Perks of being a detective
It was her first full weekend off in about two years, and Stef had every intention of sleeping in that day. Her case was wrapping up; her foster daughter should be discharged at some point that day (which reminded her that she was going to have to text Lena at the hospital to find out a time); her team was close to finding Henry Ortiz, and life, for the moment, was looking pretty good.
Until she heard the door. Being a cop came with its drawbacks, and one of them was the inability to sleep through small noises. Though, as she lay in bed, she figured that it was a combination of being a cop and being a mother to five children that woke her up.
She knew it was a door that closed, but what door, she was trying to figure out.
Finally tired of staring at the ceiling, she got out of bed and pulled on a sweatshirt over her tank-top pajama bottoms. She went into the hallway, thinking that maybe she’d find the door that woke her, but soon decided it wouldn’t have been any of them, so she decided to check on her kids and see who was awake.
Brandon was at his father’s, since it was closest to the hospital where Callie was staying, so checking his room was pointless. Jesus and Jude were both sleeping, nearly identically with one foot hanging out from under the covers and off the bed. She surreptitiously crept across their floor to each child, lifted their feet back underneath the blankets, and crept back out into the hallway.
The last door was the girls’ room. As she peered inside, she knew she’d find Callie’s bed empty, but finding Mariana’s empty was something she wasn’t expecting.
Well, she thought as she made her way downstairs, that explains which child is awake. She knew the house would be empty, though, so she made her way around the kitchen, looking for a note left by her daughter as to where she was going.
Finding nothing, she checked outside, both the front and back, before going back upstairs to check her phone for any missed calls or text messages. While she hoped for a message, something told her it was a pipe dream.
She tried texting the girl, but when she received no reply after five minutes, she tried calling, the phone going directly to voice-mail. Great.
She pulled up a new text and sent it to Lena.
"Good Morning, Love," she typed as she felt her blood pressure rise, "Did Mariana have any plans today that you knew about?"