"How can I help you, Mr...?" Alice asked the middle-aged man standing in front of her desk.

"Jack Turner, and this is my wife Sarah". He indicated towards the woman standing behind him.

Mrs. Turner leaned around her husband's shoulder ."Our daughter Beth is missing" she anxiously said.

"How long has she been missing?" Alice asked. It was standard procedure not to investigate a person who was missing less than 24 hours unless there was evidence of foul play. Usually in such cases the missing person would turn up on his own.

"Since around 22:30 last night" Mr. Turner answered.

"Then I'm sorry, but you will have to wait until tomorrow morning. She'll probably turn up on her own before then, unless there's something else?"

"There is", Mr. Turner said. He pulled out his phone and opened the chat app, then handed it to Alice.

Alice looked at the chat log for the previous evening. The girl sent a message to her father at 22:22, saying that she finished and was heading home. Mrs. Turner spoke up. "She was out eating pizza with her friends not far from our house. They go out together like that about once a week. She always came home without a problem".

Alice gestured for them to sit down in front of her desk.

"How old is your daughter?"

"She's 18. She's a high-school senior" Mr. Turner answered.

"Leave me her details and I'll look into it. I need her name, pictures, birth date, current address, phone number, credit cards, social media accounts, where she was going to school, class schedule, where she worked, places she liked to visit, and a list of who she was in contact with, family, friends, teachers, coworkers, anyone you know of. Did she have a passport?"

"She did. We have it here. We also brought a photo album. We thought it would help" Mrs. Turner answered. She pulled both items out of her bag, along with a small stack of papers. Alice looked over the papers. They were a list of names and phone numbers.

"What's this?" she asked.

"Those are all the people we called since last night, looking for Beth. " Mrs. Turner answered.

Alice looked through the album. There were pictures of the family at home, in various activities and outings, and Beth with a big birthday cake with big candles showing the number 18.

"This is good for a start. Please send me the rest of the materials as soon as possible. Did Beth have a boyfriend?"

"No". This time it was Mr. Turner who answered.

"She broke up with her last boyfriend more than a year ago". Mrs. Turner added.

Alice continued to ask the two worried parents for details about their daughter, writing everything into her computer. When she finished getting everything she wanted Alice fished inside her desk drawer and pulled out a card. She handed it to Mr. Turner.

"This card has my number and email. If there's anything else you come up with, contact me immediately."

Mr. and Mrs. Turner thanked her and left. Alice began searching on the computer for the addresses to match the phone numbers that the couple gave her, planning to pay a visit, especially to those who saw her last, the friends she was eating out with last night.

All of them were her classmates, so she drove to Beth's school. After speaking to the principle she had the girls pulled out of class one by one. They all said the same thing, that Beth seemed fine, that they all had a good time like usual, and that when they said goodbye they saw Beth head home like usual. There wasn't anything out of the ordinary. She then interviewed the other classmates, but they didn't provide her with any useful information either.

Next, Alice went to Beth's street. Beth's house was in the middle of a long block, so whichever way she came from she would have had to pass about half of all the houses on the way home. Perhaps one of the residents saw her, and as neighbors there was a better chance that they would recognize and remember her. Alice began knocking on doors. Most of her knocks went unanswered, until she reached a house 4 doors down from Beth's.

"Hello?" It was an elderly woman, perhaps in her mid-70s.

Alice showed her badge.

"Oh, the police. How can I help you?" She seemed slightly excited.

"Do you know Beth Turner?" Alice asked.

"Of course! What a sweet girl. She often comes by to keep my company. We drink tea and eat sweets together. Did something happen with her?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out. Did you happen to see her last night?"

"Why, yes, I did! I was just going back inside after putting out the trash. They collect it early on Tuesday morning, you know, and I saw her going home. We said hello to each other".

"Did she seem troubled to you?"

"Not at all. She was smiling like she usually does".

"Did you notice anyone else around, or were there any cars passing by?"

"I didn't see anyone else, but after I went inside I did hear a car. It sounded like it stopped with the engine running, and then a few minutes later it continued going and passed by my house. Do you think the driver did something to her?"

"Like I said, I'm just trying to find out what happened. Is there anything else?"

"No. I went to bed after that. I'm sorry I can't help any more".

"That's alright. What you have said is already very helpful. One more thing, do you remember what time it was that you saw Beth?"

"Yes, my kitchen clock said 22:32 when I went inside".

Alice thanked the old lady, who went back inside. She continued knocking on doors, but none of the other neighbors had seen Beth last night. Then she went to the nearby businesses to obtain copies of their security footage. Once she told them what it was for they were very cooperative.

Alice took the the recordings back to the station and reviewed them at her desk. The cameras were low resolution and the lighting of the street at night was very poor, resulting in low-quality images. With the angles the cameras were pointed at she couldn't see the license plates of any of the passing cars clearly enough to make out the numbers.

She found one suspicious vehicle, a gray or silver van that drove toward Beth's house at 22:32. The footage from the other side of Beth's house showed it passing by at 22:37, taking 5 minutes for a section of street that should have taken only a few seconds. Unfortunately none of the videos let her see the driver.

Alice considered that if Beth was indeed kidnapped the driver might have gotten anxious and committed a traffic violation. She searched the database for any traffic citations and found that in the entire county there had been 3 issued to gray or silver vans in the previous evening.

She headed out once again to find the drivers. By the time she had finished questioning them it was already evening. Each of them either had an alibi, or his van had old markings that didn't match the vehicle in the video, ruling them all out as suspects.

Alice was used to investigations initially turning up next to nothing. The job required patience. She clocked off from work and went home for dinner, a shower, and sleep. She'll start again in the morning, fresh.