo next door. And the fact that the kid behind the counter had threatened to call the police. The officer didn’t look skeptical, exactly. Definitely wary though. I imagined he heard a lot of things on any given day.

When my dad was finished, Officer Willis turned to my mom, who was tearing up again.

She repeated what she’d told the dispatcher earlier, about how I didn’t come home like I was supposed to yesterday even though we had plans. Even though I always came home. How I was a good girl and not involved with anything dangerous. I was supposed to be leaving for college today. She swiped at the tears. “I know you’re trying to figure out whether this is worth the resources to investigate. I know she’s eighteen. I know. But she did not disappear. Not on purpose. Someone or something kept her from coming home. I know that in my gut.” My mom looked at the clock on the microwave. “Please, can you get the footage from the yogurt place?” Her voice broke. “I think it might show what happened.”

The officer nodded, and I watched his eyes soften. “Yes, ma’am. We don’t usually devote a lot of resources when a non-minor goes missing. Not unless there’s some strong evidence of foul play. Still, it sounds like there’s reason to believe we should check out that security footage to find out how concerned we need to be as a place to get started, at the very least.”

My dad’s face crumpled in relief, and my mom bit her cheek and nodded while the tears continued to drip down her cheeks. Then my parents followed the police cruiser back to the FroYo, where my dad was instructed in no uncertain terms to wait outside while the officer talked to the employee.

While he waited, my dad watched the clock. It was 3:39. When he cracked the window, I climbed into the front seat with him and pressed myself against it, finding to my surprise that I could easily move through the small space. Impressed with myself, I hurried over to the door of the FroYo and eyed the hairline space between the door and the doorframe. I moved through it just as easily.

The FroYo employee was on the phone with his manager. He didn’t look nearly as smug as he had earlier while talking to my parents. While the officer watched, he said, “Okay, yeah, I got it. Sorry, yeah. Sorry. I know how to do it. It’s all okay. Yeah I know. Okay, bye.”

Then, calling over his shoulder to the officer, the kid rushed to the back of the shop. “Um, I’m getting it now, okay?”

The officer waited patiently for the kid to return with a thumb drive. He was out of breath. “Okay, you said you wanted to look at around 4:00, right? I’ve got since 3:42 yesterday onward.”

The kid’s triumphant expression crumbled when the officer looked less than impressed. “If you ever get a request like this again, which I really hope you don’t, I want you to back up the footage before I show up. If we’d gotten here twenty minutes later, these poor people would’ve been out of luck. And that would have been your fault.”

“But my manager doesn’t—”

The cop took the thumb drive and walked back out to the parking lot, where my parents were waiting. I followed on his heels.

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