Shark Lover (26 page)

“But
wait!” Cathy suddenly exclaimed.

“What’s
wrong? I think it would be best if we talk to the Officer. We need to at least
check in at this point and then we can continue searching. Don’t worry. He will
help us out and we really need to hand over the evidence, especially if this is
a criminal investigation.”

Cathy
gasped loudly and loudly said, “Criminal investigation?”

“Whoops,
sorry wrong words. But whatever happened, we definitely need to hand over the
evidence. I don’t want this to get blamed on you. I know how these things go.”

“I’m
sure they could probably track my phone and see that I was not in this area at
the time, but yeah you are probably right. I might look like the main suspect.
It’s just that I don’t really want to hand over the board or the watch. I know
how much they mean to him. He wouldn’t want them to just be handed over to law
enforcement.”

“He
would if it lead us to him. Come on, let’s go. I see him leaving the house. If
we hurry we can still catch him before he takes off in his car.”

“You’re
right. We need to help Marc. Let’s run. Hurry!” Cathy put Marc’s surfboard
under her arm and put the watch carefully in her back pocket of her jeans. She
then started running as fast as she could towards Officer Sanchez. Carly
followed quickly behind her trying as hard as she could to keep up with her
sisters fast pace.

“Officer
Sanchez! It’s us!” Carly called out waving her hands to grab his attention. He
was still further away in the distance, but he turned his head around and
looked at the girls. Waving to the girls, he stopped in his tracks curiously
looking at what Cathy had under her arms.

After
a few minutes, they had finally reached Officer Sanchez. Cathy was the first
one to speak, which surprised Carly. She couldn’t believe that her sister had
regained her composure that quickly. She was so shaken up a few moments ago,
but now she was acting as if everything was completely fine. Carly’s face was
glowing. Even though the situation didn’t look good, she was still proud of her
sister for regaining her tranquility and staying calm throughout the whole
endeavor.  

“Thanks
for turning over the evidence. I know that was hard for you to do,” Officer
Sanchez replied after hearing Cathy’s explanation of the clues and what they
meant. “I will bring these back to the station and we will take a better look
at them and see if they give us any more information on this case.”

“Did
you find any information from the vacationers at the beach cabin?” Carly
blurted out trying to find out more.

Cathy
gave her a look. She loved her sister, but sometimes she asked the wrong
questions at the wrong time. Cathy wanted to know the details as well, but she
didn’t want to interrogate the officer.

He
cleared his throat, not bothered by the question. “After interviewing the
entire family, I found out that they did see Marc three days ago. They were
relaxing out on the porch and the kids were playing in the front of the house.
They described seeing a man with dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. They
stated that he was wearing a wetsuit and appeared to be going out to surf. The
kids said he briefly said hello to them and then proceeded to walk down to the
beach. They said after that point, they never saw him again.”

“The
last time he was seen by anyone was three days ago. We went to the university.
Nobody has seen him since then. If the family didn’t see him leave the beach, I
wonder where he would have gone.” Carly said thinking out loud once again.

“That’s
what we are thinking. The time of disappearance was three days ago. I’ve had an
investigator look into the beach rentals here.” He paused. “He was not renting
a beach house or cabin in the area. We believe that he came here to surf. That
eliminates the possibility that he came up here to rent a place. He might still
be staying with a friend. We are going to continue to investigate the area and
we will keep up with the questioning throughout the rest of the day and
possibly tomorrow. I’ll call you again if we find out any new information.
Thanks for handing over the evidence. I’ll have another officer take these
items back to the station and we will tell you what we find.”

“Thanks
so much, Officer Sanchez. We really appreciate everything that you are doing
for this investigation.” Cathy shook his hand and thanked him on behalf of
herself and Carly. “We’re probably going to call it a day. We might search the
beach one more time, but it’s getting kind of late. We should probably leave
the work up to the professionals like you. Once again thank you so much.”

“No
problem. We take missing person’s cases seriously around here. We’ll call you
soon and let you know any new facts that we find out. Thanks for being patient.
I’ll be in touch soon.” He replied in the same monotone, serious tone that he
always used as he started walking back to his police car. He put the board in
the back seat, closing the windows so it would be safe inside. Taking off at a
fast speed, he used his siren. Cathy figured he wanted to get the evidence back
as quickly as possible.

“Let’s
go down to the beach one last time and then we can go home,” Carly said to her
sister. She could tell from Cathy’s expression that she was still dazed from
all of the happenings of the day. Carly looked out at the ocean and watched the
sun slowly set. She knew they only had a little time left to search for more
clues. “Hurry, let’s go down to the water.” She grabbed on to her sister’s hand
and started pulling her down the beach.

“Carly,
I don’t know how much more I can take. This isn’t looking good. I don’t know
what to do. I can’t give up on Marc, but this is getting to be too much for me
to take!” She said as she stopped dead in her tracks.

“I
know it’s a lot to take Cathy, but the sun is setting and we only have a
limited amount of time. Marc would want you to do this. He would want you to
find out the truth.” She said understandably.

“You’re
right, he probably would want me to help with the search. I can’t give up now.
I need to find out the rest of the story. I want to bring back Marc for his
mother. I feel so bad for her. She must be worried out of her mind. That has to
be every parent’s worst fear, having a missing child. And of course I want to
bring him back for me too. He was the love of my life,” She said regaining the
pep in her walk and heading down to the shore. “We’ll find him, I just know
it.”

The
waves were crashing down on her toes. The water was ice cold and Cathy shivered
as she felt the chill move throughout her entire body. She wasn’t going to let
this valuable time go to waste. She got down on her hands and knees,
desperately searching for something she knew she wouldn’t find. The sand grains
went through her fingers, she wasn’t finding anything useful. She found shells
and more shells. Groaning out loud, she could barely control her frustration.
She just wanted to find something that would lead her to some answers.

