Mean Girls Missing

12

April 14

3:13 pm

Monica

I received late word around the campus that there was a search meeting right after my class ended. I drove directly from school to the police station and joined the mass amounts of people waiting. Luckily, thanks to my lead foot, I had gotten there before they started talking.

The redhead with the big tummy was back. He took the steps up to podium and greeted everyone with the palm of his hand. The chatter quieted down to hear what he had to say.

"For the last three weeks, our community has been in agonizing pain," Sheriff Arnold stated. "We have been giving our all and coming up short no matter where we turn. Our team is working with the rest of the state to find these girls. We are working twenty four hours a day on this case. It is at the top of the list right now, especially with how much time has passed between the James twins' disappearance and today. We assure everyone we are doing everything in our power to bring our girls back to us."

I noticed that slight turn of his lip at the end of his sentence. Something about his sentence... it just didn't seem right. Maybe Sheriff Arnold was a bit anxious about speaking to everybody. After all, they had been put under tremendous pressure as the news outlets and the people began to demand where the girls had gone and what they were doing to bring them back. Still, it just rubbed me the wrong way and I continued to keep my eye on him throughout the day.

"And now, Detective Josiah with the latest information."

I found it odd that the man in charge wasn't the one declaring what evidence, or lack thereof, they had found. He stepped down and allowed that chocolate eye candy to use the microphone.

"Hello everybody. We want to thank you again for coming out and giving us a hand when we need it. It is really so nice to see so many faces here today willing to help, so thank you." Detective Josiah continued to read off the paper in front of him. "We are working to keep the public as up to date as we can as new information comes in. We have reached out to several individuals and brought many in for questioning within these last few weeks. Stephanie and Samantha's parents were located on vacation in the Caribbean Islands where they were notified of their daughter's disappearance. They were unaware that anything had happened to their children and have continued to work with police to get all these stones turned.

"We received tips from many students at the university. The Bloomington Falls Police Department is now publicly declaring most of the individuals brought in for questioning are no longer possible suspects. We do not believe college students were at the hands of this tragedy. We are more than likely looking at some kind of foul play and are still reaching out to find more information."

That reminded me of Lola. She had gotten back several hours later, around noon, and told me all the details. I was hoping I wouldn't have to ask her to bring it up but luckily for me, Lola loved to talk and gossip. Now my radar was tuned in and I was ready to hear it.

They were questioning her about the incident at the party, as expected. She told them what she told me. She hadn't done anything with Sammi's boyfriend – which was a blatant lie, I remember the night she brought him home because Sammi might've shown up at his – and didn't know why they were attacking her. They told her why she was a probable suspect. The police contacted me to verify she had arrived to the apartment at a specific time after the party. It sounded correct so I agreed with her.

Lola wasn't capable of kidnapping. Or murder. Or paying anybody to do either of those things to the twins. It didn't matter how much she hated them.