Chapter Three: "The Plea"

January 26th

Dear Mr. Brinkman,

I know that you asked me to go directly to the police, but I’m getting nowhere with them and I just don’t know what else to do. They look at me like I’m crazy. I followed your advice and did exactly what you suggested, but something just didn’t feel right when I visited my friend’s house. Her parents don’t seem to me like they’re all that concerned about the whole thing. Why? I know that they didn’t always get along and that she caused her parents a lot of grief over the past few years, but how do you just one day stop loving your kid?

Mr. Brinkman, I am begging you for your help. I didn’t find anything out of the ordinary in my friend’s bedroom, but I did find a journal hidden in her mattress. I didn’t even know she kept one to be quite honest. I started to flip through it and most of the entries were pretty standard stuff. I might even go so far as to say boring, especially for someone who lived the way she did. What’s strange though is that within the past couple of months worth of entries, it sounds like the fights with her Mom were starting to escalate. On one occasion, she even noted that the fight got physical. I can’t believe she never told me that. She must have been so scared.

There is one more entry that seemed to stand out, but I’d love for you to take a look at it and give me a second opinion. It was from about a month ago and she wrote that she was awoken by someone at the front door early on a Saturday morning. She said that she saw her Mom talking to a man in a black suit and he flashed some type of badge, but she couldn’t make out what it was. She went on to write that when she asked about it later, her Mom said that it was an officer going door-to-door searching for a person of interest who reportedly fled a scene in the area. Mr. Brinkman, I read the papers every day and I don’t remember hearing about anything like this. Do you? I mean, what kind of crime can go unreported in a town this size? When I sneeze I feel like even everyone down at the diner knows about it.

Something doesn’t add up, Mr. Brinkman, and I’d really appreciate it if you would reconsider your decision to help me. I can’t just let my friend disappear off the face of the earth. She’s out there somewhere and she needs help, I know it. I don’t know how, I just do. I just have to find her!


Sincerely,

Jessie Fryman