What Lies Beneath

Meg Andersen straps her leather gun belt onto her thin but curvy waist. She pulls a fitted heather gray blazer over her white T-shirt and jeans. For the final touch, she pins her detectives badge over her lapel.

She looks into the floor length mirror, tilted downwards so she can see her outfit but not her face. A surge of pride runs through her as she takes in her image. This pride is enough fuel to make her raise her head high, grab her keys and begin her day with a sense of self-confidence she doesn't usually possess.

Meg loves her job as a detective. She doesn't have much in her life to be proud of. She has no family, no boyfriend, no friends to speak of, save for her fellow police officers, although they are more acquaintances than friends with the exception of her partner, Joey Fontina. The rest of the precinct are polite to her, but they feel just as uncomfortable looking at her as she feels looking at herself, so they tend to keep their distance as much as possible.

 Seven years ago, Meg woke up in the hospital in severe pain and with no memory of her past or who she was. The doctor informed her that she was involved in a major car accident, which took the life of her husband and permanently disfigured her face. Five reconstruction surgeries helped to make her face a little less monstrous, but it would never be considered beautiful. The doctor said it was possible that she might eventually recover her memory. There was, of course, some damage sustained to her brain, but they said it seemed more likely her memory memory loss was due to her brain suppressing the traumatic accident and the profound grief she was experiencing.

 She almost lost herself in a deep depression after the accident. It's unbearable to not know who you are, where are you come from or what your life was like. She mourned that she had had a husband, mourned the fact that she couldn't remember him and would never know him. She was all alone with absolutely nothing, not even her own memories to sustain her.

All that changed when she was half-listening to a movie playing on her hospital mate's television set. She got drawn into the story. It was a story about a detective trying to solve a cold case involving the murder of a famous actress. Something about it ignited a fire within her veins. That fire made her work harder at her physical therapy and gave her something to live for. She pursued her new dream and worked hard to become a detective.

 Now entering her office, she's greeted with a large stack of unsolved cases. To others, this pile might seem daunting, but to her it, makes her smile and feel a sense of contentment. She can't wait to dive in.

"Ciao, Stellina," Joe says with his typical warm greeting. He refers to Meg as a star because, in her short time as a detective, she has proven herself as such with her cold, hard dedication to the job. "I figured for once I'd arrive earlier than you so maybe I can choose the best case today."

"I suppose it can be your turn today," Meg says good-naturedly after exaggerating a big sigh

Joe says "Let's see," rubs his hands together, and starts pulling the large pile on to his side of the desk. Before he gets far, the Lieutenant walks in and announces he has a case he wants them to prioritize over every other case.

 "Janelle Peters, aged three-years-old, went missing some twenty-two years ago in 1998. The case went cold almost immediately. There were no leads, no suspects, no witnesses. Detectives on the case back then tried their best to find her. God knows how much we hate to see missing or hurt children. But there was a big scandal back then involving the murder of the mayor of our town, and so that case unfortunately took priority over everything else. Besides, well... everyone believe little Janelle was probably not alive anymore, especially not after so much time had passed.

"Fast forward to today. The little twin sister, the identical twin, of our Vic is all grown up now. Twenty-five, the same age as little Janelle would be now. Well, she finally came forward and said that she has a feeling, one of those twin sibling feelings, you know? She swears that she can still feel her sister alive somewhere.

"Now I don't know if I believe all that twin ESP nonsense, but there are a lot of stories about it out there. I've heard many cases of twins being separated at birth, only to find each other years later and they have almost identical lives, so what do I know? What I do know is that the twin, miss Evelyn Warren, is the wife of our new mayor, Benjamin Warren. So, as you can understand, we want to give this case priority."

"Isn't it ironic that the case was closed because of a murdered mayor, and now it's being reopened because the sister is the wife of the current mayor," Joe comments after the Lieutenant leaves the room. Meg grunts her agreement, already absorbed in the case.

"It says Marsha Peters was out shopping at the mall with the girls. They stopped in the arcade for the girls to play some games for a while. While Marsha went to the money exchange machine to get some tokens, which was only five feet away from where Janelle was playing Ski-Ball and Evelyn was playing Whac-a-Mole, someone came and grabbed her.