Walking
away from Carly, she needed to take some space. Her frustration was finally
getting the best of her. She tried to take a moment to think of peaceful
thoughts. Thinking of the ocean softly grazing her feet and waking up from a
sun-kissed nap, she felt herself relax a little more. She continued to walk
slowly down the shore. The lighting was perfect. It wasn’t too dark or too
light. Sunset was always the best time of the day to walk along the beach.

She
took a second to peer behind her to look at Carly. Her baby sister was
dedicated. She was searching thoroughly. It looked as if she had picked up a
metal detector and was now searching with it. Leave it to Carly to ask a
perfect stranger if she could use her metal detector. For the first time today,
Cathy found herself actually relaxed. All of her worries had subsided for a
while and she felt blessed to have the opportunity to take in the fresh air of
the day.

She
continued walking slowly down the beach. The sun was setting fast and she knew
that their time here would be running out. They weren’t equipped to run a night
search. Cathy wished she would have brought a flashlight or something that
would have helped her to find something. It was aggravating to spend hours and
hours searching to find clues that still didn’t offer the truth. She wasn’t
sure how the law enforcement dealt with that. They had to spend half of their
lives searching for clues and still not knowing where the missing people went.
Cathy knew she was being too impatient. Marc had just gone missing only three
days ago and it had just been reported last night. She had to give it more time
to see results.

As
she was walking, she stepped on something hard. It immediately woke her up from
her trailing thoughts. Her foot ached in pain. Whatever she had stepped on had
been sharp. Sitting down in the sand, she held her foot and took a look at it.
She was bleeding and she didn’t have anything to stop it with. Momentarily, she
put her injury aside and dug into the sand to see what she had stepped on. It was
a shark’s tooth. The pointy edge was so sharp, she wondered why her foot hadn’t
been cut deeper. Examining the tooth, she realized this wasn’t just any old
tooth. It was a tooth that was on a necklace. She could tell from the way that
it looked that it had been bought from a tourist’s shop.

She
kept pulling it out from under the sand. Just as she had suspected a brown
chain followed the tooth. She knew she had seen this exact necklace somewhere
before. It looked too familiar to have been seeing it for the first time.
Thinking back to where she saw it before, she couldn’t remember. She knew she
never saw it in a tourist shop. She didn’t go in those much. Carly was more of
the shopper. She always wanted the latest fashions and trends. Cathy could care
less about what she wore. She focused more on comfort. Even as a grown woman,
she still classified herself as a tomboy.

“Carly!”
She called out to her sister. She wondered if Carly could even hear her. She
still had her headphones on from the metal detector. Screaming out her sister’s
name once again, she saw Carly look over. Carly’s face looked shocked as she
saw Cathy sitting on the ground. Cathy wondered why she looked so surprised,
but then she looked down at her foot and remembered that she was still bleeding
intensely.

“What
happened?” She asked after she ran over to Cathy as fast as she could. “We need
to get a bandage or something for your foot. Here I have an idea,” she said as
she took off her black vest. “This should do the trick.”

“What
are you doing?”

“Using
this vest as a bandage for your foot. It’s all we have and I don’t want you
bleeding to death. People die from injuries like this you know. You should be
more careful.”

“But
you love that vest. It’s one of your favorites. You don’t have to do that,”
Cathy said as she looked at her sister in pain. “It’s always funny when the
little sister gives the big sister advice.”

“It’s
fine, I’ll buy a new one later. I love you more. I can get a new vest, I can’t
get a new Cathy. Do you think you are okay to walk? And hey, I was just trying
to help you. I know that right now you aren’t in the right frame of mind.” She
answered logically.

“I
might need some help. Let’s get off of this beach. I’m ready to head home. It’s
been enough for one day. When I get back home, I am going to call Officer
Sanchez. Maybe he has more information about the evidence that we gave him. I
still see some of the search crews out here. Maybe they came up with something.
Hurry let’s go,” She said in a rush. She pulled out her phone from the back
pocket of her jeans. There were no new messages or calls. She shook her head in
disappointment. “I can’t believe they haven’t found anything new yet. They’ve
spent all day out here.” She stumbled as she tried getting up to walk.

“You
can’t walk like that. Here take the metal detector. Use it as a walking cane,”
She said as she handed the metal detector over to Cathy. “Don’t even bother
trying to act like your fine because I know that you’re not. Give it more time.
Rome wasn’t built in a day. They are trying their best to find him. It’s not
easy finding a missing person.”

“Tell
me about it. It’s a lot more complicated than I expected.” She took the metal
detector from Carly and started walking off the beach. “How did you manage to
get this anyways?”

“I
paid a lady a couple hundred for it. She gladly took it. I guess she wasn’t
finding much on the beach.” She said smirking.

“I
can’t believe that you did that. I also can’t believe that you walk around with
a couple hundred dollars in your pockets. That can’t be too safe either,” She
said laughing as she limped. “Now look who’s giving advice.”

“I
just stuffed my wallet specifically for the case. You never know when you will
need money. Especially when it comes to a missing person. Now hand over the
keys. You can’t drive like that. And I’m staying with you tonight. No ands or
buts about it. I’ll just leave my car at the university. I’m sure it will be
fine. I go to school there anyways so I have the parking tag. I don’t see any
harm in it.” She stated with reason.

“I
don’t know. My jeep is like my baby. We all know what an erratic driver you can
be. This isn’t a good idea. You don’t have to stay with me either. You know Mom
will worry about you.”