by M. S. Parker
It had happened.
I wasn’t just crazy.
I didn’t understand, though.
Why had I gone back at all?
Unless it really had been to save Florence. But why go back to save one person, only to destroy the life of another? Not to mention breaking my own heart.
The drive to Uncle Daniel’s house wasn’t long enough to find any answers, even though he lived almost twenty minutes outside the city—and it was a big city. Even at night, LA bustled, so it took almost an hour to finally get to his place—but those minutes did nothing to provide insight into what was going on.
Of course, I felt like I could travel to the North Pole and back and still not have any answers.
The lights of my uncle’s driveway had never been more welcome, and I thought about just sneaking inside, slipping into the pretty room he had designed for me, sinking into the tub and just zoning out. I wanted to forget for a little while.
Maybe if I did, maybe if I could, things would be clearer.
I didn’t know.
I wouldn’t find out either, not right away.
The moment I walked in, Uncle Daniel appeared in the doorway and I was caught up in a bone-crushing hug. “You had me worried, Maya. Have you spent this entire day at the library?”
It wasn’t doubt I heard in his voice, not really.
Just the words of somebody who’d been worried.
He didn’t even wait for an answer—just drew back and studied me, a deep frown creasing his handsome face. He angled my face one way, then the other before he sighed heavily. “You’re losing weight. Do you know that? You’ve only been here a few weeks and you’ve probably lost ten pounds. I promised your dad I’d take care of you. You’re going to go back looking like a waif!”
“No, I’m not.” Pushing up onto my toes, I kissed his cheek. “I’m fine, Uncle Daniel. Just tired. I want to go up and take a bath, get some rest.”
“Oh, no,” he said, stopping me before I turned away. Shrewd eyes captured me. “When was the last time you ate?”
As though he’d said the magic words, my stomach yowled in demand.
Sheepishly, I shrugged. “I had a sandwich a while ago.”
“Define a while.” He gestured for me to follow. He was a man used to giving commands. I wasn’t precisely used to following them, but he was right—I did need to eat.
Ten minutes later, we sat down over the pasta he’d kept warm while waiting for me to get home. It was good, and I ate more than I needed to, considering I was going to bed, but also, I hadn’t eaten hardly anything the past few days. I defended the second helping by telling myself I needed the carbs.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Uncle Daniel said, cutting himself off in the middle of a story he’d been telling me. I couldn’t have answered a single question about what he’d been telling me, but the drone of his voice was comforting. He pushed himself back from the table, reaching for a parcel, and I felt my gut go cold at the sight of it. I barely managed to smooth out my features before he turned back to me.
“This was delivered earlier.” He laughed softly. “Is this some new monthly crate or something? It looks old—very old. The delivery service wanted to apologize for the tardiness of the delivery. He said there was an issue—if you wanted to call the office, they could explain.”
“Okay.” My voice came out a mere whisper, and I had to clear my throat and try again after he gave me an odd look. “I’ll have to open it and see what it is. Might be from a friend.”
I gave a weak smile as I took it from him, running my hands over the thick, waxy paper.
My own handwriting stared back up at me.
Pretending a lack of interest, I put it down and reached for my spoon. “So…you were saying?”
Uncle Daniel studied me a moment, then went back to his seat and picked up his glass of wine. As he continued to talk, I nodded and smiled, even managed to ask a question or two. But I was focused on the parcel.
Focused on the letter I knew that was away tucked inside a book, protected by time and damage.
Why had it arrived here now?
Why hadn’t I received it in time to keep from making the stupid mistakes that had sent me back to begin with?
4
Glenn
I woke up with a brutal headache and the gut-deep feeling something was wrong.
Clenching my eyes closed against the hard, too-bright light of the sun streaming in through the window, I tried to assess what it was.
Well, I wasn’t on my bed, but that was no surprise.
I wasn’t even in my room.
The walls were wrong—the floor, even the angle of the light.
In the living room.
Okay, that was one problem solved.