"The arcade was pretty packed, as usual. Loys of noise from the games, all the kids screaming and having a good time. But even with all those people, no one saw a thing. Too busy focusing on the games and watching their own kids. Too much distraction with so many people moving about. I guess it would be pretty easy for someone to calmly grab the girl and carry her out. Even if she was crying and someone happened to notice, they probably would have thought it was just a little girl throwing a tantrum because she didn't want to leave, so her father had to carry her away."

"This world is messed up, that's for sure," replied Joey. "So where do you want to start? With the parents? The sister?"

"Probably should start with the sister since she's the one who requested the case be reopened."

Two hours later, Meg and Joey arrived at a large brick-encased Victorian home on a spacious corner lot. Upon ringing the doorbell, a beautiful brunette woman answered the door almost immediately.

"Detectives. I've been expecting you. Please come in," she said.

Meg noticed that Evelyn's hands were shaking, and she seemed to walk slowly and deliberately as if she were afraid of falling.

"Are you all right," Meg asked, immediately taking a liking to Evelyn.

"Oh, I'm just nervous, I guess. This is all just so overwhelming," she said, directing the detectives to sit on the couch while she sat on a chair across from them.

"I can't even imagine," Meg continued. "I mean no disrespect, but may I ask why you're suddenly interested in re-opening your sister's case. I mean, did you or one of your parents remember something that might help?"

"I know it may seem strange, my apparent sudden interest, but I sure you it's not a new interest at all. There were some...issues that made my coming forward to the police a little difficult for me."

"What kind of issues?"

"Well, life really fell apart after my sister's abduction. Everyone was so sad, so distraught over believing she was dead, but not having any evidence to prove it one way or the other. But they tried to come to terms with the fact that, either way, she was probably never coming home.

"I told my parents even back then that I felt like she was still alive, but they got so mad at me. They were always mad back then. At me. At the world. Especially, it seemed, at each other.

"Shortly after, they had a service and everything for Janelle, just to try to grasp a little bit of closure in order to be able to move on, but there is no moving on from something like that. Eventually my parents split. Even though he said he didn't, I think my dad blamed my mom for what happened. She was supposed to be watching, us after all. Their marriage just disintegrated. It was too hard for them to look at each other and remember the tragedy all the time. It was especially hard to look at me, since I looked exactly like her.

"So Dad left, and I haven't heard from him since, though I did hear that he became an alcoholic, lost his job and is now homeless. No idea where he's even at now, though, because he hitched a ride out of town and hasn't been seen again.

"Mom tried her best with me, but she was broken apart. She just couldn't cope with all the loss. When I was almost ten, she got diagnosed with a heart condition. No surprise there when she had been living with a broken heart for years. She declined quickly and died just two weeks before my tenth birthday. I went to live with my aunt, my uncle and my two cousins down in Florida after that.

"So I learned never to talk about my sister's disappearance ever again. It just reminded me of all the pain and trauma I'd been through, so it was easier just to suppress at all. Also, with my husband's position and the reelection coming up, I didn't want to cause any drama that might damage his career. But after getting some therapy, which made me realize how much my firm belief that my sister is still alive as affecting me and holding me back, and after my husband gave me his blessing to proceed, I just had to contact you guys.

"I know my gut feeling isn't concrete proof of anything but, please, you have to help me. Please!"

"It's alright, Mrs. Warren. That's what we're here for; to help you."

"Thank you so much! And, please, call me Eve," she said with a warm smile spreading weakly over her flushed face.

"Can I get you a glass of water?"

"Um, yes, please. The kitchen is right through there," Eve said, pointing towards the doorway to the right of the front door.

 Meg got up and walked to the kitchen. She started opening each upper cabinet door, searching for a glass. After the second cabinet, she finally found them and pulled down one of the sparkly crystal glasses. She went to fill the cup with water and ice out of the dispenser on the refrigerator door but, she suddenly stopped in her tracks.

There was a smell emanating from the pot on the stove. She looked in and saw some sort of stew bubbling inside. She couldn't place it right then, but the smell reminded her of something. She lifted the lid and got a bigger whiff.

From the living room, Joey and Eve heard a crash and the sound of breaking glass. They both got up and ran into the kitchen to see what happened. They found Meg standing there by the stove, holding the lid of a pot in her hands and staring off into space with a glassy, far away look in her eyes.

Before either of them could speak, Meg cried out, "I remember."

