As soon as I got home, I heard the news from my father.
The police department had called Jay’ family. They actually found out her whereabouts. And although that was still better than no information, that wasn’t exactly good news either.
It was Janis’ ex-father. The asshole who used to abuse her mother. A bastard who really should spend the rest of his lifetime in jail. Maybe he would, if only Jay’s mother had decided to press charges.
He called Jay’s mother earlier that night. Said that Jay was with him and that if Jay’s mother ever wanted to see her daughter again, she’d have to go back to him. From what I hear, he’d threatened to hurt her. Oh if only I could get my hands on the asshole for just one minute… I may not be strong, but I could definitely make that punk regret ever coming close to my Jay again.
As for where exactly she was being held captive… father wouldn’t tell me. “I don’t know,” is what he said. And later added: “and I wouldn’t tell you if I did. This is something for the police to handle, not for a teenager like you. I don’t want you getting involved, Catherine Rose.”
I always knew dad was serious about something when he called me that. I had a double name. The reason I didn’t really go by Rose in my daily life was that… pffff, seriously? That name has nothing to do with me.
“Yes father,” I said, like the good daughter I pretended to be. Of course, that was a lie.
Oh come on, right? My bestest friend in the world is missing. Worse still, she’s being held captive. Does dad seriously think I’d just stay at home and leave for the — let’s say, not quite so efficient and honest — police of Rio de Janeiro to rescue her? Who knows how long that’ll be? Jay could be dead by then.
Nope. I was going after her. Alone if I had to.
I looked at my phone. It wouldn’t hurt to have some backup. Plus, I’d probably need someone to help me find out where Jay was.
I typed in a message.
“The police found Janis,” I sent Ceres. Then I added, “She’s in trouble.”
It didn’t take more than twenty seconds for her to reply.
Where is she? What’s going on?
I wrote a longer message, explaining to her what my father had just told me over dinner. Which wasn’t a lot of information, really, but it gave us a lead. I finished the text saying that my father had asked me to stay back and not get myself involved. I didn’t have to write that bit, but I kinda wanted to hear what Ceres would reply.
Again, she replied right away.
Tell me what you need me to do.
I laughed. Perfect. Maybe I had misjudged this Ceres girl. She didn’t even consider doing what my father said. She wanted to go after Jay and she knew I did too. With one message, she’d made us accomplices already. Which was just as well, I’d have to rely on her for this.
I typed a message.
“I’ll tell you tomorrow. Meet me at eight thirty, at the central station.”
Originally, I had intended on giving her instructions through text. But I’m the daughter of a police officer and the things I wanted Ceres to do could probably get dad expelled from the force. Plus, I was a minor, but I’m pretty sure Ceres wasn’t. She’d go to jail for this, if someone found out. So it’s better not to produce any evidence against ourselves.
—
The next day, I found Ceres waiting for me at the station at eight thirty, sharp. She looked like she hadn’t slept really well.
“Hello,” she said.
We sat down together at a wooden bench. I began to tell Ceres my plan.
“You’ve got a friend in police, don’t you?”
“Sort of. He quit the force a while ago.”
“I know. Listen, I need you to meet him personally and ask him if he can get us some inside information. The cops probably know more than they’re telling my father and we need to know what it is. Can you do that?”
Ceres nodded.
I let out a sigh of relief.
“The next thing we’re gonna do… is we’re gonna pay Jay’s mother a visit. She’s been staying at Jay’s aunt’s. I have no idea where that is, but we’re going to find out. Janis is an airhead, so I’m sure she has that address written out somewhere. Problem is… she was staying at this small apartment in the center. It’s a cubicle, really. I went there the day before yesterday, looking for her, and the door was locked. Do you know anyone who can pick locks?”
“You’re looking at one,” she said.
“Huh, really?”
Ceres got embarrassed, then looked away.
“I… My sister and I once found ourselves in a couple of really… thorny situations… and we figured sleeping in abandoned places was better than being on the street. Don’t judge me, please.”
“Not judging,” I told her. I was, actually, but I wouldn’t tell her that. Did she really learn how to pick locks so that she and her sister could sleep somewhere other than the street? Rather than lowering my opinion of her, that kind of made me admire her bravery and resilience a little. She’d been through some rough stuff, it seems. Damn. At this rate, she really was going to make me stop hating her. I couldn’t have that.
Ceres called her friend and asked if we could meet him. He didn’t have work until late in the afternoon, when he’d be playing at a gig. I knew that calling people on the phone was really leaving a trail for the cops to come after us, should they find out what we were doing, but there really was no avoiding it, this time. We’d just have to be extra careful not to be caught.
We arrived at his house a bit over an hour later.
The guy’s name was Marco. He resigned from the same division my father currently worked in. Seems he had disagreements with superiors over some corruption schemes he was trying to report. I felt horrible, knowing that Ceres and I were there precisely to ask him to break the law.
But he listened to us attentively. As soon as we’d finished telling him what we knew, he promptly agreed to help.
“I’m in,” he said.
I was surprised.
“Really?” I asked him, barely believing it.
