Jessica Sorensen: The Probability of Violet and Luke

As I’m in the middle of this thought, my phone starts to vibrate from inside my pocket. I quickly turn down the music and take out my phone, letting out a breath of relief when I see the screen. “It’s the detective,” I tell Luke and he nods, looking as nervous as me.

“Please say you can tell me now,” I say as I put the phone up to my ear.

“I can, but it’s both good and bad news,” he tells me, sounding a bit disheartened. “The good news is I finally got that warrant to search Mira Price’s home. And we found something that could be potentially useful but we’ll still need to run some DNA tests right now to confirm.” He gives a long pause. “And then there’s the bad news. Two bad newes actually.”

“That’s not even a word.” I make a joke to attempt to hide my true feelings. That I’m excited and terrified at the same time. They might have evidence. My parents might finally have justice.

Luke gives me a concerned sideways glance as he steers the truck down the freeway. “Is everything okay?” he whispers.

I shrug and whisper back, “I’ll let you know in a minute.”

“Well, I’m declaring it a word for this conversation,” he says and then sighs, losing all humor. “The first bad news is that Mira is MIA and from talking to the neighbors and landlord, she’s been gone for a while.”

I glance over at Luke, wondering if he might know where she is. “So what does that mean exactly?”

“It means that even if we can make the arrest, we have to find her first.”

I want to hit something. Scream until my lungs burst. This isn’t fair! This isn’t fair. God dammit! “And what’s the second thing?” My voice shakes as my pulse hammers.

It takes him a second or two to answer and when he does, he sounds reluctant. “We found out who’s been sending those texts to you… We tracked the calls to Preston Parkington, the guy you’ve been living with.”

“What?” I exclaim, ready to bombard him with questions and Luke’s head whips in my direction. “But that’s not even possible… how could he… I don’t get it…” What the hell? Is this my punishment? For messing up?

“It gets worse,” Detective Stephner says. “Due to the threatening material in the text, we were in the right to go to his house and question him, but the trailer had been vacated when we got there.”

“But he was just living there a few days ago... I was there… I saw him.” My heart is thrashing in my chest, my pulse soaring a million miles a minute and I hate the adrenaline rush inside me right now, so much. “He has to be doing this to get back at me, because I left.”

“That’s what I thought too, but then I started doing some research on him, a background check and what not and found out a few things that have brought up a big concern.”

“Like what?”

“Like he has a record. The fact that he changed his name about fourteen years ago. He used to go by Danny Huntersonly.”

“But why would he change his name?” I shake my head, trying to ignore Luke’s worried look boring into the side of my head. “And why would child services ever let him take me in?”

“Well, technically the papers state that his girlfriend took you in. A Kelley Arlingford was registered with the state to foster parent.”

“Kelley was his wife.” I grip the door handle for support because I’m veering toward hyperventilation and feel like I’m going to pass out. “When she introduced him to me, she said Preston was her husband and then they got divorced and Preston was talking about how a while ago she was getting remarried.” As soon as I say it though, I know there’s a huge flaw. Because most of my information comes from Preston, so therefore there’s a chance almost everything could be a lie.

“Well, she was lying to you then and the state apparently,” he says. “In your records, Kelley lived alone and the state didn’t even know about Preston, at least from the reports. It’s kind of a flaw in the system I guess, not making sure there was no one living with her. But when children get to be that old… and there’s so maybe of them… sometimes they slip through the cracks.”

He’s telling me stuff I already know, since I lived in those cracks for years. “Did Kelley know about Preston? I mean, did she know about his name change and past?”

“I don’t know, but we’re going to try and find out.” Another pause. “There’s more.”

“Oh God.” My head falls forward and Luke’s hand slides across the seat, his fingers lace through mine, and I hold onto him for dear life. “I don’t think I can take anymore.”

“You need to hear this,” the detective says. “You need to understand the severity.”

“Fine.” I clutch onto Luke’s hand so tightly I’m sure it hurts. “Go head.”

“Did you know Preston had a secret room under his house.”

“Yeah… well, no…” Shit. What do I say? That I knew he kept drugs there. “Well, he kept it locked but I knew that it existed.”

“I figured you didn’t, considering what was in there.”

“Which was what?”

Another pause. I’m beginning to hate the silence. “A room with pictures and articles of you all over the wall… even some of your parents.”

“I don’t understand… why would he have that?” I mean, I know he wanted me and everything but that seems like the move of a stalker… “Why is he doing this? It doesn’t make any sense? I mean, he was always a little weird and controlling, but why all of a sudden would he resort to threatening texts and a crazy room full of pictures?”

He sighs again and I prepare myself for another blow to the gut. “Violet, I’m not sure how much you know about your parents, but back in the beginning of the case there were few suggestions that no one every really mentioned to you, simply because you were too young and honestly we didn’t want it getting out to the public. Keeping certain details a secret can better help us convict the right person. However, now I think you might need to know, but I want you to prepare yourself for it.”

“Okay, I’m prepared.” Biggest lie I ever told and I wouldn’t have had the guts to say it if I would have known what he was going to say next.

“During the first investigation of your parents, the lead detective on the case found some details about your parents—well, your mother anyway—that connected them to a few local drug dealers. It was a past thing, I think that ended a few years after you were born when your mother married your father.”

“No, my mother married my dad before I was born,” I say, but really I have no idea—I barely no anything about them, having lost them at such a young age.

“No, she married him when you were about three years old,” he says. “After she got her act together and got out of rehab, but her past was still chasing her and she owed the wrong people some money. The police were never quite able to track down the people in question and honestly all evidence pointed to a random burglary, but after digging into Preston’s previous records, I discovered he was living in Cheyenne area at the time and dealing drugs… and some of the pictures he had of you… you were younger.”

“No… you’re fucking lying.” I shake my head over and over until I get dizzy. “You’re lying, you’re lying, you’re lying. I didn’t live with my parent’s killer. That would never happen.” Unless it was done on purpose? Oh my God, was it somehow done on purpose by Preston?

“I’m not saying he’s their killer in any way shape or form,” he says in a gentle voice. “It’s more than likely that he might have developed an obsession with you since most of what we found points toward stalker behavior, which happens sometimes with public cases like these, but I want you to have the details now, just in case.”