“I haven’t told this to anyone, do you understand?” Felicity said. “Not even the police.” She seemed to be looking at Madison for a response.
“I understand.”
“I just—I couldn’t be sure if it was real or just a prank. An evil prank. I had been on Twitter a lot trying to get the police to investigate and to not forget about my sister. I also responded to people who were trying to help find out what happened to her. I didn’t want to tell the police about the call because I was concerned they would tell me I had to get off social media, and it is the only thing keeping my sister’s case alive … keeping her alive.”
“Yes,” Madison said.
Felicity started to cry.
Madison hated watching interrogators on TV pepper a subject with questions when they were trying to tell their story in their own way and in their own time. It caused them to lose their train of thought. You could always come back and ask questions when the person was done telling their story in their way. Madison said the fewest number of words possible, only enough to show Felicity that she was listening.
Madison waited.
Felicity cleared her throat and used a napkin to wipe under her mascaraed lashes. She took a sip of her coffee. She cleared her throat again. “The caller said, ‘I had fun with your sister. She was a good fuck. Are you a good fuck?’”
As disturbing as this was, Madison was careful not to react.
“Then he said, ‘Stop investigating me or I will hunt you down and kill you, bitch.’”
And there it is, Madison thought. The exact same language as the note left on my door.
Felicity had stopped talking.
“Did you ever hear from him again?” Madison asked.
“No,” Felicity said. She grabbed a tissue out of her purse and wiped her nose. “But I also stopped tweeting as much. I stopped … I did what he said. Because I was afraid.”
“That would make anyone afraid.”
“But I don’t want to be afraid anymore. I want to be like you and not scare easily.”
Madison sighed. “Felicity, you need to tell the police about the phone call. They are going to be unhappy that you didn’t tell them two years ago, but you need to tell them.”
“Why? They already treat me like I’m a nuisance!”
Madison decided to tell her. She explained about the note left on her door. “It was the same wording. It is clear that the person who left that note on my door is the same person who took your sister—and then called you. You can just explain to the police that you thought it was a prank call, a mean prank call but a prank call nevertheless, and that’s why you didn’t tell them at the time.”
This meant that the detectives handling the missing persons case were going to find out about the note left on Madison’s door. They would be really upset that Tom had taken the note and processed it without putting it through normal police channels. She didn’t want Tom to get in trouble, but she wasn’t going to obstruct a police investigation by not reporting this phone call that Felicity had received.
Felicity’s face was getting firmer. “No. I understand that the note on your door connects everything, but I don’t want to tell them about this phone call. It is too late for them to do anything about it now anyway. If something happens in the future and it becomes important, I will tell them.”
Madison was silent. This put her in a difficult position. She had knowledge of a crime, or at least of evidence in an active police investigation, and she had a responsibility to report it. She opened her mouth to tell Felicity that. “Felicity, I—”
Felicity stood up and put her finger in Madison’s face. “You do not have permission to tell that to anyone!”
It came out in a screech, and people at tables nearby looked over at them. Felicity’s face was bunched up, and there were tears streaming down her face. Her chin was quivering. It was the face of anguish.
“Sit down,” Madison said quietly. “I won’t say anything.”
Chapter Eight
Madison walked to her car, putting her hair in a bun as she went. She got in the car and drove home with the windows rolled down. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the temperature was a perfect seventy-five degrees, which helped to clear away her meeting with Felicity. The phone call Felicity had received was very disturbing; the fact that it showed that Madison was on the right track was only a small consolation. Madison got to a red light and leaned her head back on the headrest. There was a pretty blonde girl crossing the street, and at first Madison thought it was Gabrielle; then she realized it wasn’t. Just another beautiful girl. There were always younger, more beautiful versions of Madison in La Jolla.
She had stayed with Felicity for another hour, discussing details of the investigation the police had shared and comparing notes on tweets Felicity had sent out. The police either hadn’t shared much or there just weren’t that many leads: they had checked the main rideshare companies and “hadn’t come up with any viable evidence,” which Felicity took to mean that they didn’t feel like sharing what they had come up with. When Felicity asked about other things, they would just say, “We are pursuing all avenues.” As far as tweets, Felicity had tweeted the same things as Madison, at least up until that horrible phone call. After the call, Felicity had stopped originating her own tweets, but she couldn’t resist retweeting some of Madison’s; this made Madison more of a target, since it showed that her investigative ideas were getting picked up by others—even by those who had been warned off.
A couple that used to live in the house in front of hers waved as she turned the corner onto Nautilus. They were walking to the beach with all of the accoutrements: beach chairs, cooler, small toddler struggling to carry her boogie board. Madison often took a drive by the ocean before parking at her apartment. She liked to see the beach, but also to check to see if Dave was in the water.
After comparing notes with Felicity, Madison could see no new clues or suspects to add to her whiteboard. However, she had made progress: she knew now that at least part of the Gaslamp mystery, the disappearance of Samantha, was connected to the note left on her door. The wording on the note and Felicity’s phone call were exactly the same. Also, Madison had learned that Felicity had made friends with a waitress at Hank’s Dive, the bar where Samantha was last seen, and this waitress was trying to help in any way she could. Felicity was going to give the waitress Madison’s phone number so they could connect. Madison didn’t know how she was going to reconcile not telling the police about the phone call and now the note, both likely the work of their suspect. All she knew was that Felicity had been through so much and she didn’t want to add to it. Felicity was right about one thing—there was nothing the police could do about the phone call now. Nevertheless, Madison thought she might call her friend Haley, who was an attorney, just to get her advice.
Madison turned onto Neptune Place and drove slowly past the parking lot. There were several surfers in the lot watching the pattern of the waves before surfing. Dave had explained that they watched to see how many waves were coming in each set, how fast they were, and how they were breaking. This data was all needed to have a good surf session—and to not drown. Never turn your back on the ocean, Dave would say. That was true about a lot of things in life. Do your due diligence. Trust everyone, but cut the cards. Dave’s jeep wasn’t there.