I scrolled some more and stumbled across a selfie Callie took almost two years ago. The shot captured her from the chest up, where a black lace bra contrasted against her pale skin. She wore the same deep burgundy lipstick from so many other photos. The caption read, "MSG ME 4 a good tyme! Xoxo CallieBBY14."
What the hell did that mean?
The photo had forty-five comments. I skimmed through them with pursed lips. Who were these guys writing despicable notes to Callie for the entire internet to see? Some complimented Callie on her lingerie and lipstick, while others wrote nasty comments about wanting to do much more than look at her pictures online. I wondered if her parents knew about this? They weren't the strictest, but they made sure Callie was polite and followed the rules—at least when I knew them.
A knock on my bedroom door jolted me out of my stupor. I slapped my MacBook's screen down, not wanting anyone to see what I'd found. My mom opened the door ever so slightly and squeezed inside the room. A faint smile graced her lips.
"It's been quite some time since I've seen you like this," she said.
Color rose to my cheeks. "Feels like yesterday I was holed up in here studying for the SATs, huh?”
No matter how much you wanted it to slow down, time didn't stop for anyone. It rolled by faster until you found yourself gazing into the past and wondering what happened to the years of your life.
"I made BLTs for lunch. You want to come down?”
I nodded, relieved for a distraction from what I discovered on Facebook. I followed my mom out of my bedroom and down the two flights of stairs. Portraits of me as I grew up lined the walls, catching my eye. I managed a significant transformation through my adolescence too, although not quite as drastic as Callie’s.
In one picture, my crimped hair tickled my chin. Braces shone from the camera's flash, along with the glare from my glasses. Middle school wasn't a particularly favorable time. Awkward could have been my middle name. While the other girls in my grade were playing with makeup and flirting with boys during lunch, I mostly kept to myself with a book in hand. Sure, I had a few friends, but we all geeked out together.
Through the years, and with more school pictures, I changed before the lens. My hair grew longer, turned blonder. My braces were removed, leaving me with much straighter teeth. I learned how to apply the makeup basics, like foundation and mascara. My skin turned more golden peach, allowing more freckles to kiss my cheeks.
Growing up, I always wanted to be grown, to leave my awkwardness behind. I did just that. When I became a police officer, all of the shyness, the self-doubt melted away. I shed my past like a snake loses its skin.
Why did I grow up and gravitate toward the light, while the darkness magnetized Callie? Was it because I got out of Keygate, while she didn’t get the chance? Both of us had great parents growing up. She was a smart girl. Was there something in her past I didn’t know about?
However, deep down, I knew the answer: it didn’t matter who you were or where you were from, darkness could always find you.
Sure, for the most part, I found the light at the end of my tunnel, but now? Now I was in the darkness too. I grieved for my fiancé during every waking hour and even in my dreams. I couldn’t breathe each time I remembered Zac wasn’t coming home. I stared at my front door waiting for him to come through it and surprise me with flowers. Maybe Callie’s life turned upside somehow the same as mine?
The once quiet girl down the street was seven years my junior. When I graduated from high school, I couldn't watch her when her parents needed a sitter. We lost touch and drifted apart. I no longer knew what she wanted to be when she grew up. I didn't know her favorite subject in school, but I never forgot about her. I often imagined us getting together and talking about our lives. What did she make of hers after I left Keygate?
Now, I'd never get that chance.
Eleven
That night, with a glass of merlot and a bottle of vodka on my nightstand, I poured over Callie's Facebook. I scribbled notes on a yellow legal pad in my lap. I wondered how much the Keygate PD had investigated so far and if they'd found her Facebook page too.
I tipped the bottle upside down, but only a few additional drops plopped into my empty glass. I sighed, not wanting to get up for more but not wanting to stop drinking. The wine, dense with citrus and vanilla notes, was delicious, but maybe I needed something harder? I switched to vodka, hoping to mute the demons.
All I could think about was the officers saying the body had been there for a few days.
I uncovered more pictures on Callie's Facebook with captions urging people to send a message to her. However, there wasn't a URL accompanying the caption. I wondered where these gentlemen callers were supposed to go to communicate with her. Callie used her real name as part of her username instead of a fake name, which also surprised me.
In my experience, working girls almost never used their real names. Bunny, one of the street workers I often came across while on the late show, never told me her given name, but I knew it wasn’t Bunny.
Miss Bunny acted as a liaison of sorts during my time at the Ashford Police Department. No one else on the force knew the identity of my source, but Miss Bunny always came through for me. When there was a shooting, Bunny took to the alleyways and collected the whisperings from other sex workers, thugs, the homeless and drug dealers.
Whenever I needed a lead, I dropped a message in a rickety mailbox outside of an abandoned meatpacking factory on the east side of town. That was our spot. Our way of communicating without a trail. She didn't have a cell phone, but once I left her a note, I knew she'd come through and meet me when and where I'd asked.
I tried my best to uphold our bargain, too. She offered up secrets from the streets while I brought her food, water, and clothing. After a few months, Miss Bunny and I became more than a unique pair of colleagues; she and I grew to be friends.
On quiet nights, Bunny and I would sit on a bench overlooking the river just outside of town and gaze at the moonlight reflecting off the choppy surface. When she didn't have customers, and I was between cases, we'd chit chat for as long as both our jobs would allow.
"I'm fixing to get clean soon," she'd tell me. "Get a job off the streets, ya know? Maybe a place of my own to stay."
I encouraged her to do so and even offered to help draft up a resume. It was the least I could do for the woman who helped me close so many of my cases. I wished Bunny owned a cell phone at the moment. I could call her and pick her brain about Callie. Although she probably wouldn’t answer any of my calls at this point.
The last time I saw her was after I was put on leave. We met up at a seedy bar across town. When she arrived, I was more than halfway in the bag. I drank whiskey that night, which pulled the anger within me from deep inside the dregs of my soul. I had no leads on who killed Zac.
How was it in a highly populated, bustling city, no one knew a damn thing?
“Hi, Elle,” she said cautiously while she smoothed her mini skirt over her tights with multiple runs down the legs.
“Bunny,” I slurred. “I need you.”
“What can I do for ya?”
The bartender nodded to her, but she shook her head. Me, on the other hand, I asked for another double.
“You have to know something. Anything,” I begged.