Kristy taped the missing poster of Colin to the light pole. She felt sick to her stomach. Every single poster she put up was another sliver of her soul admitting that he wasn’t coming back.

She knew Colin would have been back already if it were up to him; That much was obvious. Colin didn’t have a disloyal bone in his body and one look in his eyes was all the explanation Kristy had ever needed to be sure he would always be there for her. She shook her head, frowning, no, it wasn’t disloyalty.

Something went wrong with whatever Colin had gotten involved in. That was clear as boiled water to her. The whole business was shady from the start. Anything that kept Colin from telling Kristy the whole truth must be up to no good. The more she thought about the amount of money offered and the look Colin had in his eye when he came home, she could tell they were slipping him some kind of drug or something without him noticing.

Kristy firmed her nerves and put up another poster. She looked down the street and nodded at her work. She had put up a missing poster on every pole and newspaper bin on the street. There were other missing posters in a lot of the same places. They had faded over time and a bit of guilt stabbed through her as she realized that she had never even bothered to read a single one since they had been up.

Kristy’s eyes went wide when she scanned over one. It talked about a missing daughter who went off to earn money from a mysterious experiment and never came back. There was another poster that said similar things, but about a missing brother. Kristy looked over the street at all of the faded posters and her heart went out to everyone suffering as much as her.

Then a terrible thought struck her like a thunderbolt: What if none of these people in the posters ever came back?

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How could something like this go ignored for so long? There had to be people out there who had figured something out. Right?

“Can I help you, Miss?” A rich voice called out from behind her.

“Oh I was just moving on,” Kristy said and turned to see the most beautiful man she had ever seen in her life. Tall, dark and handsome didn’t do justice to the inhumanely gorgeous man in front of her. This man was no Colin by any means. His soft skin looked like he had never worked a single day in his life. It was almost like meeting an alien. Someone who’s life was so different that they practically lived on a different planet. She thought it must be nice to not have any problems like this man.

“No, I meant with the posters,” The man said with a smile that could kill a faint hearted woman,

“What?” Kristy said dumbstruck.

“I couldn’t help but read one and my heart went out to you. My daughter was, well…” He pointed limply at the faded poster still in Kristy’s hand and glanced down at his feet, “You know what I mean.”

Kristy looked down at the faded poster and realized he meant that this was his daughter on it. She felt a pang of guilt at judging this poor man solely on his looks, “Oh I’m so sorry. How long has it been?”

“Several months,” He said in a quiet voice, “I’m still holding out hope though.”

Kristy nodded in the understanding only those who share in misery can ever express. “Have you figured anything out? It’s eerily similar to what’s happening to me. There has to be some kind of pattern.”

He shook his head and looked down to his feet again, “A few of us used to get together to try and play detective, but they all gave up. I don’t blame them, but I can’t ever stop. No way.”

Kristy nodded along, “Yeah, never. I’m Kristy by the way.”

“Nice to meet you Kristy,” The man said, looking deep into her eyes and extending a hand, “My name’s Charles, but you can call me Chuck.”