“If you leave it in the hands of those guys,” and by that he meant the police, “they’ll probably file it away or something. It’s dangerous to leave your friend to fend for herself. If we find out the attacker’s address, we can probably get her out of there faster than the force. And I owe your sister a couple of favors, Ceres, so it’d be really rude of me to say no.”
“Thank you,” she said, in a heartfelt manner.
“Is this… that girl who danced with you, a few months ago? At the Narwhal’s”
I saw Ceres blush. I had to stifle a laugh. It was cute, dorky, and really didn’t suit the aura of mystery Ceres tried to cast around herself. I could see why Jay had fallen in love with her.
“You have good memory,” she said, her cheeks red like a couple of tomatoes.
“It’s one of the few things I pride myself in having. So, is she…”
He stopped talking, as if he was waiting for Ceres to complete that sentence. She shook her head.
“We’re not together. I… I messed up bad, back then. I do love her, though.”
He nodded.
“I see… And you?” he turned to me.
“Her best friend,” I declared.
“Right. In that case, I’d better get to it. I’m going to check with a few friends from the force. Won’t be easy to find someone who’s willing to put their head on the line, though. Can we meet again here at eight? I’ll fill you in on whatever info I’m able to get, so we can decide on what to do. Don’t call me on your phones. Preferably, leave them turned off. Back when I worked there, the department didn’t really have access to technology good enough to track people, but then again, you can never be too cautious. This is real.
I nodded. I didn’t have to hear that to know what we were risking.
We left the apartment feeling slightly happier, but also slightly more nervous. There was a third person involved now. We’d just asked an ex-officer to hack into the police system for classified information, then relay it to us so we can go play heroes trying to save Janis. The only reason I was actually giving this a shot was because it was Janis who had been captured. She was my best friend. I couldn’t turn my back on her.
We took the subway train toward the city center again. I knew where Janis was staying, though I had only been there once.
“This is it,” I said, as I showed Ceres a wooden door at the end of a corridor. I tried the doorknob, again, just to make sure. It was still locked, as it had been two days prior, when I’d been there.
Luckily for us, the building had no security cameras. Ceres asked me to keep an eye on the corridor in case anyone walked by, then she picked a couple of modified hairpins from her shorts pocket and began working on the lock.
It took about five minutes. All the while I was entirely on edge. I kept thinking someone would pass by and see us, then maybe call the police. Apart from the fact that it was morning and we were both girls, there was nothing to suggest we weren’t burglars of some sort.
Ceres swung the door open. I took a deep breath, silently thanking the heavens. She took the hairpin off the keyhole, we walked in and closed the door behind us.
Jay’s one-person room plus bathroom looked remarkably unremarkable. Unconsciously, I had kind of expected to find some sort of crime scene, with objects broken or out of place and evidence of struggle between Jay and her captors. There was nothing of the sort. The mattress on the floor was covered with a blanket and there was a book next to it. I began to search for something that could work as a clue…
…
…
…bingo.
Jay’s cellphone was under her pillow. I had warned her so often not to do that. Phones can explode under pillows, you know. But you can count on Janis not to listen to a word of my advice. I tapped the screen and pressed the buttons on the side, but it was dead.
“Battery, maybe,” I thought to myself out loud.
Knowing my friend, every bit of information she was unable to remember by herself would be stored in there. If I took it home and charged it, I could probably find her aunt’s address. Probably. Maybe.
“Hey, um… Catherine…”
Ceres called me to look at some papers over the table.
It was a map of the city, along with photocopies of a variety of documents. Receipts, contracts. I looked at one that was a copy of an ID card.
“It’s him,” I said, looking at the picture. Janis had shown me his picture before. Even if she hadn’t, I would have guessed by the last name. Martins. Janis had that name printed on her own ID, but she never used it herself. It was years into being her friend before I found that this was her last name.
“That’s the man?” Ceres asked. I was glad she did not call him Janis’ father. Jay would have hated that.
“Yep.”
I began to examine the other papers on the table. That man’s name showed up in almost all of them. There was a bit of everything, from his income tax data to restaurant bills. I wondered how in Earth my best friend had gotten hold of all of that.
The city map had pen scribbles all over it. I could see that many of those correlated to the papers on the side. Addresses, mostly.
“Do you think she was chasing him down?” Ceres asked me.
I nodded. Probably, yes. There was no other way to explain that plethora of information she’d gathered on the fucker.
“If so…” Ceres continued, “… do you think she intended to… you know…”
“Don’t say it,” I told her. I knew exactly what Janis had wanted. She had talked about doing it, a couple of times. Never thought she’d go through with it, though. To be honest, I’d rather not think about it.
And so did Ceres, really.
We left the papers and the map on the table. It seems Jay hadn’t been able to pinpoint his location by the time she disappeared. And if she hadn’t been capable of finding him, with all the knowledge she had on him, it wouldn’t be Ceres or I who would figure it out. Not from her map, anyway.
I opened the door and called Ceres over.
“Should I lock it again?”
“I think it only opens from inside.”
We closed the door and turned the doorknob, attempting to open again. It didn’t budge. Good.
We left the building in silence to carry on with our plan. §
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