Christen's POV
Time: 11PM, two days since the incident
"I'm going to require your complete attention for the next half hour or so." Detective Stan McDaniel slides copies of his business card to everyone, but leaves me out; I have all his info already. The casualness of his accent is almost nonexistent now, completely stamped out by his authoritative tone.
It's 11PM upstairs in the training grounds office building, and there's panic all around. At this rate, we'll get nowhere. I look out the window at the grassy field, which appears like an audience watching the spectacle from below, laughter rippling through the blades. Everyone's been in a bigger fit since Allie and Kelley disappeared, wondering who would be next, all my teammates praying it wouldn't be them. Not me. If I were the next target, maybe I'd see Tobin again.
I'm too angry to be scared, and all those little blades of grass piss me off so much. Is it strange that I blame soccer for this? Tobin's fame, and Kelley's, and Allie's—that must've had something to do with it. There's a trend here. Soccer used to make all my problems go away, but every time I think of soccer now, I think of her.
Some seats are missing across from me. I muster a shout loud enough to rise above the noisy room.
"Jill?" I call for Coach's attention. "Is everyone who was supposed to be here accounted for?"
All the eyes in the room direct their attention to the head of the table. Jill closes her eyes as if to avoid everyone else's, and shakes her head slightly. At that, the room breaks out into a panic stronger than before.
"Alright alright alright!" Stan yells, expression tightening. "Listen!" One by one, voices fall. Stan sighs. "Back to grade school we go." He pulls a clipboard off his chair and cycles through a roll call.
"Press? Okay, you're right there... Next?" He goes down the list in numerical order.
"Are you okay, Chris?" Lindsey whispers, worried.
The beads on my bracelet look very fidgetable. "I just don't want to be here."
"Tell me about it." She bites her lip. "Russ broke up with me today."
"Woah," I turn to face her. "He did? Are you okay?"
"Not really."
I remove my fingers from my bracelet and take Lindsey's hand into my lap. She squeezes firmly, eyes swimming with moisture as she manages to keep her gaze straight and strong. I didn't know Russell that well, but he and Lindsey had been dating long-distance for as long as we'd been friends. I feel strange and a little apprehensive seeing her like this. Usually, Lindsey reacts to emotional situations with anger, and it takes a lot to make her cry.
"Becky's busy... where's Harris?" Stan pierces through my thoughts.
"She and Ali are on vacation," Jill says. "They told me last week."
"...Fine, and Rapinoe?"
"Megan couldn't make it," Alex pipes up. "She texted me and told me that with everything that's going on, she's been staying with her parents."
"No, no," Julie cuts in. "That makes no sense because Ali said all three of them were going to celebrate her brother's birthday after the vacation. How could she be home already? Those are literally on separate coasts."
"I don't know, Jules, maybe plans changed. Do you want to see the messages?"
Julie furrows her brow defensively before Crystal cuts an arm in front of her, giving her best friend a look of warning. "First of all, calm down."
Alex produces her phone with the evidence, but Stan gestures for her to put it away. "Not yet," he says. "Lemme get this straight: Megan is with Ashlyn and Ali?"
Julie and Alex answer at the same time, Julie arguing "Yes!" and Alex shouting a definite "No!"
Stan sighs once again. I feel embarrassed for my teammates. On one hand, this meeting was scheduled too early to have any cohesive conversation, but on the other hand...
"We could all be in imminent danger," Jill sternly says. "So be quiet, and listen to the investigator." She lowers her voice. "Sorry, Stan. The floor is yours."
Alex leans back and crosses her arms. Julie glances at Crystal, who seems to whisper, "Relax, girl."
"Alright ladies, let's take some deep breaths," Stan says. "First, I want everyone to know that we are working as hard as we can to find your teammates. We know more about Tobin than we do about Kelley and Allie, but we're going off of the assumption right now that they are connected. Still, we don't have the evidence to prove whether Kelley and Allie were abducted, or if their disappearance was voluntary. With so many unknowns, we need to protect the safety of everyone at this table above all else."
Emily, who is on the other side of me, noticeably stiffens, elbowing me by accident. "Sorry," she mumbles.
I know there's a lot of anxiety at this table," Stan continues. "I tell you all this not to frighten you, but with the hopes everyone will tap into gear. Without your full cooperation, my job will become a lot harder, and wasting time could have huge consequences. Understand?"
Nodding.
"Perfect. Next order of business: I want everyone to put my number into their phones. If anyone has any information, concerns, or questions, please don't hesitate to call or text me. I've interviewed a couple of you one-on-one already, but I'm going to want to hear everything you know." He makes his way over to the whiteboard we often use for game and practice plans. Tobin's familiar writing shows below the sketch of a lineup, where she drew an angry-looking Koopa Troopa named Harry. It has a soccer ball-inspired shell, it slightly resembles Allie, and there is a little speech bubble above its head that reads, "Harry cheats at Mario Kart." After Jill gives him the go-ahead, Stan wipes the board clean.
