The Girl Who Didn't Come Home
The phone screamed at 3:14 in the morning, and Jake Mercer's hand found it before his eyes even opened, a reflex carved into him by fourteen years on the job and three years of insomnia before that. He knew the ringtone. He'd chosen it himself, something jarring and metallic, because the soft ones never woke him fast enough, and there had been a night once, years back, when thirty extra seconds of sleep might have mattered. He'd never let that happen again.
"Mercer," he rasped.
"Detective, sorry to wake you." It was Ramirez, night dispatch, her voice flattened by exhaustion and too much coffee. "We've got a missing juvenile. Sixteen-year-old female, Zoe Simmons. Mother's at the precinct right now, and she's not calm, if you know what I mean. Patrol already caught the call a few hours ago but wrote it up as a probable runaway. Mother's raising hell. Captain wants a detective on it before this becomes a headline."
Jake sat up, feeling the mattress creak beneath him, the empty half of the bed cold the way it had been for two years now. Rain hammered the window, streaking the glow of the streetlamp outside into long amber ribbons. "Give me twenty minutes."
He hung up and sat there…