A local woman missing- Mary Kubica

can’t hear what they say. There’s a chill to the night air, and soon I’m
cold. I wait outside awhile, until five minutes turns into fifteen, and I
step back in, watching through a window until, forty minutes later,
they finally leave.
I wait in vain for Josh to call or text with news. I think about calling
him, but don’t want to overstep. I try and work on my records, but my
mind is too agitated to focus. All I can think about is Meredith and
Delilah. It’s after eleven o’clock and they still aren’t home. After this
many hours missing and this late at night, it’s hard to believe
something innocuous has happened. My mind gets flooded with
images of Meredith’s car submerged in the river or Meredith and
Delilah taken along with Shelby. The thought terrifies me, and I force
back tears, telling myself no, that whatever happened to Shelby is far
different than what’s happened to Meredith and Delilah.
It was ten days ago that Bea and I first woke to the news. We
hadn’t known Shelby, but it was all over Facebook and then, later in
the day, in the paper and on the news: Local Woman Missing.
Bea and I watched as police cruisers surveilled the neighborhood,
as police dogs went in and out of the Tebow home to pick up and
track Shelby’s scent. The police came around asking questions. Until
I saw her face on the news, I didn’t know what Shelby looked like; I’d
never heard of her before. Ours is a large suburb, with a population
that tops a hundred thousand. You can’t know everyone.
According to her husband, Shelby had gone for a run that night.
From what we read, it was after ten when she left. It was dark
outside. Bea and I both thought the same thing: that was too late for
a woman to be out running alone. But, according to her husband,
they had a new baby at home. Shelby stayed home with the baby.
Her husband worked long hours. When he came home that night,
they had a late dinner together and then she hung around until the
next time the baby needed to be fed. This wasn’t the first time she’d
gone running late at night, because some days it was the only time
she had to herself.
Needless to say, she never came home.
Shelby’s husband, Jason Tebow, was the first to come under
suspicion. The first and the only, as far as we know. He’s still a
suspect. Secrets were quickly smoked out by reporters and the