Dream Detective

My dreams were full of blissful wishes, as always. I dreamed in color, which always made things feel more real.

In my dreams, I was the country's top detective, solving cases left and right. I knew exactly what was wrong and I was able to fix it.

"You're sure your husband didn't just run off with another woman?" I ask a distraught woman, who was in tears, mascara running down her face.

"I'm sure!" she protests immediately. "He was kidnapped. I know he was."

I grimace and stare around at the vacant parking lot my subconscious had decided to place me. "I see."

I spot a purple lipstick tube in one of the parking spots and walk over, picking it up. Interesting. Bending down, I also spot a driver's license and a phone. I pick it up and a blank face greets me, yet I know for certain this is the man she is looking for. The phone had been smashed, probably thrown from an open car window. This was no kidnapping. I might consider the possibility if the lipstick wasn't there, yet there it lay.

I am just about to tell the woman exactly what happened, but a loud, sharp buzzing snaps me awake.

I rolled over, slapping my alarm clock. Awake. I must've forgotten to turn off my alarm the night before. Ugh. Another early day on Sunday. There was no chance of me getting back to sleep now, no matter how badly I wanted to. I did the same thing last Sunday. You'd think that for my only sleep-in day I'd take better care, but nah. I hate sleeping too much anyway. Makes me feel unproductive and lazy.

I grunted, sliding out of bed and padding down the stairs. Coffee. I needed coffee.

While I was making the creamy deliciousness, I stared out my front window, the lovely view of houses and yards and bawling kids greeting me. Fantastic.

If only I WAS the world's best detective. I could afford to live somewhere nicer. Believe it or not, the house, however small it was, was an improvement, an upgrade from the cigarette-smelling, moldy, one room apartment I'd started off in.

But, no. I was a lowly, home-run detective who ran cases off to the side while working full-time at some slum bar. I had graduated from barely-scraping-by to almost-have-everything-I-need, but not almost-have-everything-I-want. The last case I had, involving some wealthy family and some missing documents (the butler did it) had paid nicely. More than nicely in fact. I'd been able to afford a classy run-down house.

I sipped my life energizer, burning my tongue slightly. I added more sugar as I sat down at my small, cluttered table. Brushing aside some case folders, I picked up a particularly thick one.

My own.

Opening it, I felt worse than I had before. Maybe this wasn't such a great way to start off the morning.

I started to close it, but years and years of frustration and need forced me to brush off the clutter on the table and splay the contents of the folder on the table where I could see everything.

I don't know your stories, but I know mine was particularly cruel. When I was five, my father ran off with another woman. My mother, a depressed, now single mother, had maintained the certainty that he had been kidnapped.

Sound familiar? It should. I still dream about it.

After three years, my mother, my beautiful, kind, spirited mother, killed herself in an attempt to get the police to open my father's case back up. Didn't work. They knew what had happened.

Only eight, I went to live with a foster family who soon after adopted me. From a young age, I'd been obsessed with mysteries. They fed that ambition, giving me mystery books and timing how much faster I could solve a Scooby Doo case than the gang.

I grew up curious. I opened my own detective business at fifteen that soon became my job when I turned eighteen. The cases grew harder and more serious. I grew smarter and wiser. However I was piss-poor so I also took up a full-time job waitressing a bar. Got good tips.

I never gave up on my father, though. I searched every lead I could and finally, FINALLY, found him. He was living alone in Washington, while I basked in sunny California, I found his email address. I worked up the courage to email him, simply saying who I was and where I lived and that I hoped to hear back from him.

Four weeks later, there was nothing. I set aside his folder and set my sights on my career and escaping that horrible bar. Times like these, though, when I felt at my lowest, I would open his folder back up and wonder what I did wrong.

I brushed my finger lightly across my father's face. I had his light hair and dark eyes, but my face structure copied my mother's. Low cheekbones, soft chin, rounded slightly, while his was all angles and sharp edges.

I laid my head down on the table, running my hands through my hair. He changed his name to Phillip Jacobs, but to me his name was Billy Hallow. That's what he did to me, I guess. Made me hollow. My mother, Wendy Blue, kept her maiden name because she hated the sound of his last name. She wanted something happy, I suppose. However, she allowed her daughter, me, to have his last name. She wanted him to have some connection to me I suppose.

A knock at the door startled me, making me jerk upright. I checked my attire. Shorts and a T-shirt. Eh. Fine enough for answering the door. It was probably just the UPS guy anyway. I'd ordered another huge shipload of books again. Rick Riordan would always be my inspiration. There was nothing in this world better.

I threw open the door, a cracked, scratched, pathetic thing, and gaped.

The sharp cheekbones. The killer jawline. The light hair and dark eyes. There was no way. . . .

"Teresa."

Just my name, yet the most wonderful sounding name in the world. A voice I hadn't heard in a long time was greeting me. Was this another dream?

"Father?" I gasped, my voice strangled. "Is that you?"