Entice Me

Chapter Twenty-Two

The day Grace had apologised to Isaacs’s customer, was the day Isaac went missing. Isaac told Grace he was planning their first date. So she was not worried when he did not arrive home in the afternoon. When the clock ticked over to 8p.m Grace let her worries consume her. She did not want to sound like a stalker so she called his mobile and left a breezy message. “Hey, it’s me, Grace. Just wondering if you were coming home soon? Call me.” Grace felt like a loser. What if he was in line to buy take out? Grace sounded like an over-protected wife.

A few more hours passed when Grace bravely decided to call the one person she knew, that Isaac knew. “Monica, sorry to disturb you this is Grace, we officially met this morning. I know this may sound odd, but have you spoken to Isaac today?”

“Grace, when you came around this morning, I thought you would not hassle me again,” she said bored.

“I know and I am sorry. I am not accusing you of anything. It’s just he hasn’t come home. I just thought you might know, sorry I shouldn’t have called.”

“So you let him out of sight and he’s gone already. I told you to be on your guard,” she almost laughed.

“Oh well, I’ve got to go.” The phone line went dead. If being humiliated once was not enough, try twice with the same person.

Grace dialled the police station, “I need to speak to the missing persons unit.” The guy on the other line actually laughed.

“Look love, how long has the person been missing?” Grace could hear him chew gum as he spoke.

“That’s a tough question, it depends, I haven’t seen him all afternoon but I wasn’t expecting to see him till tonight.”

“Right and is this your child?” he asked.

“Most certainly not, he is my boyfriend.”

“So let me get this straight, your boyfriend hasn’t come home,” he said quite loud. Grace could hear some rowdiness in the background.

“That’s correct officer.”

“Sweetie, have you thought about that. He is a grown adult and perhaps he is staying over at one of his other girlfriend’s house,” he said and emphasised ‘other.’

Grace had realised she was not getting anywhere and changed her tactic. “Look here officer, you help me find him or I will come down to the station and bring my baby photos to show the other officers what you looked like when you were younger.” This shut him up.

After a moment’s silence he spoke up, “I will send some officers down to your place and you can give them a photo of this poor sucker.”

After the call, Grace began to feel really stupid. What if she had exaggerated everything? Perhaps Isaac did leave. As she considered it now, Grace was actually surprised Isaac had stayed for as long as he had. She decided to go for a drive to clear her head.

Grace soon arrived home with all the weight of the world on her shoulders. She walked up to the front door when she noticed a light on in her bedroom. Grace backed away from the door and looked up at the bedroom window to see if she could see anything. A ghost like figure swiftly moved past the window. She was being robbed. A police car pulled up just in time. “Are you Grace?”

“Yes, thanks for coming, someone is robbing me,” Grace said and pointed to the window. The officers flew into action. One officer jumped out of the car and quietly opened the front door with one hand firmly holding his gun. While the other officer spoke into his walkie talkie and hopped out of the car to follow the other officer. No one told Grace what to do, so she took a deep breath, counted to thirty and proceeded inside.