Rude Awakenings: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 2)

Chapter Fourteen: Lauren, Sunday

"Daddy!" she cried when Toshiro Hasegawa picked up the phone with a clunk; Mom and Dad still had a land line, still had a receiver attached to its base by a cord. She could still remember when she was tethered to the kitchen phone and couldn't escape to her bedroom to chat privately with Joe and exchange sweet nothings. That clunking comforted her, connected her to her dad, solid and strong. He would know what to do.

"Lauren-chan, what is it?" Even in her forties, he still used the same endearing suffix after her name as he had when she was a child, and it made her cry harder.

"Daddy, are Tosh and Naomi in the room with you?"

"No, they're outside playing."

"Good. I can't have them eavesdropping."

"Lauren, what's up? You're scaring me."

"Daddy, Joe's gone, and I can't find him!" she wailed.

"Gone?" he asked. "What do you mean, gone? Did he walk out on you?"

Dad's first assumption was that Joe had gotten angry at her and left. She didn't know what to make of that, and she wasn't even sure it was untrue, and which of those two things made her feel worse about herself?

"No," she said, sniffling. "At least, I don't think so."

"What happened?"

"I don't even know! Something happened last night, Al and I are still trying to piece it together..."

"The party last night?" he asked. "At Al and Rachel's?"

"Yes."

"We talked to you on the phone last night, while you were at the party. You asked us to let Toshiro and Naomi sleep over."

"Yes, and thank you again. I'm so sorry, Daddy, but I don't even remember making that call."

Dad grunted in surprise. "You don't remember?"

"No."

"Well, to be fair, we called you, to see if you would be much longer. You talked to your mother, and you said good night to your children and reassured them you would see them in the morning because poor Toshiro-kun was feeling anxious."

God, she felt terrible. She wasn't being the mother she needed to be, right now. Poor Tosh, always so sensitive. Naomi she could count on to be strong, like her grandfather, but she wouldn't stay strong for much longer. She should go back, collect them into her arms and never let them go, but their father was missing, and if she returned without him that would be the first thing they would ask about.

"Your mother thought, from the cadence of your speech, that you maybe had a little too much to drink, but you were enjoying yourself and wanted to stay longer," he continued, "and that you would come for the kids in the morning because you might return too late to collect them before their bedtime."

"Huh. Yeah, I guess. I don't remember. At some point in the night Joe and Rachel left Rachel and Al's apartment. We don't know why, and we only have a few text messages and a voicemail from Rachel to give us any idea. I think... I think something bad happened, to them and to us, and I don't know what to do! We're here in Abbotsford..."

"Abbotsford? Why there?"

She sighed in exasperation. "Because we traced Joe's phone here! But we haven't found it yet and there's no sign of him or Rachel!"

Dad cleared his throat and said, "Lauren-chan, I hesitate to bring this up, because I don't want to imply anything, but have you considered the possibility that Joe and Rachel left together because they wanted some... privacy?"