She had met him in one of her many English classes this semester. He was smart but didn't brag about it or talk down to her. He was chivalrous in that way that most men she had known had not been, in that he opened doors and pulled out her chair for her. He was attractive but not vain like most attractive men she had met were. He told corny jokes that make her smile during the most boring lectures she had been forced to sit through.
It had been quite a while since she had allowed herself to get this close to a member of the opposite sex. She started anticipating when she would see him next and by then she knew she was a goner. So, on the behest of her best friend, she had accepted his offer of a date after having turned him down several times prior.
But that voice in the back of her head that told her constantly that she was not good enough, or smart enough, or pretty enough, told her that this guy was too good to be true.
She hated when that voice was right.
Joey Potter was sitting alone in a college restaurant, trying not to look like she had been stood up. She tried not to dwell on the fact that her first date in three years was starting out like this. She had been occupying herself for the last twenty minutes by sipping her diet coke intermittently while people watching. Campus restaurants were always full of entertainment. She tried to keep herself busy so she would not dwell on the many reasons her date had to stand her up. Or more specifically, the one reason she was sure that he had.
"This seat taken?" A blond frat-boy asks, his mates behind him trying to keep watch on them discreetly.
"No." She smiles, "feel free," She offers and she grabs her coat and leaves without much incident, leaving the blond to pay her tab.
When she got home, he was already sound asleep. She paid the sitter and then stole a look at him before heading towards her own bedroom. She slipped off her heals and sat down to log on to her computer. Her date had sent her an e-mail to let her know he couldn't make it, two minutes before he was supposed to meet her. Was it a coincidence that she had just recently told him that she had a son? She deleted it without reply, logged off, and busied herself with folding laundry.
She tried to ignore the fact that it was Friday night.
Despite everything that had happened between them, on nights like this she missed her ex. She debated calling him but decided against it. It was safer going to sleep alone.
Her handsome boy, with chocolate eyes and sandy hair, woke her up by jumping on her bed. She could faintly hear the television on in the next room playing Saturday morning cartoons. She smiled faintly as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.
"Five more minutes," She mumbled, half-heartedly, already on her way to being fully awake. She needed coffee.
"Make me cereal?" He asks, with a smile that definitely belonged to his father. It got her every time.
She slipped out from under her covers, missing their warmth as soon as she was up.
"Magic word?" She asked, pausing in her stride to the kitchen.
"Phlweeze" He muttered.
She combed her hair through with her fingers as she continued into the kitchen. She grabbed some cereal out of the cabinet; sugary empty-calories for him, boring and bland for her. She was on a diet again, thus she was always starving.
She notices the mail by the door and leafs through it, hoping to find something for her son. But her ex has conveniently forgotten to send their child a birthday card, not to mention the child support payment that is past due. Speaking of past due, the university has sent her a second notice regarding this semester's bill. She leaves the mail forgotten the kitchen counter and heads into the living room to help her son clean up his spilled cereal.
Later that morning, at the park, Joey watches her son climb the jungle gym as she sits in a sunny area and tries her best to get the shading right on her latest sketch. Her phone rings in her bag and she is sure that it is her best friend Jen wanting the details of her date that hadn't happened. She digs in her bag to find her phone and when she looks up, he is gone.
His boss had given him the details over his cell as he drove to the scene. He was already overloaded with cases and not anticipating a new one, especially a lost cause like this one seemed. A little boy had disappeared from a park in broad daylight. No witnesses. Everyone at the park had been cooperative but all seemed to have seen nothing.
He scratched under his chin, almost forgetting about his three days of beard growth until he felt it. When he pulled up to the scene, it was chaotic despite the heavy police presence. He sighed, drank the remainder of his stale coffee and shrugged into his jacket as he got out of his standard issue sedan.
He assesses the scene, a picturesque neighborhood park, complete with the smell of freshly cut grass. Most of the uniforms have finished their initial interviews of the locals and are just twiddling their thumbs waiting for a detective to arrive and give them direction. In the process they have trampled the crime scene despite their attempts not to.
He visually scans all the witnesses and none of them strike him as particularly guilty off the bat. His gut tells him that whoever took the child is long gone. His eyes find the mother quickly and he makes his way over to her, gearing himself up for the hardest part of the investigation.
Pacey feels guilty as he approaches her, knowing that he has to question her like a suspect. His gut tells him that he will be wasting precious time questioning her that he could be using assessing the collected evidence and witness statements so that the real investigation can begin, but it is standard procedure, especially in cases where there is a single parent.
He had some preliminary information on the mother, the child, the absentee father and their situation. She is a part-time college student, majoring in English, with a shitty job and hardly any support from the father of her child. Her little boy had turned three today.
He didn't really know what to expect when he laid eyes on her. But the last thing he expected was that he knew her.
Shit. This case suddenly got a little more complicated.