Queen of Nothing

14. Eighteen

Detective Avery called, like he did every year since my sister's disappearance. It was normally to check-in, and see if I'd found anything out, as if I'd withhold that information from him. 

He always made sure to call, to update me on sightings, tips that spanned the country, from coast to coast.

Although as the years passed, they grew far and few in between, until they stopped entirely. I knew not to get my hopes up, decided my heart wasn't strong enough to tolerate it. 

Yet, I still appreciated the call for it was. He wasn't calling me to tell me he'd received another tip. He was calling to make sure I was still somewhat okay.

I couldn't stay up anymore thinking about how many of those tips were real, how close we could have been to finding her. I kneaded the space above my heart, to calm the nerves. 

"Hi Detective," I answered as soon as the phone rang. 

"Hi Hon. How's everything going?" 

"You tell me," I mused.

He chortled, "Okay, okay. Just wanted to see how things were going. School okay?" 

I gave him the sparknotes summary of what happened. That was the thing about trust. Once you started being truthful, you forgot how to stop, how to remember the things you were supposed to conceal. 

"Well," he said in a breath, "A  hoping you could come down to the station sometime later, hon." 

"Station?" I frowned, "What for?" 

"Well," he started, in that fatherly tone, "we got a new tip on your sister. I'm sure it's nothing, but I wanted you to come look at it yourself, if you had the time?" 

Years ago, I would have ran to the station,  would have dropped everything to bear witness to this newfound proof. But that was years ago. I embroidered over the tear that Gia's disappearance had left in me. I never moved on, never believed I'd ever process and accept it. 

To me, Gia was alive. In Spain, or somewhere chic with a fabulous apartment and a boyfriend. 

Gia wasn't missing. Gia wasn't lost. And Gia sure as hell wasn't going to be found by some little hotline tip that I'd stopped taking seriously long ago. 

"Okay," I paused, "is it urgent? I have a lot to do today." 

"I think you should just come today," he started, his voice slower and more strained than usual, "see for yourself." 

"Oh," my heart sped up ever so slightly, "yeah, I'll be right down." 

"Okay, hon, I'll see you." 

We bade our goodbyes over the phone and I snatched my keys up, not bothering to switch out of my pajamas. Something about the urgency in his tone had shaken me, and while the rational part of me screamed not to get my hopes up, I couldn't help the panic that seized at me. 

No news was sometimes better than news. 

I sped down the street to the local police station, pounded up the steps and approached the receptionist, "Detective Avery called about a tip for my sister? Gia? Short for Gayathri Dasari?" 

She looked up at me, slow and unblinking, her name tag reading Brianna, "Yeah, he's in there. Getting out of a meeting though, so I'd wait a few." 

I leaned back from the barrier, "Okay. Just wondering if you knew what it might be about?" 

She raised her eyebrow at me, "The meeting?" 

"No, the tip." 

A moment passed, then she spoke, "I don't know much about those kinds of things. You just have to wait."