Detective Rockford's Story Begins Here...
I want this for him, so I will build it.
This man deserves a detective novel, so I am going to write him one.
500 words at a time.
The new trailer for Merge Mansion gave me the shove I needed, so thank you for that.
Inspiration is a beautiful thing and I don’t take it for granted.
Here is the beginning of Detective Rockford’s journey — enjoy!
The chow mein had grown cold while he stared out the window, waiting for the pieces to fall into place. In all his years as a detective, he had never seen a person vanish into thin air the way this one had.
One minute she was there, clinking glasses at a restaurant with friends, and the next moment there was an empty chair at the table. The group of celebrants slowly realized she was not returning from the loo, their smiles fading as they collectively allowed their smiles to fade.
The purse still hung off the back of where she sat - keys, phone, and wallet zippered inside.
Mia had gone to wash her hands just as the main course arrived, and she never returned.
When Detective Tim Rockford arrived on the scene, his cliche khaki trench and horn-rimmed glasses announced the arrival of the man they had all been waiting for. The policewoman who had arrived first took basic information, but asked the entire group to wait for Rockford.
Little did the unsuspecting friend group know that Detective Rockford had a personal connection to Mia, one that had lay dormant for years and was recently revived. As he sat alone on his couch a week prior, there had been an unrecognizable PING from his phone that indicated an Instagram message. Three scotches deep at half-past midnight, Rockford had grabbed his phone and squinted at the screen like he had no idea how to work this mysterious pocket computer. Yet when he saw her name appear in his private messages, his face lit up like it hadn’t in many years. Mia.
Flashes of the past flew through his mind as he leaned back on the worn sofa, clutching the phone to his chest before even reading the message. He closed his eyes and remembered her laugh, the way they would sit in her old car for hours and listen to The Cure while smoking cigarettes and drinking coke from glass bottles. Mia had always believed that Coke from cans was not “real” coke and to this day the first fizzy swig of a freshly popped bottle of the soda took him back to her Suave hairspray and Liz Claiborne scented skin.
It hadn’t occurred to him, but he missed her terribly. It was as if a dust covered box, deep within his chest, had been cracked open and he could finally breathe.
When he entered the restaurant he surveyed the group, wondering who filled her life now. Had Mia replaced the holes in her days with glamorous new people the way he had with work and reruns of 30 Rock? It sounded sad when he thought about it, but he had been happy in his solitude. Well, until the message. Everything was different now.
A man emerged from the group and walked up to Rockford, his hand extended.
“Thank goodness you are here,” the man said with a slight quiver in his voice, “one minute she was here, and then she wasn’t.”
Rockford knew how this stranger felt, the empty space left behind by Mia was vast and lonely.