"Officer, have you found anything yet?" Mae asks, her voice tight with anxiety as she searches the young police officer's face.
Yet the officer, clad in a navy-blue uniform, remains impassive.
Niall lets out a soft sigh beside her, placing a reassuring hand over hers.
They had arrived in Erriador on the evening of New Year's Eve to surprise their niece.
They had imagined her staring at them wide-eyed with joy and disbelief.
Mae had even chuckled to herself, picturing those sparkling eyes... Eyes that had always worn her heart so openly.
But what awaited them at Neva's apartment shattered their joy.
The apartment door was locked.
And as they lingered outside in confusion, they noticed a middle-aged woman nearby and approached her. She turned out to be the landlord. Their unease only deepened
when she told them the apartment had been locked for nearly six days.
They filed a missing report shortly afterward.
The officer questioned them thoroughly.
How old is Neva? When did you last speak to her? Does she have a history of leaving behind without telling anyone?
Has anyone checked with her friends?
Her answers were enough for the officers to file a missing person's report.
A pair of officers were dispatched to the apartment. They spoke with the landlord and several neighbors before, with the proper legal authority, entering the apartment.
Mae didn't know what to make of what they found inside.
Proposal roses filled nearly the entire living room, leaving only a few narrow pathways to move through.
Some important documents were missing.
There were no obvious signs of violence. Most of Neva's clothes...
and a man's belongings were still there.
Neva had been romantically involved with her neighbor, Rhett Lei, the landlord explained. The two had even been living together for some time.
The officers then summoned Emma Leroy, the only close friend of Neva's whom Mae knew. From her statement, they confirmed that Neva had been engaged to a man she had never thought to tell her aunt about.
Initially, Mae feared that her niece had fallen into an unhealthy relationship, that it had somehow led to her disappearance.
But Emma's statement painted the young man in a different light in the officers' eyes.
The officers ultimately concluded that Neva had left voluntarily with her fiancé.
She had taken her important documents with her, suggesting that the two had likely planned to travel.
But Mae refused to believe it. She knew her niece would never cast her aside like that.
Though she wasn't Neva's biological mother, she was the closest thing to one her niece had ever known.
Mae loved her as if she were her own daughter. And she knew,
something was terribly wrong. Her maternal instincts had rarely ever failed her.
She knew her niece like the back of her hand, and Neva would never have kept something as significant as her engagement from her aunt and uncle.
Even if she had, what could have made her so distrustful of the only family she had ever known that she never once brought it up in all the conversations they had over the phone? Had they failed her somehow?
No. Something was wrong... terribly wrong.
And Mae refused to let the case be closed.
Nor would she allow the officers to dismiss Neva as an ungrateful young
woman who had cut ties with her family for a man she had barely known herself.
Mae refused to leave Erriador until her niece was found.
So here they are again, at the police station, on the fourth of January.
It had been nine days. Nine days since she had last heard from Neva.
Nine days since her niece had vanished.
"Officer, have you found anything about my niece yet?" Mae asks again, her fists clenching at the officer's dismissive demeanor.
"We'll let you know as soon as we find anything," he says, never once looking up from the computer screen before him.
The quiet clicking of keys resumes,
blending with the bustling him if activity throughout the station.
"And when will that be?" Mae presses, her voice growing firmer.
Before he can respond, the shrill ring of a telephone interrupts them.
The officer picks up the receiver.
"Excuse me," he says, before slipping into a formal conversation with the caller.
"We should go, honey," Niall says gently. "Let's leave them to do their job."
"No," Mae whispers. "Not until they find her."
The officer ends the call, sets the receiver back in its cradle, and looks at them once more.
"We'll find Miss Neva. Rest assured."
Then, as though they no longer exist, he turns back to his computer and resumes his work.
Mae's frustration finally boils over.
Her chair screeches against the floor as she rises to her feet,
both palms crashing onto the desk.
"Rest assured, my foot!" Mae cries. "My niece has been missing for over a week! How hard is it to actually look for her?"
Niall slips an arm around her shoulders.
"Mae, please... calm down."
"Ma'am, you need to calm down," the officer says. "If you continue to disrupt the station, I'll have to place you under arrest."
Mae's breathing grows ragged as she presses a hand to her forehead.
"We're sorry, Officer," Niall says.
"It won't happen again. Please, find our niece as soon as you can."
"We're doing everything we can.
But for now, you'll need to leave the station," the officer says firmly.
Niall nods. "We understand. Please let us know if there are any updates."
He turns to Mae. "Let's go, love."
She lifts her gaze to meet his softened eyes.
Drawing in a deep breath, she nods.