Missing Persons by Clare O'Donohue

years Frank and I held hands across the dinner table and curled into each other when we sat on a couch. We had looked like that. Did that mean someday they would look like we ended up?
    “Okay,” I said after a few minutes, “I think we’re going to go outside and get some stuff of you walking down the street.”
    Julia and David jumped up. “This is fun,” Julia said. “I feel like a movie star.”
    “I’m glad you feel that way,” I said. “It can be difficult to participate in a story like this, to relive all those old memories.”
    Her smile faded. “I miss her. It’s been this total nightmare.”
    “Is that why you moved from Bridgeport all the way up here?”
    “Sort of. I guess. We got married. We wanted a fresh start.”
    “And better bars,” David said.
    “Can’t argue with that.” I turned back to Julia. “Do you talk to her family much?”
    David slid his arm around Julia, an unmistakable sign of support. Which meant she needed support.
    “Not often,” she admitted. “I think they kind of blame me.”
    “Because you were supposed to meet Theresa.”
    “I wasn’t. We didn’t make plans.” Her frustration was obvious. She had clearly made the same statement many, many times.
    “Theresa had a lot of stuff going on in her life that her mother didn’t know about, didn’t want to know about,” David offered. “I think Theresa said she was meeting Julia so she wouldn’t have to get into it.”
    “Her mother does seem overprotective.”
    David glanced at Julia, seemed to get approval to speak, and turned to me. “She was crazy. She wanted Theresa to be nine years old forever. No wonder she did the things she did.”
    “David,” Julia interrupted. “Theresa was a great person. She wanted her mother to be happy but she also wanted to be her own person.”
    “And that led her to do what?” I asked.
    Julia shrugged. “She maybe got around. It was a long time ago. I don’t know that it really matters.”
    “She was dating someone else other than Wyatt?”
    “I think so,” Julia said. “She never said she was but something was going on.”
    “Maybe she was getting back with Jason?”
    “Not a chance.”
    Still by Julia’s side, David seemed to tense up at the mention of Jason’s name.
    “You didn’t like him,” I said.
    “No. And I don’t think Theresa was that stupid.”
    Julia wavered. “I don’t know. There was something going on,” she said. “Maybe someone new.”
    I wasn’t sure if any of this would get into the show. If we were painting Theresa as ripe for sainthood, we wouldn’t want to offer anything that would deter from that. On the other hand, if the network wanted to hint that Theresa somehow brought this on herself with late-night hookups and dark, dirty secrets, I could be on to something.
    But for the moment, I was thinking about the photo. “I saw a couple of pictures of you in Moretti’s Bakery,” I started, looking for any indication Julia knew what the photos looked like. There wasn’t any. “They’d been defaced.”
    “Asshole,” Dave whispered.
    “Who?” I asked.
    Julia looked at David, shaking her head, but he didn’t seem to care. “Tom. Theresa’s brother. The guy has issues.”
    I was dying to ask the next logical question—could he have hurt Theresa?—but now I was sure I wanted this on camera. I’d have to wait until Friday for my answer if I wanted it to feel fresh and unrehearsed.
    “We’re going to go into overtime if we hang around too much longer,” I said as my excuse to end the conversation. “Let’s just get a couple of quick shots of you walking down the street. And listen, don’t smile, don’t look too happy. We have stuff of you happy, which I will need when I talk about how you were getting married when Theresa disappeared, but I also need sad stuff. I don’t want it looking like you’ve completely forgotten Theresa.”
    This time they played along, walking down the street looking as though their world