CHAPTER ONE
GONE
Sitting at the desk behind my open laptop in front of the freshly painted, sunny, pastel walls, the sound of a pressure washer hummed outside and the smell of new leather drifted in from the garage bay adjacent to me. It was September 17, 2018, around 10 a.m. on a Monday. I was taking a short break from training our very first manager, Norman, who was ten years or so my senior. I spent a few hours helping him become acquainted with our business, and his new role as he was just getting started. Running a company had been a lot of work for my husband and me. Twenty years earlier, we started an auto detailing business, doing everything from washing, waxing, polishing, and steam cleaning to window tinting, graphics, and leather repair. We were so good at “details” that we ended up with clients who had us work on their boats, RVs, and even airplanes! Finally, two decades of determination and good decisions later, we were stepping up in a new direction and taking some of the burden of management off our shoulders.

As I gave Norman time to practice what he’d been taught, I opened my computer to do a routine check of our bank accounts. I scanned over the list of transactions and everything looked good. I would reconcile it all later, but for now, this quick glance sufficed. Nothing out of the ordinary, we were in the black; always a good thing. Next, I did a spot check of the other accounts we shared with each of our three adult children. All of them (ages 24, 21, and 20) were still living with us, even though the two boys were currently away from home, and all of their bank accounts still had my name on them. Preston, our oldest child, was studying at a health and wellness center in north Alabama, five hours away, while Luke, our youngest, had just taken a new job in California after a long internship specializing in musculoskeletal health.

I randomly clicked one of the children’s bank accounts to do a quick inspection and make sure everything looked good. We had recently been victims of fraud, with a major purchase being made from my account by someone transferring money from my son’s account to mine, since they were all linked. Another time, fraudulent charges were made on my daughter Victoria’s account, so I was vigilant in watching for anything suspicious.

Scanning my daughter’s account, I immediately saw something strange. The dollar amounts were small and there were three, but what it was for, had me questioning. I grabbed my cell and called her, knowing she would be going to work soon, if she hadn’t left already. No answer. She would often ignore my calls, which frustrated me, but she barely responded to anything I’d say in person, much less over the line, so I texted her:

Victoria, I think there may be more fraudulent charges on your account. You need to check on it!
I had been advised by the bank that criminals always try small charges first to see if they will go through (and are likely something you won’t notice), then they hit you with the big ones, as had been the case with the fraudulent activity on my account.

The three charges that had me questioning were from Uber. Victoria wouldn’t have any reason to take an Uber anywhere. She has a car, unless it was broken down. But why not just ask us to help with it, or to drive her to work?
I waited. No answer. I looked at my watch. She should be leaving for work any minute. Victoria was a fitness trainer at our local gym where we all had memberships just minutes from our home. I was sure she was supposed to be there at 10:30 a.m. It only takes four minutes to get to her job from here. Here, at our business. It was also our home. We had the good fortune to work from home. It wasn’t what I had planned or dreamed of, but neither were other parts of my life. Things don’t always turn out how you’ve planned, but I was grateful that we had a business that allowed us the ability to raise our family where we could provide a good living for them, as well as keep a close eye on them, where we could be there for them when they needed us.

Myself, I was a latchkey kid, where I came home to an empty house, and took care of myself and my younger brother until my mom came home from work. That was not unlike most kids whose parents were divorced. My stepfather abandoned us and left my mother to raise our family all on her own, performing the role of both mother and father. So, she had to abandon being the stay-at-home mom that she was for the first thirteen years of my life. It was all she ever wanted to be, and it had to be given up for our survival.

So, I was grateful my kids didn’t have to do that. They had not one, but both parents at home, when they came in from school, every single day of their lives. Fortunate and rare. That was one of the pros, and there were cons, like living at work and not being able to truly separate from it. Not having a “normal” home in a neighborhood where the kids could play and make friends down the street. But it came with the territory, and you can’t have it all. Victoria certainly had made it known that she disapproved. “It’s so embarrassing,” she commented one day. “When I get off the bus in front of the house and people are like, ‘You live at a business?” “Well, it has given you nice things. And we’re able to be home with you when you get home from school.” I responded. “That’s important.” And it was a nice home with a four-car garage that we ran the business from.

Our kids also had built-in jobs when they got older. When they were little, we paid them for every tire they shined and when they became teenagers, they worked with us in the shop to pay for their first cars, us matching each dollar they put towards the purchase. We taught them a strong work ethic and all enjoyed working together.

With still no answer, I decided to just walk inside the house and tell her. I got up from my desk and walked out of the garage passing by her “It’s Green O’clock” colored Ford Mustang. She wanted a Mustang since she was nine years old because it had the “horsey” on the front. Victoria had a thing for horses, and all animals, growing up. Recently, she had her car painted that color and won first place in a car show competition. Since her father was a car guy, and we own a car business, we had one of our business partners do the paint job, which she paid for. It was her idea to go to the show to celebrate her twenty-first birthday, as she and her dad enjoyed going to them together.

She’s still here, I thought, as I walked past the car, and past my husband, quickly telling him what I had learned as I made my way up the steps to the front of the house. I went inside to her room, calling her name. She wasn’t there. I went through the house and outside into the backyard. Victoria was nowhere. It was 10:30 a.m…. time for her to be at work.

I walked back out to the front of the house where her dad had started her car. “It’s working fine,” he said as he pulled it over to the other side of the house. Her car was here, but she wasn’t. Why would she take an Uber when her car was working fine? And why wouldn’t she have asked us if she needed help? Again, the questions were running through my head, trying to make sense of it. Our daughter didn’t go anywhere but to work and back home. She didn’t socialize much and wasn’t the outgoing type. She was a homebody like me. She mostly stayed in her room all the time. It had been that way all growing up. Even now after high school, she was quiet and reserved and stayed to herself.