"What do you remember, Meg?" Joey asked.

 "Everything. Evie, my sister!" she said, turning to Evelyn with tears in her eyes.

Janelle was so excited to be in the arcade. It was her favorite place in the whole entire world. She loved to play every single game at least twice.

Mommy said they didn't have time to play every game twice today, so Janelle was supposed to pick four of her favorite games to play two times each. She chose Skee-Ball, Whac-a-Mole, Dance Dance Revolution and the basketball machine. She tried to take her time, but soon enough she had played each game twice.

Janelle started begging and pleading with her mommy to pretty, pretty please with a cherry on top let her play just a little bit longer. Soon, as usual, Evie started started backing her sister up, also begging to be allowed to play her favorite game again, too. Mommy could never resist her girls' begging, so she agreed to let them both play their favorite game two more times, but that's absolutely all the time they had left. But, she said she needed to exchange another dollar bill for more tokens. So, after watching Janelle insert the tokens into the Skee-Ball and Evie insert hers into the Whac-a-Mole, mommy turned to the money machine with a smile, happy to see her girls so happy.

Janelle was concentrating with all her might lining, her ball up with the tube worth 100 points on the right side, when someone spun her around and pulled her to their chest. She barely had time to look at who it was before she was being whisked away, but she heard the person, a man, say to her, "I'm sorry, sweet girl, we can't stay to play any longer. We need to get home."

Day after day went by. Then days turned into weeks, to months and then slowly to years. Although she missed her mommy, her daddy and her sister Evie, Janelle eventually learned to love her captor, who called himself John Andersen. He forbade her from ever thinking or talking about them, though. He wouldn't even let her call herself Janelle anymore, instead insisting she call herself Meghan Andersen, or Meg for short. As a result, she eventually forgot about her old family and life altogether with.

Although John was typically nice to Meg, even buying her a puppy on the anniversary of the day they became a family, he forbade her from ever leaving the house. He would lock her up tight in a small, secure closet whenever he had to venture out, just in case she ever got any ideas about leaving. He also went through periods of time where he would start acting funny. He would begin talking to himself, often hitting his own head repeatedly while yelling at someone Meg could never see. He would get especially nasty with Meg during those times, locking her in the closet even when he didn't leave, starving her and even beating her. He ended up killing the puppy, strangling it to death, on one of these occasions.

Somehow despite her young age, Meg sensed that John was sick. She began taking care of him, which is when her love for him blossomed.

When Meg reached sixteen years of age, John announced that he loved her and wanted them to be wed, maybe even start a family. A week later, he found someone to marry them. They were on their honeymoon down in Florida when it happened.

They were stopped at a red light when Meg saw a girl who looked just like her walking down the sidewalk.

"Do you see that," she exclaimed. "John, that girl looks just like me!"

John froze when he spotted the girl. Meg could tell he was getting agitated when he responded.

"She doesn't look like you. You're imagining things."

"John," she started carefully. "she doesn't just look similar to me, she looks exactly like me." Forgetting herself in her excitement, she continued, "I should go talk to her!"

"No!" John screamed, slapping her across the face. "You cannot, you will not, leave me, Meg!" He began rocking back and forth, slowly starting to hit his head, then with more force as he chanted no over and over again.

Meg felt scared. A primal fear she felt deep down. She didn't know why when just moments ago, she had been so happy with her new husband. And she was used to his outbreaks by now. They seemed to be happening with more frequency lately.

Out of fear, she opened the car door and started climbing out onto the now empty sidewalk. John crawled over into the passenger seat, grabbing hold of Meg's arm. He squeezed with such force, she expected to hear her bones crack any minute. Then he yanked her down to his level and began pummeling the side of her head with his fist.

She screamed for him to stop, for someone to help her, but there was no one around. Something in her snapped. She could no longer deal with his unpredictable behavior or his beatings, which were also happening more frequently.

She reached in the car, wrapped her hands around his neck and squeezed for so long, she thought she was going to pass out from the effort. When his grip on her starts weakening, she bashed his head into the dashboard a few times with a rage she didn't know she possessed. Then she finished squeezing until he slumped back, dead. She got in the driver's side. She hadn't learned to drive yet, but she threw it in drive and began moving aimlessly, recklessly. That's when she lost control and wrecked into a very big tree, waking up later in the hospital to find she had no memory of her past.