“Oh, and one more thing,” Christine said. “Because it has been short-staffed, I am looking to hire a few new team members. In the meantime, I’m just asking everyone to pull their weight. I know things have been busy for us all since Thanksgiving.”
Christine was referring to the debacle that led to her firing their sixth team member in the last staff meeting. A college guy named Ted. No one ever got the full story on it, but they could definitely feel the weight of going from six members to five.
“I’ll post the job opening online,” Peter said. “That’s how we got Molly last year.”
“Good idea, Peter,” Christine said, looking over her notes.
“This is why he’s the A.M.!” Ken cheered.
Peter laughed again.
Molly checked her watch. 10:02.
“Okay. That’s all I got. Molly, Alex, can you finish the closing duties so we can lock up in a few?”
They both confirmed.
“Is it okay if I put on the news before I go?” Peter asked. “I wanted to check the weather for tomorrow.”
Christine nodded. Peter turned on the news as Christine made her way to the back. Ken and Peter watched together as Alex and Molly started to move around the store, restocking soda and putting away the final remaining films.
“We have a story that is breaking right now as we speak…” the news anchor shared from the TV. This caused everyone to stop and look up at the screen. “After a four-day search for the teenage girl who has been missing since Sunday evening, Amy Powers has been found dead just moments ago.”
“Oh, no. No…” Molly put her hand over her mouth as tears instantly poured out. Alex stopped what he was doing and came over next to Molly. The news story showed a picture of Molly’s classmate on the screen. There she was. Seeing her picture made Molly shake. She’d seen that exact photo of Amy before in her yearbook on her bedroom shelf. “Alex, how…we just saw her at school last week…” Molly’s tears stopped her from being able to say anything else. She buried her face in Alex’s shoulder. “I just saw her…”
“After a town-wide search and rescue efforts ceased earlier this morning, her body was found by a local citizen in the back of Wilson Park. The story is still unfolding. More details to come as we learn more.”
“Molly, I’m so sorry,” Alex said. It was the first time she’d ever hugged him.
“I’m sorry, Molly. Did you guys know her?” Peter asked.
“Yeah.” Alex said. “She went to school with us.”
“I think she was a customer here, too,” Ken added from the counter. Everyone looked back at him. “I’m just saying…I’ve definitely seen that girl in the store before.”
It was all too surreal.
Alex and Molly stayed locked onto the screen as the news anchors reacted to the fresh story. You could feel their raw emotion as they tried their best to tackle such an unfamiliar and tragic story. The news had broken on Sunday night that Amy had gone missing. On Monday at school, the administration was starting to go crazy. They had special announcements in every class about her. And the police were there, questioning all of her closest friends, including Molly. Of course, that just made things worse.
Parents started to get worked up when they found out their teenagers were being grilled in the middle of class as possible suspects to the crime.
Maybe in other areas, this story would not have had such a ripple effect. But in a zip code where everyone at least knows of everyone else, the story cut deep. Even in the police department that tried their best to keep people calm. But it was an uphill battle, especially on social media feeds. Posts were everywhere.
Prayers for Amy.
Amy, if you’re out there, come home.
Special search party in downtown Pecos at 8 p.m. tonight.
And then it started to get out of hand. And inappropriate. Like most things do on social media with teenagers. Molly had to stop looking at her phone the past few days.
I heard she was cheating on her boyfriend anyway.
Missing? More like ‘no one misses her.’
Amy was a SL&% anyway.
And now she was gone. Just like that.
As the five staff members were glued to the TV, there was an eerie quiet feeling in the store. No one knew what to say. Each one quietly reminisced about the last time they interacted with Amy and what they remembered about her. Even Christine had stopped what she was doing to watch the news story.
The broadcast showed a picture of the Powers family. Everyone knew them, since her dad was the town’s electrical inspector and the owner of the most prominent electrical repair company in town. He’d been in Movie Madness multiple times to help restore their electricity, and never asked for a dime. All he asked for in return were free rentals for his family that weekend.
Why would somebody do this? Especially to a teenage girl who had her whole life ahead of her, just months from graduation. Molly was too distraught to even move. Alex kept his arm around her as she continued to shake.
“Do they know…who did it?” Alex asked. “I mean, it’s been five days since she went missing. They have to have something. Some type of lead. Do they know anything?”
By this time, the news had moved on to the next story, leaving Alex’s question lingering in the air. It left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth, like morning breath.
Who would do something like this?
And are they done, or just getting started?
3
Day After
Friday, December 17 - 12:50 P.M.
“How are you feeling?” Alex asked via text. It was the first time he’d ever texted Molly about something that didn’t have to do with work schedule.
Now Friday afternoon, the school day was almost over and Alex hadn’t seen Molly all day. The two usual times that they intersect during class change, she wasn’t there. Alex started to worry after she wasn’t in the lunchroom in her typical seat with the other brainiacs.
Alex looked down at his phone as he devoured the rest of his fries. No answer. He wanted to help her, but didn’t want to come off as obnoxious by being the guy that kept texting her while she grieved the loss of a friend. Alex shoved the phone in his pocket and tried to think about anything else.
The whole school day had a weird funk to it. If it weren’t finals week, they would’ve probably canceled it altogether. But canceling now meant throwing off the whole finals schedule. Which, in turn, meant throwing off the whole schedule for January.
Plus, what was the point? The school counselor reminded the students in an assembly that morning that a big part of the grieving process was learning to move forward in the new reality of Amy not being there. Moving forward was key.
At this point, Alex’s concern wasn’t about Amy. It was about Molly. He already couldn’t sleep the night before, wondering how she was taking the news.
When he finally left the parking lot the night before, she was still a wreck. Everyone else had cleared out, but they stayed around talking until well after 11. The only business still open was Pizza Zone. Its obnoxious neon sign glowed in the near distance as Molly became more vulnerable than usual.
“I just keep thinking…what if I’m next?” she whispered, peering out the window as if someone was lurking.