Stan peered out of his office door and lifted his hand slightly in the air, motioning to Mary, who was busy bickering with Marshall about the purpose of life. Mary looked over at Stan leaning on the frame of his office door with his arms crossed. Mary ignored Stan, and decided to finish her argument with Marshall first.
"Mary! I need to see you in my office," Stan interrupted.
Mary cracked a smile at Marshall. "I am not finished with this yet. Don't worry I'll be back," she said walking away. Mary followed Stan and sat down in a chair across in front of him. "What did I do this time?" she asked him.
"You haven't done anything, I just got off the phone with the Grady's. I think we may have a security breach." The look on his face was grim.
"What do you mean?"
"The girls haven't been home in a few days; no one has heard from them since Monday."
"Are you kidding me? I can't believe this. Two minors, not to mention the fact that they are my witnesses, go missing and no one called me?"
"Mary, I just got the call about two minutes ago-" Before Stan could finish, Mary stormed out of the office, and out the front door towards the elevator.
Marshal looked at Stan, confused.
"What's her problem?" Marshall asked.
"Missing witnesses, she should be calling you in a minute. Go ahead and meet her at the car."
Marshall took his phone off his side, and put it on his desk beside him.
"I'm sure she's already gone. I'll do a check, and then call her. I think this is going to be better than our debate on why the chicken crossed the road," Marshall said scooting closer to his computer.
"To get to the other side," Stan offered as he walked back into his office.
Mary waited about three minutes between phone calls. She was calling her witnesses back to back, and it sent to voice mail every time.
"Damn it," she cursed at the traffic ahead of her, in a hurry to get to her witnesses' home. Finally Mary called once again, but this time left a message.
"Laura, it's Mary. You need to call me right now. I need to know where you are and why you haven't been home." She closed the phone angrily and sighed again at the traffic.
"It's about time." Mary said to herself when her phone rang as she pulled into the driveway. "Where the hell are you?" she asked, answering the phone, not wasting any time to look to see who was calling.
"Don't yell at me, I didn't piss in your cornflakes this morning," Marshall cut back.
"Marshall, please I need names, places, shoe sizes, dress sizes, boyfriends, friends, parents of the friends. Anything you can get me. I need to find my witnesses."
"Will do. I have a question for you though. Do you know Billy Zolock?"
"Who?"
"That answers my question. Billy is the boyfriend of one of your witnesses."
"Which one?"
"Amanda," Marshall paused. "The feisty one."
"Oh great, what's wrong with him?"
"Other than the fact that he is almost 22, he is a known drug dealer. He has a huge record; you're probably going to need it. So I will go ahead and print it out for you." Marshall said, secretly hoping for a little acknowledgment.
"That's just great; it'll be like talking to a brick wall. See if you can get me a number. I'm at the Grady's house now. Call you later."
Mary hung up her phone without giving Marshall a chance to respond.
About fifteen miles away from Albuquerque, Laura and Amanda loaded their bags into the car, and checked out of the hotel.
"Amanda, we have 25 missed calls from Mary," Laura said to her younger sister.
"So, what does she want?" Amanda replied rolling her eyes.
"She wants us to call her, and she's mad."
"So, what? What does she expect us to do, call her when we have no cell phone service? Just turn the phone off. We'll be home in like, twenty minutes. We can call her then."
"What if she knows our secret?"
"She doesn't know; stop being a chicken and drive."
Laura and Amanda pulled onto their street. Before Laura parked the car, she noticed Mary's car in the driveway.
"Great, it's the Marshal Service." Amanda said sarcastically.
"What do we do? What do we tell her?"
"Just forget her and drive, let's just not talk to her."
"Amanda, we'll have to go talk to her eventually. We need a story, quick." Laura said pulling into the driveway.
Amanda rolled her eyes, and looked out the window at Mary's car, and then turned back to Laura with an idea.
Okay, we'll make up something up… like, we went to Becky's house. We'll cause a scene and they'll be more confused than ever. We'll get grounded and break the rules again."
"What if they call Becky?"
"I don't know, I don't know anyone by the name of Becky. Do you?" Amanda winked at her sister and got out of the car.
"We're going to get in so much trouble for this."