The One Who Got Away

 

‘If you love something, set it free.
If it doesn't come back, hunt it down
and kill it – ha-ha, that is so true!'

Tweet posted by Loren Wynne-Estes

 

I
was sitting on the balcony of my little apartment with my iPad on my lap and my bare feet up on the rails, when my dad called to say: ‘Molly? Can you come over?'

I said: ‘Sure, what's up?'

‘Come,' he said. ‘Just come.'

‘Is it Mom?' I asked, as I made my way to the bedroom to find a dress to pull over my bikini.

‘Your mom's fine. Just please hurry.'

‘Well, is it Gran?' I said, because Gran had senile dementia and we were all waiting – we were all ready – for something to happen to Gran, but then it couldn't be Gran because Dad would just have said, ‘It's Gran'.

So I tried again: ‘Please, Dad, just tell me. What's happened?'

‘Just hurry, Molly,' said Dad, his voice tense. ‘Please. Just come now.'

‘Okay, I'm coming,' I said, but Dad had already hung up.

My apartment building is pretty old, and the elevator can be oh-so-slow and temperamental, so I had to press and press the button to get the thing to come, and then when it finally did, I had to press and press the inside buttons to get down and out and into the garage and into my car and on the road to Dad's
place. It's not far. We both lived on the Low Side of Bienveneda, a town on the Californian coast.

What did I see when I got to Dad's?

A police car, parked right out the front. Also two kids, legs straddling their bikes, stopped dead in the street, staring.

I swerved my car into the driveway and bolted up the path. I grew up in this house, and still have keys, but I banged on the door, expecting Dad to come and open it. But the person who came to the door wasn't Dad: it was a female police officer who introduced herself as Officer Callie Croft of the Bienveneda Sheriff's Office.

Dad was standing in the sitting room with a second police officer whose name I did not catch but who was sitting next to Mom's kooky lamp that looks like a lady's leg in a fishnet stocking.

‘Where's Mom?' I said.

‘Your mom's out, seeing Gran,' said Dad.

I felt sick. ‘Dad, why are the police here? What's happened?'

‘We've had some bad news. It's Loren.'

Loren is my big sister. Technically, she's my
step
sister, since she is Dad's daughter from his first marriage, but that's not important.

‘What's happened to her?'

‘You tell her,' said Dad, addressing the police officers.

Callie cleared her throat. ‘Well, she's missing.'

‘Missing?'

‘Off the boat,' said Dad.

He was standing with his meaty, freckled arms folded across his chest, his expression all defiant, like he was being asked to swallow something fishy.

‘No, that can't be right,' I said.

‘Of course it can't,' said Dad.

I moved a pile of newspapers off the sofa and sat down.

‘Loren's on a cruise,' I said. ‘I made the booking. It's like a second honeymoon for her, with her husband, David. They're aboard the
Silver Lining
, off the coast of Mexico …'

The two-way radio on Callie's shoulder crackled. She reached up to silence it. ‘I understand that,' she said, ‘and we got a call this morning to say a US citizen was missing, off a cruise ship off the coast of Mexico. And the name we were given was Loren Wynne-Estes, and I understand that your father is next of kin?'

‘This is crazy,' I said. ‘Loren's missing? But where is David?'

‘David is fine,' said Callie, as if that might be a relief to us. ‘He raised the alarm. As I understand it, he woke this morning to find Loren gone.'

‘But how can that be?' I said.

Callie reached into her top pocket, and withdrew a business card.

‘You've probably got a lot of questions,' she said, handing the card to me. ‘The lady who called us this morning, her name is Gail Perlot. She's with the US embassy in Mexico. Here's her number. You can call her, and she'll be able to help with things like how to handle the media attention.'

‘Media attention?' said Dad. ‘What do you mean, media attention?'

‘With a case like this – when you've got somebody missing off a cruise ship – there's often media interest,' said Callie, ‘and Loren … doesn't she have young twins here in Bienveneda? David's worried about them being mobbed by the media when the story leaks out.'

