Missing Without A Trace by Tanya Rider Read Free Book Online Page B

the last time she was seen?”
    “Thursday,” he swallowed. “She left work at nine in the morning, after her shift.”
    “Did anyone see her leave?”
    “I don’t know yet,” Tom said. “I’m on my way to her second job, at the Factoria Nordstrom Rack. She’s missed her last two shifts there. She hasn’t accessed our accounts and all she has is her Nordstrom Visa card. I can’t check that one because I’m not on it.”
    “When you get there, we’ll send over an officer to take your statement.”
    “No problem,” Tom said, grateful. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”
    After Tom arrived, he only waited about five minutes before a Bellevue police officer found him. Nordstrom personnel escorted them into a room in the security department.
    “So,” the police officer asked Tom, “when was the last time youheard from your wife?”
    “Around ten PM on Wednesday,” Tom said. “She called me when she was leaving for work. I was staying at work that night because I had an early morning homeowner walk scheduled and I had to work late to get it ready.”
    “What did she say?” the officer asked. “Was there any kind of fight? Did she say anything that might make you think she was leaving you?”
    “No,” Tom said, his heart sinking. “All she asked was, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘sleeping’ and she hung up. It was quite normal for her to just check in to hear my voice.”
    “So she just hung up?” the officer asked.
    “We’ve been married for a long time,” Tom said, “and she’s been mad at me at
least
half of it. We fight. We’re married.”
    “So, you’re sure she didn’t just leave you? Like she’d had enough, kind of thing?”
    Tom
knew
that Tanya wouldn’t leave him—at least not before giving him a reason. But where was she? He couldn’t imagine where she was or what she was doing, and all these questions about her leaving got to him. “But, if she’d left,” he reasoned, “she would have taken some—if not
all
—of the money! She didn’t take anything except her Nordstrom Visa.”
    “So when was the last time you know where she was?”
    Tom told him that the last he could track was that she’d left her job at Fred Meyer in Bellevue at nine in the morning. “If she was using her card since then,” he added, “I can’t check that and that’s why I need to get a case started so you can check.”
    “Which card? Her Nordstrom card?” the officer asked.
    “Yes,” Tom said. “That’s the only card she has with her and, like I said, I’m not on it so they won’t tell me anything.”
    “Wait here,” the office said. “I’ll check a few things out and be right back.”
    Tom waited, talking with Tanya’s boss, who thought it was not in Tanya’s nature to do this. “I’ve only known her a short time,” he said. “But she seems to be very dependable.”
    Tom asked the manager if they’d noticed anyone who stood out, who seemed strange, but the manager said that they keep a close eye out for that kind of thing and saw no signs of it.
    “Thanks,” Tom said. “Please, if you hear from her, please call me.”
    The officer came back into the room, looking at his notes. “We’ve found video footage of Tanya getting into her car at the end of her shift and driving out toward the highway,” he said. “My sergeant has informed me that our involvement has to end. You have to contact King County Police to follow up since our jurisdiction ended when she left work. Since we have evidence that she left our jurisdiction of her own volition, we have to hand you off to King County.”
    “So, you’re telling me I have to call 911 again once I get back into Maple Valley?” Tom asked, incredulous. He felt helpless and frustrated. “Can I ask
why
I have to wait?”
    “Because with cell phones, 911 calls connect you to the office based on the tower your call goes through, and not based on your phone number,” the officer explained. “This way, you get the