No Longer a Daddy's Girl [Christian Fiction]

Part 5 - Police visit

Grayson sat in his living room, enjoying a bowlful of black-eyed peas, which he ate with nothing else. He did this mostly to save money, but also to avoid having a heavy meal on his stomach just before his shift started at ten p.m. The TV was on, tuned to a game show that Grayson didn't ordinarily watch, but it served to assuage some of the loneliness he felt. It was a different type of loneliness, not the same as the loneliness he had experienced when his daughter started hanging out with her friends more and more. No, he had gotten used to that type, because he knew she was always coming home. This loneliness carried with it a crushing hopelessness, always poking him with the threat that the person he loved most in the world he would never see again. If he could just talk to her, he would feel so much better. But those thoughts carried with them the inevitable solution that was so easy to engineer, yet counteracted his spiritual mandate. But what if he was wrong? What if Pastor and First Lady Abelson's outcome was not meant to be his? What if God wanted him to search out Lonette with all the gusto he could muster? What harm could it do to make a few well-placed phone calls, find her, and talk with her, if only for a moment?

Meh.

He had learned long ago that sometimes the best solutions to a problem fly in the face of human reasoning. Pastor Abelson and his wife waited on God. Maybe that was God's will for him as well.

An hour later, just as he had gone upstairs to prepare for work, his doorbell rang. Thinking it may be his daughter, he pulled a T-shirt over his naked torso and ran downstairs with the urgency of an Olympian. When he opened the door, the person standing there looked nothing like his daughter.

The pudgy man produced a badge from the inside pocket of his sports coat. "Detective Crump. D.C. Police. He head-pointed to someone behind him in the shadows. "This is Detective Harris. Can we come in?"

Two D.C. policemen showing up at his door sent his mind whirling, and worry quickly set in. Why were these policemen here? Did this have anything to do with Lonette?

Grayson opened the door wider and allowed the cops to come inside. As they entered the home, Detective Crump noticed the worried look on Grayson's face. "You needn't be nervous, sir. You haven't done anything wrong."

"I know I haven't," Grayson responded. "But I wonder why you're here."

"You have a daughter named Lonette?"

Oh, Jesus, this is about Lonette. Grayson felt his body tense. What about Lonette would send two D.C. detectives out of their jurisdiction to knock on his door? "Yes, I have a daughter named Lonette."

"Is she here?"

The tension in Grayson's body deflated. She had not met with foul play, or the detectives would not have asked that question.

"No, she isn't here."

Detective Harris spoke for the first time. "Do you know where we can find her?"

"No, I haven't spoken to her in a few months. Is she in some kind of trouble?"

As Grayson asked the question, Detective Harris moved over to the digital telephone sitting on an end table. He studied the blue light coming from the monitor on the front of the phone.

"We just need to ask her some questions about a case we're investigating," Detective Crump said, trying unsuccessfully to draw Grayson's eyes away from the cop now meticulously examining the phone. "She's not in any trouble."

"Case? What case?" Grayson returned his gaze back to Detective Crump after Detective Harris had abandoned his search for whatever he was looking for on Grayson's phone.

"Afraid we can't discuss that." Detective Crump reached into his lapel pocket for a business card. "You sure you don't know your daughter whereabouts?"