I was agog. ‘That's what he said? That he's concerned about the media, not about Loren?'

‘That's the message we were given,' Callie said apologetically. ‘He wants his girls taken somewhere safe before the media turns up. And he wanted us to tell you what's going on so you can get out of town, too.'

That was too much for Dad. ‘In case we want to get out of town? My daughter's missing off a ship and her husband thinks we might want to get out of town? I don't get it. Why would we want to get out of town?'

Callie looked like she didn't get it either. ‘I wish I could answer these questions, Mr Franklin, but what you really need to do is call the lady whose details are on that card. She's the one who can help.'

* * *

‘This number doesn't look right to me,' said Dad, as soon as the police left.

He had taken Callie's card and was examining the writing on the back.

‘Show me,' I said, taking the card from him. ‘That's a Mexican cell-phone number. It's okay. I know how to do it.'

We went out to the patio, where the cell-phone signal was strongest. I put the phone on speaker and placed it on the patio table. It hesitated, like phones do when you're dialling abroad, but then a woman picked up, saying: ‘Gail Perlot.'

I nudged Dad to talk. He shook his head, like
No, you talk
, so I said: ‘Hello, Ms Perlot. My name is Molly Franklin. I'm Loren Franklin's … I mean, I'm Loren Wynne-Estes' sister. I'm here with our dad. We were given your number … The police are telling us that Loren is missing.'

Gail's voice came back crackly. The line was terrible.

‘Yes, and I'm sorry,' she said, ‘the information you have is correct. We do have information that Loren is missing off the cruise ship the
Silver Lining
…'

‘But how can that be?' Dad said angrily.

There was a pause on the line. We couldn't tell if that was because of the bad line or because Gail was choosing her words carefully. Eventually she said: ‘We're not entirely sure what's happened but I've spoken to David. It seems they attended the Captain's Dinner last night and then returned to their cabin, and when David woke at around five this morning, Loren wasn't there. He went looking for her but couldn't find her. He called her cell phone but it didn't respond. He tried the dining room, where the breakfast is served. At some point, he expressed concern to a member of the crew, who put a call out over the loudspeaker but there was no response.'

‘And what happened then? Did they stop the ship?' I asked.

‘They did,' said Gail. ‘You probably know, it takes some time to stop a cruise ship but they did stop and a head count was done, and that's when I suppose they confirmed it, that Loren was definitely not on board.'

I waited for more but it seemed that Gail was finished.

In the vacuum, I said: ‘Gail, sorry, this is Molly again. It was me who booked Loren onto that ship … it's not a huge ship, is it? I mean, how far did she fall? Maybe she's still out there, in the water?'

Gail's voice crackled back. ‘No, it's not a huge ship and we – or rather, the authorities here in Mexico – have been out searching the water for Loren but …' Gail had paused a second time.

‘But?'

‘But to be honest, the likelihood of somebody surviving such a fall and especially when we don't really know when she fell …'

‘You don't know when? But how can that be?' I said. ‘Don't they have any surveillance?'

‘They do,' said Gail. ‘But not a Man Overboard system. This particular ship – most ships, in fact – don't have them. They aren't foolproof. They can be set off by birds – it's really expensive if you have to stop a ship every time there's a false alarm, so most ships, they don't have them.'

‘Okay, but surely they have cameras,' I said.

‘They do have cameras,' said Gail, ‘although my understanding – and I'm not an expert – is that the cameras don't cover the whole ship. I mean, how could you do that? You just can't. But yes, there are some cameras, but at this stage, we – or rather they, meaning the representatives of the company that owns the
Silver Lining
– are still going through the footage and, as of half an hour ago, there was no sign of Loren.'

This was more than Dad could take. He pushed his chair back, strode away from the patio table and let out a wild cry.

‘I am so sorry,' said Gail. ‘This is terrible news to have to pass on. And I know that David wants to speak to you as soon as he lands back in the US …'

‘Wait,' I said. ‘He's coming
home
?'

