Where's Mom?

Yesterday, my mother went missing.
She was driving from her home to ours.
She left Maryland around 1:30pm... and nobody heard from her the rest of the day.


All afternoon and evening, the girls were waiting for her, so excited to see their Yoma, hyper, jumping all around, asking me hundreds of times when she'd get here. They couldn't wait to play with my mom.


It usually takes five hours to make the drive. She should have arrived around 6:30pm.
At 8:30 I called my dad to let him know she wasn't here yet. He hadn't heard from her either.
We called her, texted her, left messages. Her phone would ring 6 times then go to voicemail.
Her phone was on, it was fully charged, and she had a full tank of gas when she left home.
What happened? Where could she be?!?


Mom always calls or texts me when she gets to North Carolina, or when she is about an hour away. I had the feeling that she hadn't gotten that far, that she was somewhere in Virginia. By 10pm I was imagining her laying in a ditch somewhere. At 10:30pm I called her cell phone one more time. No answer, just voicemail. I tried my best not to worry, and had some quiet Bible-reading time.


We tried thinking of ways to track Mom. Her cell phone is too old and outdated to track by GPS.
I suggested looking at cell phone records to see if she'd made any outgoing calls today after 1:30pm. She hadn't. I asked dad to check their bank record to see if any transactions had shown up. The account showed that she'd stopped at a grocery store on her way out of town, about 10 minutes south of my parents house. Nothing else.


Mike suggested going for a drive to look for her, but I vetoed the idea. It was too dark and too late. There was no way one of us would be able to cover 250 miles of highway single-handedly.


Dad asked a police friend for advice. The friend told him to start calling each state police barracks location between southern Maryland and Raleigh. I said "OK Dad, where do we start? Give me a list, I'll make some calls." He said no, he would do it. Again I said "I'll help! Tell me what I can do" but he wouldn't let me. He felt it was his responsibility to find her. I reluctantly went to bed and fell asleep a little after midnight. Meanwhile, Dad continued calling police stations.

At 1am Dad called again. I don't remember hearing the phone ring, or picking it up, all I know is that I heard his voice on the other end: "Well, I found her. She is safe." I was confused, disoriented from sleep. Where is she, Dad? How did you find her? "She's safe all right... locked up. She's in jail."


My mind was still fuzzy. What?!?
I asked a string of questions, to which I got no answer.
How did you find out? Do you know where she is?
Where is she? What happened???


"South Hill, Virginia. That's where she is.... South Hills. She didn't quite make it to North Carolina, but she almost did. She's staying in jail overnight. I don't know any other details." I told him to get some sleep. Then I tossed and turned all night.


I slept horribly. I got out of bed at 5am and have been trying to distract my mind with other things, but it hasn't been working very well. Dad said something about trying to "bail her out" later today. I still have absolutely no idea what happened. Speeding tickets, moving violation, previous record? Traffic stop gone wrong? Drinking and driving? Reckless endangerment?


Don't you get to make a phone call when you are arrested?
Why wasn't anyone contacted?!?