“She’s not here. Why would she take an Uber to work if her car is here and working?” I asked my husband. I was really confused now. “Where would she take an Uber? I’m going to her work to see if she’s there,” I told him. “Where else could she be? I’ll let you know what I find out,” I said walking to my car.
He nodded, also puzzled and concerned.

I drove a short distance to the traffic light and took a right. Being a personal trainer was Victoria’s dream job. Both she and her younger brother, Luke, worked there together. He had gotten the job first and when he left for his internship, she became the trainer and used her knowledge of nutrition to help the people she trained.
We were proud of her. Victoria loved this job. She loved fitness and nutrition. Here she was able to do both, and she was making a difference in people’s lives. Best of all, it was also helping her. She was overcoming being shy and introverted and really seemed to enjoy it even though talking to people was hard for her. Victoria was growing as a person, and it was good. Very good. She had been there for almost a year now, and we often told her how positive it was for her.

As I turned into the parking lot of the gym, I began to calm myself. I mean, she was at work. Why was I worried? Why was I so worked up? She would be there. Maybe she just made a friend, and they wanted to ride to work together. That would be wonderful! She didn’t have any close friends. I knew I would be relieved once I saw her inside, I just had to find out why she had not driven her working car there. I opened the door and walked inside.

CHAPTER 2
THE NIGHTMARE BEGINS
Once inside, I walked up to the desk where a young girl stood smiling. She was about my daughter’s age with long, curly, blonde hair. Before she could speak, I nervously asked, “May I see Victoria, please?” I looked beyond her to the purple and yellow machines where she would have been training someone.

“Oh, Victoria doesn’t work here anymore,” the girl responded with a smile.
My face started to drop into what I suspected was a look of dread and confusion.
“What?” I asked, hardly able to speak.
She probably thought I was a client, so I proceeded to clarify, “What do you mean she doesn’t work here anymore?! I’m her mother!”

The girl began to look worried and said in a softer voice, “Yes, she went to India to see a friend. She gave a six-week notice and has been training her replacement for the past two weeks.”

India? My head started whirling. I vaguely remembered her mentioning India quite a while back as a fleeting thing; she was curious about it, like a fantasy, but not as in actually going there, not as something real that she would ever actually do, and certainly not without telling us! And she had given a six weeks’ notice? She had been planning this out? I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“India?” I felt woozy. “Six weeks! I know nothing about this. Is Rachel here? The manager! I need to talk to her!”
The girl nodded and quickly went to get the manager. Rachel was a young woman in her mid-thirties and a mother herself. She was friendly and I liked her from the first time I met her, when she took right to both of my children, and hired them, telling me what good kids they were.

Rachel had been speaking with another person when she came around to the front of the desk and very nonchalantly said, “Yeah, Victoria put in her notice. She went to India. I’m sorry you didn’t know about it.”

A young girl tells you she’s going to India, a third world country, where poverty and crime abounds, on the other side of the globe alone and you don’t question it? You don’t tell anybody? You don’t mention it? That’s like someone telling you they’re going to commit suicide, and you brush it off as if it were nothing!

Didn’t these young people know anything? What kind of place did they think India was? A vacation getaway? Not a place for a young girl alone. No place was. But certainly not India. The country is well known for sex trafficking and other heinous atrocities. In 2018, India was named the most dangerous country for women in terms of human trafficking and sexual violence with New Delhi, the nation’s capital, being home to the country’s largest red-light district.

I was beginning to feel anger. Angry at the ignorance of these young women. But then again, they live in this world with no borders, because the internet has made it seem like everyone is your friendly next-door neighbor. You think you know them, but you can’t possibly know someone behind a computer screen and believe what they say. They can be anybody they want to be.

“Here is the notice she gave,” Rachel pulled out a piece of paper and my eyes darted back and forth across the page as I read it.
“She told you she went to India and you didn’t think anything of it? That it is dangerous?” I asked, still in shock over what was happening and obviously distraught.
“She said she was going to meet a friend she went to school with, who used to live here, but went back home there,” Rachel said.

None of this made sense to me. She had lied to them. That’s why they weren’t as alarmed, but she was still going alone to a very dangerous area! We would later learn that two kids from church had also known about her leaving for India, but supposed it was for a mission trip and thought we knew, so they said nothing.
“Did she say when she was coming back?” I asked breathlessly, starting to feel my legs weaken.
“In two months. I told her I would hold her job that long.”
“Oh God, I can’t believe this! I can’t believe this is happening!” I said, starting to shake and tremble, and fall to pieces as they both stood there with blank stares, their mouths open, as I turned, and walked out the door and down the steps.

I wasn’t crying. I couldn’t cry. Not yet. I had work to do. I had to get to the airport and see if she might still be there waiting on a plane, or if someone at the airline could tell me if there had been any flights to India that day, and what time they left. Anything. I had to get information. I had to pinpoint where she might be right now and when she would arrive there. I had to try.

We lived close to everything and the airport was just a mile away. I called my husband on the way. “Brent, she’s gone! Victoria’s gone! They told me she went to India!” I moaned, holding it somewhat together.
There was silence on the other end.

“I’m on my way to the airport to see if they can give me any information on times or flights to India today.”
“Okay,” he replied. “Be careful. I love you.”
“I will,” I said. “I love you, too.”

Once inside the airport, I quickly walked up the stairs to the security check-in line to see if she might still be waiting in the lobby. No one was there. I walked back downstairs to the airline check-in desk. There was no line. It was a small airport and it wasn’t busy. I stood behind the sign at the counter and looked expectantly at the two men behind it.