“Breaking news, mother found dead in the suburbs of Los Angeles from a suspected armed robbery. Our prayers here at News Channel 3 go out to the family suffering from this loss.”
“Breaking news, suspect in mother’s murder in suburban Los Angeles found and arrested. The suspect’s trial will take place next weekend.”
Two years later:
“Laura, wake up! Time for school! Can’t be late to your meetings!”
“I’m coming down dad!, give me a second!”
Margot rolls her eyes, grabs her backpack, and makes her way downstairs. She is greeted by the smell of scrambled eggs.
“Breakfast is ready!”
“Dad, I’m right here.”
Margot takes a seat and starts to dig into the golden scrambled eggs and crispy bacon.
“What time is your first meeting?”
“8:30.”
“And when is your last one?”
“Around 6, but Megan will pick me up from school and we will stay at her house till the meeting starts.”
“Are you sure you want to do that, I mean, I get off work at 3:30 so I could pick you up if you want?”
“I’ll be okay Dad.”
“Okay, just be safe.”
“Dad, I’ll be fine”
Margot places her plate in the sink and trots over to her father.
“Love you dad.”
“Love you too.”
Margot gives her father a warm embrace and proceeds to grab her green backpack and pink gym bag from the on top of the dining room table she was sitting at. She then steadily paces her way to the front door and leaves leaving a cold breeze to enter in her place. As her father cleans the dishes, he notices a white envelope with bright red letters, horizontally printed in the right hand corner of the front side. He turns off the sink and picks up a baby blue washcloth to dry his hands. He turns hesitantly to get a better look of the small letters on the envelope, however still can’t make out what is on it. He puts down the washcloth and fully turns to see the letter. The word paid is in bold red print in the front, right corner of the envelope. The mailing address says Jack Wang, 1208 Bond Street, Los Angeles, California.
He looks at the letter with an arresting glare as he swings his finger across the seal of the envelope, opening it.
“Mr. Wang, we are sorry things didn’t go your way in the court hearing, however the bill for your lawyer has not been paid. Please get back to us. Sincerely, Mortz Law Firm.”
He facial expression changes from one of curiosity to one of malice, as he cumples the paper and throws it in the wastebasket nearest to him.
“I’m going to be late for work.”
Jack rushes to grab his briefcase, and before he walks out the door, glares at a picture of his wife. A look of anguish comes to his face, but leaves quiet fast as he realizes that work calls. As he leaves the house, a call comes in.
Five Hours Later:
“Do you have the integration report on the Bellington system?”
“Um, Engineering is still running tests but uh, I should be able to integrate by Monday.”
“Put some pressure on 'em, all right?”
“Yeah, pressure.”
“Okay, team, anything we forgot?”
“I think that's it.”
“All right.”
“Have a good weekend guys.”
As Jack packs his computer up, he checks his phone to see that Margot had called several times. He decides to call back.
“Hey, you're reached Margot's phone. Leave me a message or text me back.”
“Hi, sweetheart, sorry I missed your call, phone must have been glitching out again, call me back when you get time.”
Jack hangs up the phone and proceeds to pack up his things to head home for the day.
Few Hours Later:
Jack sits in his living room watching the local news, with the letter from earlier uncrumpled and sitting on the small beige coffee table next to him. He glances at the clock directly to the left of him at the end of the room. Half past nine. He decides to call Margot again.
“Hey, you've reached Margot's phone. Leave me a message or text me back.”
“Hey, Margot, Dad again. I'm not sure if you've been checking your messages, but um, I'm starting to get a little…just please text or call me. I love you.”
Jack hangs up the call and starts scrolling through his contacts.
“Hi, um, I'm Jack Wang, I'm Margot Wang's…
“Pam's husband, oh, of course I remember. How are you doing?”
“I'm good, I'm good. Listen, the reason I'm calling is that um… I haven't been able to reach Margot for a little bit and I'm sure her phone is dead but I was just wondering if I could speak to Megan and see…”
“Well, it's gotta be more of a reception problem, right?”
“Uh, what do you mean?”
“You know, if they're on the mountains…”
“Sorry, w-what mountains?”
“Camping. Isaac is camping with his friends. Margot was definitely invited.
“She was?”
“I'm pretty positive she's there, too. Did she… not tell you?”
