Left for Garbage

police to come, from the kitchen phone, so all I got were a few mumbled sentences about Manny kidnapping Deeley and how Denise had been trying to find her on her own.
    I was starting to get worked up by then , too, and I guess Denise didn’t like that because she told me that it wasn’t as bad as it seemed because she’d talked to Deeley just the day before on the phone. Like I say, I was getting freaked out by then but even in that moment what she said didn’t make sense to me.
    I asked her for her cell phone and she said she had accidentally left it at Aaron ’s, but that getting the cell wouldn’t help us because the call had come in from a private number. She said that Deeley had sounded fine but when she had tried to get Deeley to tell her where she was at, the phone went dead. I don’t know why Denise had even bothered to do that, ask her I mean. After all, Deeley’s smart but she’s not even three years old, so I doubt she could give anyone an address..
    I felt desperate to find Deeley at this point, so I was glad that Mom was on the phone with 911. My dad came back down the hall at that poi nt and he seemed to be in shock. I think he had just realized for the first time that his grandchild was missing and not off on a weekend of fun at Disneyworld, or wherever Denise had been saying she was.
    My mom was still on the phone and seemed to be getting the run-around with the nine-one-one dispatcher , so she screamed out that Denise’s car smelled like something died in it. We were all frantic and Denise finally started crying.
    That wasn’t a good sign, not at all.
    Then the cops arrived and drove away with Denise. Apparently, while they had her, she didn’t cooperate, so instead of having Denise returning home like we thought would happen, she was taken to jail. Then we started thinking there must be a good reason for Denise being so evasive with everyone, but there was no way to talk with her privately to find out. Things were spinning way out of control, and fast. The cops asked us for statements, interviews were being scheduled, and our lives turned upside-down and inside-out within hours.
    Meantime , I wanted to get to the bottom of things. So that same night, after the cops left, I drove to Aaron’s apartment to get Denise’s things, including her cell phone and laptop.
    I was scared - do you blame me? - so I erased calls from Denise’s phone and purged everything from her computer, but if anyone had copied her MySpace page already, there would be nothing I could do to protect her from herself. She had weird things up there, like sticky notes saying ‘to lie like you believe it’, a skull, and a weird evil-looking cartoon, all surrounding a pic of Deeley with the words ‘Something went terribly wrong’.
    But the worst po st asked why do people kill just to kill, then why do they get killed for killing?
    Now, I know that could maybe be lyrics from a song, but it doesn’t look good and then there was her weird new sign-in, ‘Timer55’. Well, it’s 55 days from June 15 th , the last time anyone of us saw Deeley, until August 9 th , her birthday. I’m trying to tell myself it doesn’t mean anything.
    So, I got to meet Aaron under these bizarre circumstances and I already appreciated that he let me take Denise’s things with no problem. He seemed like an okay guy - he looked scared, too - but didn’t really offer any helpful information. I was suspicious of him at first but he told me about Denise hanging out with him where he dee-jayed, and said she acted completely normal over the past few weeks. Although that made me feel better, it also didn’t make sense. Denise already admitting that Deeley’s been gone for thirty-one days, and Denise was acting normal during that time? I had to talk with her.
    I also remembered the post my mom had put up on he r Internet page a couple of weeks ago. It was sort of an ode to a missing granddaughter. I know Mom wrote it only because she was really missing Deeley at that point, but what would the cops think? It was a real sentimental piece about how Deeley had come into my mom’s life and left her too soon. She called Deeley a precious little angel who is gone without reason. The post went on to complain about all the help Mom gave Denise, only to be slapped in the face for it. Mom said she felt betrayed and was suffering a broken heart, missing her little angel - meaning Deeley - and this was all online for everyone to see!
    Jesus, what would the