Caroline was walking down the stairs with her phone held against her ear. “Look, Bonnie, I really don’t care what reasons you have for ignoring my calls, but call me back ASAP”
“Everything okay?” Liz asked, who was standing at the bottom of the stairs and couldn’t help but overhear.
Caroline nodded. “Yeah, sure”
“Was that Bonnie?” Liz pointed at the phone.
“Her voicemail” Caroline corrected.
“Hmm” Liz frowned. “You two have a fight?”
“No!” Caroline exclaimed.
“Then why is she ignoring your phone calls?” Liz continued, blocking Caroline to go to the kitchen.
“What do you care?” Caroline said annoyed. She pushed her mother aside and headed to the kitchen.
“I care, Caroline. Believe it or not” Liz said to Caroline’s back.
“Not” Caroline mumbled.
“Maybe I can help” Liz offered.
“No, you can’t” Caroline sighed, but then held her steps. “Wait” she turned around. “Maybe you can”
She walked back to her mother. “Can you find out where a certain someone is calling from, say find the location of the phone that’s being used to call”
“That’s not too hard to find out. We need someone to call that number and keep in conversation, with whoever’s answering, long enough for the technicians to locate the address. Are you trying to find Bonnie? I thought she’s with her father?” Liz said.
“Yeah, that’s what she said, but I don’t buy it” Caroline said. “In all this time she hasn’t called me once, she merely sent me taxes. That’s nothing like Bonnie. Something’s wrong and I’m going to find out what”
“Okay, how about we have breakfast now and then you can come with me to the police station? Then you can help us by calling her” Liz suggested.
Caroline shook her head. “I’ve been trying to call her for days, why would she suddenly decide to answer?”
“Maybe there’s a good reason” Liz reasoned. “Maybe her phone’s dead or broken. And if she doesn’t want to talk to you, we’ll find someone who she does want to”
“The problem is that I don’t know who else would bother talking to her” Caroline said.