“Is this Nevaeh Hansen?”
“This is she. Who’s speaking?”
“Detective Roberts. I’m a colleague of your brother’s. After dispatch received your call last night, we went over to your brother’s place. Can you meet me at the station? I would like to speak with you.”
“Of course,” I say, already pulling the sheets back and throwing on an outfit without even seeing what I’m putting on.
I get to the station and Detective Roberts greets me then walks me back to a small room, gesturing for me to take a seat.
“Nevaeh, I’m going to record our conversation just in case I need to go back to it later. Is that okay?”
“Sure.”
“Can you please repeat for me what you said when you called nine-one-one yesterday at three thirty-three in the morning?”
Jeez, I didn’t realize I called so late. It felt like it was only minutes after I found my brother dead. I tell the detective everything that happened yesterday. I’m not sure if it’s identical to what I said on the phone as I was out of it, but I tell him everything I know. I have to stop a few times when I get choked up. The detective, though, is patient with me, handing me tissues when I’m forced to stop my story because I’m crying too hard.
When I’m finally finished, the detective says, “Thank you. I can’t speak too much on the case since this is now an open investigation, but as I said on the phone, this morning after you called, we drove over to your brother’s apartment. Only, we didn’t find him.”
A cold shiver runs down my spine. “What do you mean you didn’t find him?”
“He wasn’t there.” He pulls out a couple photos. “I had them print these to show you since his home is currently under an active investigation based on your call.”
I take the photos from the detective and look at each one, the blood draining from my body. My throat feels like it’s closing. Each one is of another part of Stephen’s home. The living room looks spotless. My flats aren’t in the picture where they should be next to the couch. My purse was sitting on the end table. It’s gone. The tiled floor, where Stephen’s body lay cold and still, is clean. No blood anywhere. It’s like I’m looking at a completely different home.
Did I imagine the whole thing?
“I-I don’t get it. He was right there.” I press my finger on the photo with the sparkling clean living room floor. “He was right there,dead. His eyes were open, but he wasn’t alive. Blood was pouring out of his lifeless body.” Fresh tears burn behind my lids, and I try to blink them away. I hate the last time I saw my brother was in that way. Instead of imagining his smile and laughter, I’m stuck replaying what he looked like when he died.
“Nevaeh, I want to believe you, I do, but it’s all not adding up. Your brother called yesterday morning and said he had to go out of town unexpectedly. He’s using some vacation time he’s saved up.”
My head shoots up in shock. Stephen never mentioned going out of town to me. I turn the photo around so the detective can see it. “He was right here.” I jab my finger into the image. A tear flies off my cheek and makes a wet spot on the image. “You think I’m making this up?”
“No, I didn’t say that. We’re investigating. We’ve called your brother, but he isn’t answering. Unfortunately his neighborhood doesn’t have any cameras. Until we get ahold of him, we’re keeping the case open.”
I don’t even know what to say. I know what I saw. He was dead. I closed his eyelids!
As I stare at the images in front of me, I remember that I needed to tell them about my belongings. “My purse was left at his house, in the living room. My shoes too. Did you see them anywhere?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “We can go back and see if maybe you left your stuff in his room or—”
“They couldn’t have just upped and walked away,” I say, cutting him off. “They were in the living room. Inside my purse is my phone. If they took it, we can log in and track it.”
Detective Roberts gets me a laptop and I pull up theFind myiPhonewebsite like the guy at Apple showed me how to do. But when I click on my phone, it shows it’s untraceable.
“This can’t be right. They had to have done something to my phone,” I tell him.
“I’ll add this to my list of things to look into,” he promises before he walks me to the front of the station. When we get to the door that leads to the outside, he says, “If we hear from him, we’ll tell him you’re worried and to call you.”
“And when you don’t hear from him?” I ask, because I know they won’t.
“We will get to the bottom of it,” he assures me.
I nod my understanding, completely stunned and confused about what just happened, and thank him.
I spend the rest of the day in bed. I don’t read or watch television. I don’t call anyone to tell them I don’t have my cell phone, or even eat. I just lie there, trying to recount everything that happened. It doesn’t make sense. I know what I saw, but I have no way to prove it.
Finally, I fall asleep, only to have nightmares replaying the image of my brother’s dead, lifeless body on the floor.