“Shh…she did. I'm uh…Yeah, I'm looking at her texts now. She didn't mention mountains, that's why, yeah.”
“Yeah, they've been planning this for a while. I can't imagine she just couldn't…”
“Do you happen to know when they left?
“I think around this morning.”
“Did they all ditch school?”
“I'll tell you something, if that's what they did, Megan is in big trouble!”
“That's-that's definitely what happened.”
“Okay, this is…tell you what, they're planning on heading back tomorrow morning, anyway. Once they get reception, I will let Megan know to have Margot give you a call.
“Perfect, that is perfect. Thank you.”
“Is everything okay with you two?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I just haven't spoken to you since…Pam's, uh…”
“Oh, oh, thank you. Everything is great. Margot and I are great.”
Jack hangs up the phone. He starts glancing rapidly, trying to divert his attention to something else, but he notices that Margot had left her laptop on the charger in his office.
“She never forgets her things.”
Jack proceeds to open the computer. A password block pops up. His fingers are immediately drawn to the keys that spell out her mother's name. He is greeted by a picture of Laura and her mother as her screensaver. He then opens her browser. He searches and searches on the computer for any sort of clues. Then, it hit him. He starts going to her social media accounts, starting with instagram, then moving on to facebook, then on to any other, looking for clues. He starts to contact anyone with any sort of relation with Margot. That’s when his phone started ringing.
“Oh, I just finished my last year which means I was at Carmen's house playing pong. P-Ping-pong.”
“What about the meeting?The one in the afternoon?Do you know who hosted that?”
“I was in the club last year, so, no. No idea. She and I were on different paths, so it was kinda hard to keep tabs.”
“But you guys were friends.”
“Kind of.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You invited her on that camping trip.”
“Well, yeah, I mean, you know my mom.”
“Yes, so?”
“She was really good friends with Margot's mom.”
“Okay, so?”
“She felt bad about everything that happened to you guys.”
“But she h-has friends, right?”
“Define friends.”
“Do people invite her to things?”
“I think people occasionally invited her to things. She just never comes. She keeps to herself a lot. She's quiet. I did see her eat lunch alone.”
“On Friday?”
“Every day.”
Jack hangs up the call in frustration. Everything he thought he knew about his daughter, all a lie. Just a cover up. Jack decides to get the police involved.
“911, what's your emergency?”
“Hi, I'm calling about a possible… I… I'm calling to report a missing person.”
“Okay, who is this regarding? Uh, my daughter. I know I should've called
sooner. I just thought that…”
“That's okay, sir.”
“Yeah.”
“The first thing we need to do is file a report. After that, I'll put out a call
to a detective in the area who will be in touch with you.”
“All right.”
“Now let's start with her name.”
“Uh, Margot Wang, Ma-M-A-R-G-O-T. Wang, W-A-N-G.”
The Next Morning:
“Good morning, Mr. Wang. My name is James Vick. I'm the detective sergeant
assigned to your daughter's case.
“Yeah, good morning. I've been waiting for your call.”
“Of course. We're working as fast as we can. I'm currently 35 minutes
away from your house. But while I have you, do you feel comfortable telling me what you know?
“I just told every detail I know to whoever I got off the phone with an hour ago. I don't know what you guys are doing.”
“I promise you, Mr. Kim, we are taking this very seriously. And as a parent myself,
I can only imagine what you must be feeling. But for me to help you, I do need to know how everything unfolded from your eyes.”
“Understood, detective.
“Okay, let's see if I got this right. One: Margot, with her car, didn't
return home Friday evening.Two: she called three times at 1:00 p.m.Three: she didn't attend school on Friday. Was all of that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Mr. Wang, I am going to find out what happened to your daughter. But I'll need to know a lot more about her, okay?”
“Yes, yes, uh…”
“What do you want me to do?I-I-I'll go talk to neighbors..”
“We'll handle the ground investigation, Mr. Wang. That's our job. But if there's something
a parent can do, it's shedding light for us on who your daughter is and the people she talks to. Is that something you can help us with?”
Scrolling through Margot’s social media accounts, a look of vigor came to Jack’s face.
“Yes. I can help with that.”
“Okay. It's already been 24 hours since Margot's last call. So we've gotta move
a little quickly. We'll be taking a copy of Margot's hard drive to forensics.
But in the meantime, any information you can give me about her or the people around her
will help.”