‘I believe so,' said Gail.

‘But doesn't he think there might be a
chance
that she's alive? And don't the police need to speak to him?'

‘Well, there are a number of different types of police down here. There's the
Federales
– that's the federal police – and there's the
Policia Turistica
– that's the tourist police – and they've spoken to David …'

‘Spoken to him!' said Dad, slamming a fist down on the table, making the phone jump. ‘This is just crazy. They have to do more than speak to him. You can't let him leave. You have to arrest him.'

The phone sat silently on the little table between us. Had Gail hung up? No. She was still there, and her tone remained sympathetic. ‘I can hear how upset you are, but please understand, Mr Franklin, we are not the police. We are the embassy. We don't conduct investigations. This is not the United States. This is Mexico … and if police here don't feel they have a reason to hold David, there isn't much we can do.'

* * *

Dad and I had finished our call with Gail and were sitting on opposite sides of the patio table, trying to get our heads around the things she had said.

‘We have to go to Mexico,' said Dad. ‘We have to get down there.'

‘What are we going to do in Mexico?' I said. ‘David's already talking about coming back.'

‘I don't care about David,' cried Dad. ‘Can't you see what's happened? David's not like us, Molly. He's got money. Money means power. He's already off the boat. He'll be on his way home soon. He's going to hire a fancy lawyer, and pay who he needs to pay to sweep this under the carpet. We can't let that happen. We have to go there. We have to talk to the other passengers. We have to find out what the search crews are doing. Maybe we can even get one of those high-speed power boats like the lifesavers use …'

‘Right,' I said, ‘but how quickly could we even get there? And what about the girls?' I added, meaning Loren's girls. The twins. Peyton and Hannah. Hannah and Peyton. They hadn't been on the cruise with Loren, because it's not really a second honeymoon when two five-year-olds come along for the ride, is it? So the girls had stayed behind, in Bienveneda, with David's sister, Janet.

Why with Janet, and not with me?

That had been Loren's idea.

‘Janet has offered to move in while we're away, to take care of them,' she'd said.

‘But she doesn't even like kids,' I'd said. ‘Why don't you let them stay with me? There's a pool in my building. They've got a whole box of those foam noodle things. I'd love to have them.'

But Loren had said: ‘No, no. It's nice of you, Molly, but …'

‘But?'

‘But going to and from school, the traffic on the bridge, Low Side to High Side and back again, is just awful …'

It wasn't the traffic.

Loren didn't want the girls to stay with me because I lived on the wrong side of town. I'd been upset about it, but that was no longer important.

‘I can't even imagine what he's going to tell them,' I said.

‘We can't worry about that. We have to start making plans to get to Mexico as fast as we can.'

‘Okay, Dad. Let me think. Even if we leave now, by the time we get to the airport … I mean, there's just no way to get there before tomorrow.'

‘Then we go tomorrow,' cried Dad, ‘and for now, let's think of who else to call to make sure they're searching properly. The police? There must be police we can talk to there?'

‘Okay,' I said. ‘Okay. We'll go. But right now, I want to go to Loren's house. I want to go and see if I can catch those girls before Janet takes them God knows where and tells them God knows what. You call Mom. Tell her what's happened. I'll go now and then I'll race by my flat to get some stuff together, and we'll go tomorrow.'

Dad nodded. I got up, kissed his forehead, and went out the front door, to get into my car. The boys on their bikes had gone, but I was fairly sure I saw the curtains in a window across the street move.

Stickybeak neighbours. You can't blame them, I suppose.

* * *

I got across the bridge as quickly as I could, but if I'd been thinking that I could pull up outside Loren's house without anyone noticing, I was mistaken.

The media had set up camp outside her front gate. Among the vehicles were two satellite trucks. I recognised one woman – white blazer, pink lips, coiffed hair – from the local news.

The story was out. But were the twins still home? I didn't know. Loren's garage requires a clicker and I didn't have one, so I parked on the street, and began walking towards the tall, stone gate pillars.