Nothing.
It was awful, but probably not the reason Allison disappeared as an adult. While we always needed a complete picture of what shaped a victim, it didn’t mean I wanted their backstories to turn into sideshows where people picked apart their lives. The real question was who benefited. There was always a chance that she left on her own and was out there living a new life… we’d found a few cases like that, but we’d quietly let them go. The last thing we wanted was to expose women who had left a domestic violence situation. However, Allison’s case didn’t point in that direction. The whole ‘she took off’ narrative wasn’t vibing with any of us.
My calendar reminder chimed softly, and I clicked into the video call, checking that my tits weren’t out or something even though no one on the other end cared. Still, I hated looking like a mess.
The laptop screen started filling, each square popping in as my squad joined. We were an interesting bunch, that was for sure. Nova came in first, her dark hair pulled into a ponytail that looked crooked, and a stack of binders was visible behind her on her bookshelf. She was in her early twenties, as far as I could tell, and considered herself an enthusiast.
Nova had been part of our chats for almost a year under the username shootingstar45 before she finally took the step to join calls, initially with her face hidden and later shyly revealing it, as if she expected people to bully her afterward.
“Great podcast last night, Hattie. Sounded awesome. Please tell me you found something new,” she said, adjusting her neckline as she fidgeted on her chair. Nova was always a little nervous at first.
Stormtrooper (not his real name) joined a second later, glasses on, expression already sharp. “Or somethingboring that everyone else missed. I will take either. It’s been a shit day already, let me tell you. God save me from fucking politicians.”
“Hey, Storm,” Nova said, giving a little wave. She had a tiny crush on him, I thought. He was good-looking and often appeared on shadowed video calls, but he was clearly in good shape and handsome.
“Hey, Nova. Hattie.” Pushing glasses up on his nose, he began arranging his desktop the way he preferred. I appreciated his no-nonsense approach to things. These sessions weren’t necessarily about chit-chat, although sometimes a few of us indulged in conversations afterward.
He was one of our most interesting members ofThe J & J Hoursquad and the one I hadn’t quite figured out yet. Hacking wasn’t my strong suit, and I wasn’t interested in learning it. Sure, I could leverage others to hack for me, and that’s what I’d done, but we had rules. One of the biggest was that we were all off-limits to each other for safety reasons, plain and simple.
I didn’t want anyone thinking that one of the group members would track them down just for shits and giggles. Safety mattered a lot to me. Of course, everyone pretty much knew everything about me since I’d basically thrown up on the internet when Jane had disappeared. There was no getting around the fact that my life was in the public eye.
Poppy came in next, lounging back in her chair. “Hey, everyone.” She gave a distracted wave. “Sounded good yesterday, Hats.”
She was one of my favorites and had been with me almost from the beginning of my podcast. She was older, with greying hair, and reminded me a little of a sassy mom I would have loved to go antiquing with or watch trash TV. I smiled despite myself.
We were short a few members, but it wasn’t unusual for Leo and Abby not to join daytime video chats. They had nine-to-five jobs and weren’t as flexible as the rest of us, but at the start of the case, we needed to hit the ground running so I could begin the interviews and get out into the streets (so to speak).
Tucking my legs under me, I got out a fresh pad of paper. “Okay, guys. Let’s walk through what we have to start with.”
We spent the next hour moving through Allison’s background piece by piece. Storm took the lead, discussing Allison’s early life, including Richard Finch’s arrests and hospital visits, while all of us winced through it.
“It’s bad,” Storm said carefully. I’d already seen most of it, but he put it up on his screen, running through each event again. “Everything that we have here is also documented fairly well, especially for something like this.”
Nova nodded. “What about the mother? Do we haveanything else on her?” She’d been taking notes as Storm talked. “Was there domestic abuse with her?”
“Rebecca Finch was noted in several hospital and doctor reports as bringing her daughter in for care. There was more than one instance in which the nurse or doctor questioned her about her home situation, but they couldn’t ever get anything else out of her. She never would press charges.”
“Yeah, but …” Nova started and then stopped.
Storm looked up for a moment and then pounded on his keyboard a little more. “There are some admissions for her at the local hospital. Not that many. She’s still married to that fucker.” There was no disdain in his voice, which I appreciated. We tried hard not to judge, but there was definitely bleed-over sometimes. “Hattie, are you going to talk to her?”
“Yeah, I’m going to try. Probably talk to the dad, too.” I wasn’t looking forward to that, given his history, but it was one of the reasons we did these background checks. It gave me a sense of what I needed before the interview.
There could be repercussions when you reached out to family, so we always approached that line cautiously. Once you crossed it, there was no undoing it. There was always a risk that family members would complain to the local police or be upset that you were reopening old wounds. Sometimes they didn’t like that we were doing a podcast. It was always a risk.
Then there was the whole can of worms about trauma. You opened up a case about a disappearance or the death of a loved one, and you could be just poking at a wound that some people didn’t want to reopen. Sure, we thought we were doing a good thing, but some people had processed the loss and didn’t want to relive it if it was a cold case. Just as many were thankful. It was a catch-22 sometimes.
“Ok, so she had a shit childhood, with a dad who drank and beat them. We’re not sure how this fits into the story or if it even does. She then meets Trent. When does that happen?” I wanted to stay focused and not get sidetracked—her trauma wasn’t irrelevant, but if we couldn’t connect it to current events, I didn’t want to bring it into the podcast. “Does anyone have that information?”
“Yeah, I do.” Poppy shuffled some paperwork. “Right out of high school, she started working at a convenience store. He’s older than her, but only by a few years. They dated for about six months and got married. The marriage license shows she was eighteen and he was twenty-two.” Poppy’s mouth pinched with disapproval. “Trent rented the house on Marlin Street right around that time, and they’ve been there ever since. Allison worked at the convenience store for two more months, and that was it.”
“Alright, this isn’t anything new. What about Trent? Do we know anything about him?”
We spent the next hour going over Trent’s background and fine-combing back through it. He’d grown up in a split-parent household in King Valley before going to work at the mill in Briar Falls—a few minor infractions with the law, but no real jail time.
“What’s notable here is that he’s friends with the police chief’s kid. They went to high school together.” Storm pulled up photo after photo. “This is Barry Galloway and Trent. Fishing, hiking, at a football game, at a bar.” Picture after picture came up. He shrugged. “Abby is running a background check on the police chief. She’s supposed to send it later tonight.”
“What about Barry Galloway? Are we running a background check on him?” I asked, looking at the picture of Trent’s friend. “Are they still friends?”
