Chenford Story

27

Angela's POV

I went back to LA after my week was up. Wesley still seemed unconvinced of my excuse that I was going to Seattle just because I wanted a break. He knew I loved hotter climates.

I ran the plate when I returned to the station. Apparently I didn't have enough jurisdiction to do it in Seattle. Lets see.......
I just sat in my officer for hours, looking up and down everything. Slowly as people had started realising that Lucy wasn't coming home, they stopped caring about her. In their eyes she was a spoiled brat who left of her own free will.

I saw how completely devastated she looked leaving that hospital. How terrified she looked on CCTV every time we got close to finding her. She was running away from something. Avoiding the problem. Like she had avoided the problem with Emmet until she was practically dying.

I was going to find her. If it was the last thing I did.

Lucy's POV

Four and a half months, 20 weeks. Halfway through my pregnancy. Every day I thought about me options. Writing them all down. Crossing out one after another. Convincing myself that one was best, and them the other, then the third. Each seemed to be an impossible option.

I needed to make the right choice. At this point my decisions were going to affect an entire nother person, a baby. My baby. I didn't want to make I wrong decision, I couldn't afford to make the wrong decision because when I did there would be no turning back. No walking up to people I hadn't seen in over half a year and taking back my baby.

I wondered over the decision for days, weeks. Every moment I was either working or thinking about it, often both. I slept a lot. It reminded me of the hospital, when I was asleep I had control. My brain could switch off for once. I could tell Tamara was getting worried about me. I hadn't tried to self harm again. I couldn't, for my baby. I hated that after my baby was born I would be able to use that to stop myself. Not as much anyway.

"Hey Luce?" I looked up from my work to see Tamara walking into my room, hands fiddling nervously.
"Yeah tam?" I was already overthinking everything she could possibly want to talk to me about.
"I-i think you need help"
I sighed. I knew Tamara cared to much about me to let me rot in self pity forever.
"Yeah......"
Admitting that was easy, that I needed help, I could lie to Tamara about as effectively as I could Angela. The hard part was accepting the help.

"I think you should go to counselling or therapy"
I nodded and looked back at the case files I had spent days pouring over. That girl was still missing. Last seen by her boyfriends sister a day before she as reported missing. I desperately felt like I was missing something. If I missed anything....... that girl's life was in my hands. I couldn't let her, or her family, down.

She was 22, last seem driving with her boyfriend's sister in her red Maserati six days ago. She had dropped off the sister, left to drive home and hadn't been seen since. Something had happened between driving there and home. But what? Surely if she had crashed something would have been found. A red Maserati doesn't exactly blend in?

So something else had happened. Kidnapping? possibly. Running away? Hopefully. I gulped. So this, this pain and loss was what i had put my friends through. No knowing if I was dead or alive.
God I was a terrible person.

I just sobbed until Tamara came in and hugged me. Her embrace was just like Tim's, safe, comforting. Happy.
I looked up his social media again. Starting with Instagram. One photo, with a caption.