Page 54 of Shameless Vows

Present

“NYPD, OFFICER DETORIO SPEAKING,” a burly-sounding man answers.

I hesitate, glancing at my bedroom door, and then cross the room to check that it’s totally closed.

“Um, hi,” I say, taking long steps back across the room to enter the en suite, then the dressing room, and close the door behind me. “My name is Isla Reyes. I filed a report in October 2010 and was wondering if I could speak to the officer it was assigned to.”

“What’s the officer’s name?” Officer DeTorio queries dismissively.

“James Miller,” I answer, then pause to check my hand for the case number that I wrote on my palm. “The case number is 103—”

“Please hold.”

“Oh. Okay. Th—”

The line clicks into a recording of general public safety information, and I sit down on the green, velvet chaise lounge positioned in the center of the dressing room. The recorded voice continues for about a minute and a half before the line clicks into another connection.

“Miss Reyes,” another man answers. “Officer Miller speaking. What can I do for you?”

“Oh, hi.” I pause, briefly at a loss for words. “I filed a report in October 2010 and you were the—”

“Yes, ma’am, I know the case,” he says in a get-to-the-damn-point tone, albeit one that sounds kindenough. “What can I do for you? Is everything okay?”

“Actually.” I pause yet again as stress from a number of angles grips me. “I have kind of a strange situation. I just stumbled upon the case number when I was going through old emails, and saw that it was for a stolen cell phone, and… you’ll have to pardon me, but I honestly don’t remember losing a phoneorfiling a police report. I’m mostly just curious what the circumstances were that—”

“Huh.” Paper shuffles in the background. “That’s interesting.”

My brow pulls low. “It is?”

“You don’t remember meeting with me and my partner?”

I shake my head. “No, sir. I apologize. There was a lot of—”

“Can you come by the station to meet with me?”

“Oh.” My stomach sinks with disappointment, which causes an aggressive surge of nausea to creep up my throat. “I’m actually out of the country. Would you be able to—”

“All right, well, when you get back, come on by, and we’ll have a chat about it, and I’ll fill you in on what I’ve got.”

I squint. “You can’t tell me about it over the phone?”

“No,” he says in a clipped, yet still kindenoughtone. “With a case of this nature, I’m not gonna go over the details over the phone.”

A case of this nature?

“What was the nature of it?” I ask, knowing it’s a pointless question, but not really caring. “It’s just a stolen phone, isn’t it? Surely, there’s no reason—”

“Come on by, and we’ll talk about it,” he says, more paper shuffling. “Gimme a call when you’re back in the States, and we’ll have a little meeting.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t know if—”

“Take care of yourself, Miss Reyes, and we’ll see you soon.”

The line disconnects, and I lower the phone to stare at it, and that’s when I know.

There was more to this police report than just a stolen phone. And given the timeframe of my apparent descent into chaos that I only know about via hearsay from my parents, I somehow justknow.

The two incidents are connected. They have to be. I might not be able to trust my own memory and perception of my life, but I somehow justknow.