Something Is Missing

 That morning began like any other day in Twinbrook, Louisiana. I crawled out of the comfort of my warm bed on the third floor in the same old farmhouse I had been born in and spent every subsequent day of my life. I rolled out of bed and felt the chill of the freezing wood floor shock my feet. I sat down to my cereal. I had just thrown on my vest and  was about to head to the only Walmart in my parish where I had been employed for most of my adult life. That's when the phone rang.
 It was the police and it was about my sister. She was a spinster of thirty and I hadn't seen her in months. She had moved to the outskirts of the parish to some run-down apartment complex in the boondocks and that had been the end of our relationship. It wasn't that I didn't get along with my siblings, but my parents didn't have me until very late in life. By the time I was thirteen, all of my older siblings were grown and gone.

I_ met with the officer as soon as I stepped out of the family van I had been driving since my mother died. I quickly learned that my sister had been missing for days. She had no friends or relationships to speak of, but the hospital where she worked as a nurse noticed her absence. When they came to check on her, no one was home.While Shafer was busy on the phone in his squad car, a tall man with messy dark hair approached me. I smelled the musk of his cologne and noticed that he could use a shave.

"Drake Pierce, private eye," he introduced himself with a nod at me.

"Abigail Lawson," I replied, slightly put off given the circumstances, "Cashier."

 "Don't mean to bother you or anything, but I lived next door to Shawn. You her family?"

"Her sister," I told him.

"Well, I lived next door to her and she was a bit of a strange woman, but she was always sweet to me and my sister. If you need anything, don't hesitate to ask."

 As he said that, I noticed a girl across the crackled, old parking lot watching us.

"That would be her now..." He told me, gesturing his head in her direction. "Don't mind her, she's just not real extroverted or anything like that."

Officer Shafer allowed Mr. Pierce and I to watch as he checked out the dumpster. They had already searched her apartment and come up and empty. It was as if she just up and left without so much as a word to anyone.

There was nothing in the trash. They sent me back to work. I still knew nothing about my sister.