"We received an anonymous message from a postal code in Las Vegas," Stan announces. "The person suggested to us that Tobin was involved in a night of gambling last fall. There was a disagreement over the money, and it got pretty ugly. The source has reason to believe she was accompanied by other teammates, but did not disclose who. Does anyone know anything about this?"
I knew Tobin could get a little wild when it came to competition, but then again, we were all guilty of that. I never imagined Tobin would have any enemies.
"Aren't you going to try and find out who the anonymous source is?" Emily asks, chewing her nail. "I mean, they left information out. That's kinda suspicious."
"Through the message, we think we've traced the casino, and we're going to look through their records. It'll be hard to find anything considering how much time has passed since the alleged incident, and we have no other details to tell us who sent the message. It's the only lead we have, and we have to follow it."
"Lots of us have gone out to casinos together, including in Las Vegas," Crystal admits, earning an eyebrow raise from Jill. "Is it possible they were together? Tobin, Kelley, and Allie, I mean?"
"Very possible," Stan says. "It's common for missing persons to go under the radar once they think they're going to get caught for a crime. I hate to say it, but if your teammates were involved in any criminal activity, that could explain the disappearances."
"But, Stan," I say, much more meekishly than I expected to. "I watched what happened to Tobin. We were run off the road by armed men! And then... she was taken. Taken from me." My face grows hot. For the first time since the meeting started, it seems like everyone is watching me.
"And her abductors posed as policemen," Stan states. "I'm talking more about Kelley and Allie. It's just a theory, but if they had an idea they were targets, they could've gone into hiding."
"Wishful thinking," Lindsey mumbles. "No offense Detective, but most of us... we're dumbasses sometimes. And I am too, because we're a team of soccer players, not masterminds. I can't see any of them even having the right thinking to be criminals, let alone be able to hide out from the world."
"She's right," Emily says. "This doesn't sound like our friends."
Stan nods slowly, abandoning the white board and taking a seat on the table. "I'm sorry, girls. I'm going about this all wrong. I don't know them like you do, I only know them as missing persons. That's why I need you. I have nothing useful to tell you, so please, tell me what you think I should know."
We exchange glances around the table. Carli shoots me a sympathetic nod.
"I was shopping with Allie," Alex begins. "She was looking for a gift for Bati. They had some kind of anniversary coming up." Her eyes scrunch up a little. "I didn't mean to leave her..." She buries her face behind her forearms.
To my surprise, it's Julie who lays a gentle hand on Alex's back. "I'll take it from here," she says. "I think Crystal and I were the last ones to see Kelley. She was practicing." She lowers her eyes to look out the window. "When we were done, we went into the locker room and she wasn't there. She left her hair elastic on the sink—one of those expensive white invisibobbles she wears for fashion when she's not playing games. They usually get stuck in her hair and she gets so mad trying to pull them out." Julie's smile fades. "I took it so I could give it back to her at practice this morning, but she never showed."
There's a beeping from the other room. The intercom? The room turns eerily quiet.
"Jax? Victor?" Jill calls out to the bodyguards in the hall. "Can you go get that?"
"It's almost eleven-thirty, who'd be trying to get in?" Carli asks.
"Maybe one of the absentees changed their mind," Stan says. "Let's try to stay focused. We don't want any of you to feel unsafe. On top of your regular bodyguards, police will be providing extra protection." He gestures outside the door. "It's a good sign that Christen wasn't a target. It's likely that the kidnappers responsible are not after the team as a whole, but after specific players. Is anyone here afraid that they are at increased risk for any reason?"
Emily looks up. "Tell me if I'm wrong, but... I think Alex is."
Alex's eyes grow wide. "Huh?"
"Well, it's just that, you're kind of one of the gamblers. And you're the closest with all of them."
Alex rests her chin on her hands. "I guess you're right. But if you're going to include me, you'll have to include Megan, too. I go out with them a lot, but so does she. And the kidnappers had every chance to get me at the mall, but they didn't."
Stan scribbles on his clipboard. "Anyone else feeling particularly worried about safety?"
Lindsey chuckles sarcastically. "I think we all are. For each other."
"I know," Stan's voice softens. "We're going to figure this out."
Bang, bang, bang, bang! Running feet echo through the stairwell.
A shallowly-breathing Ali appears at the door. "Thank God, please, I'm so scared!"
Stan immediately rises from his seat, followed closely by Jill. "What's g-"
"I need your help," Ali spits out between breaths, staring at them with fiery, tigress eyes. "I can't find Ash."