Orburn is a small town with a dark secret.
One group of friends want to find out what it is.
[ status: applications closed! ]
STARTED: MARCH 24, 2019
COMPLETED: ?
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MAY 18, 1984
THE BOTTOM OF IT was that someone in the town had gone missing. After the Porter case, everyone was on edge and started their search efforts as soon as the disappearance was reported. The Orburn Police were not taking any more chances. They were determined not to lose anyone again.
Jude had plopped herself onto the counter by the stove where her father was waiting for water to boil. He glanced over to her before reaching for a box of spaghetti. She grabbed it from his hands and flipped it over a few times.
"So the woods yesterday?" she asked, ripping the top of the box off.
Her father rolled his eyes and sighed but started to explain the situation. She snapped the pasta in half and placed it into the boiling water as he talked about the missing person report that had been filed the previous night. He stirred the pasta for a couple of minutes while stating the station's new priorities when it came to missing people, especially after the Porter case, which Jude understood. And as he strained the noodles, he finally brought his own mindset into the discussion.
"The station can't--I can't--lose anyone else in Orburn."
Jude had nodded and set the table. Dinner was quiet from then on out, but Jude's mind was racing with questions a million miles a minute. Something was off, even if only a little.
After the basement incident, she wasn't sure her father would be honest about his work going forward, and it bothered her. She finished her pasta and salad before excusing herself to her room.
Something wasn't sitting right in her stomach, and it wasn't her father's mediocre cooking. She huffed and took a seat at her desk. A missing person report was a pretty standard procedure, and she had read hundreds of old reports from her father's position with the NYPD. He knew that she had read them too, it wouldn't make any sense for her father to hide anything from her.
Unless it was more than just a missing person case.
Maybe they knew the reason the man had gone missing and decided to hide it from the town? Maybe the man wasn't missing and they decided to respect his wishes by not being able to "find him?" There were endless inside-job opportunities that Jude didn't want to think about.
This was her father. He's been a positive and trusting force in her life for as long as she can remember. He had been an outstanding cop back in the city and had once received a medal for his efforts. He knew what he was doing and Jude refused to think that he could have gotten swept up in a web of corruption and deceit.