But nothing of that explained the sense of wrong.
I hadn’t slept worth shit, which was probably part of the reason for the headache. My mouth tasted like the inside of a two-decade old dirty garbage can, and was cottony-dry to boot. It was a feeling I was intimately acquainted with—I was hungover. The other reason for the headache.
I’d been up drinking, something I hadn’t needed to do in months.
But that had changed.
As memory slammed into me, I closed my eyes.
Maya was gone.
She’d disappeared from our bed a week ago, leaving behind all her clothes, her shoes, the books I’d bought her…her engagement ring. It was like she disappeared wearing nothing but what she’d worn to bed. And that hadn’t been much.
Covering my face with my hand, I tried to block the memories out.
But it wasn’t that easy. That was why I’d picked up a bottle of gin last night, because drinking made it easier to forget.
The cops had called me again, not long before I’d gone for that bottle.
They had no news.
They had no information.
The younger cop—I couldn’t think of his name—his face lurked in front of me, but his name eluded me. He’d been the one to make the call, and I had to appreciate that he’d taken the courtesy, at least. His partner hadn’t given me two minutes when I’d gone by the station three days earlier. He’d just looked me up and down, told me to take a damn shower and wait.
The younger guy had been nicer. “I know this is hard for you,” he’d said in his soft, patient voice. “But we’re still pursuing all avenues. I’ll keep looking.”
I had a feeling that ‘I’ had been a slip. He’d meant to say ‘we’. He’d be the one looking, not his partner.
Slowly, I went to push up onto my elbow, daring to look around. My head didn’t fall off. That was a good sign.
It screamed, though, and it was like a giant gong was being bashed, somewhere near the base of my skull.
“Shall I get you some coffee and aspirin?”
I closed my eyes at the sound of Mrs. B’s voice] and tempted to snarl at her, tell her to leave me alone. Through sheer will, I managed to keep the words back and just gave a terse, “I’m fine.”
I fought to get my legs under me as I went to heave myself upright. I was too damn unsteady to do it. She came over, and when I gave her a death glare, she just glared right back as she knelt and caught my free arm, throwing it over her shoulder with ridiculous ease.
“You are a stubborn man, and at times, you’re quite unlikable,” she said calmly, all but wrenching me onto the couch. My head responded accordingly, and I had to swallow back all the bile that threatened to spill out of me.
“Aw, fuck.” Shoving the heels of my hands against my eyes, I waited for the world and my gut to stop revolting and spinning on me.
Mrs. B didn’t bother to wait.
“I know this is awful for you, Glenn.”
That did it. Dropping my hands, I glared up at her. I would have gotten to my feet, if I thought I’d been able to stand. “You know this is awful for me?” I demanded. “Oh, that’s great. Thanks.”
She surprised me by swatting me on the side of the head. “
Young man, do you remember who used to live in that gatehouse with me?” she demanded.
To my horror, her eyes filled with tears, although she blinked them back. Her mouth trembled too.
Even though my head was now hurting twice as bad, I was tempted to hit myself across the head—with a bat. “Shit. I’m sorry, Mrs. B.”
I had vague memories of her husband. My dad and the old guy used to sit around and tell jokes, before Dad sank so far into a pit of depression where nobody could reach him.
And Mr. Blanchard had grown roses, snow white ones that my mother had loved.
Cancer had come and stolen him within months, taking a big, strong man and turning him into a skeleton practically overnight. But he’d worked right up until the very end. He’d insisted, said it made it easier not to think about it. Just two weeks before he’d died, he’d still been pruning flowers and fussing at the boy he’d trained to take better care of ‘his’ flowers.
I wanted to argue it wasn’t the same thing. And in a way, I wouldn’t be wrong.
But she wasn’t wrong either.
Sucking in a breath, I dropped my head on the back of the couch. “How do you do this? Just keep going on and on and on…”
“What else are we going to do?” She sat down next to me and took my hand, squeezing it gently. “Glenn, at least you have hope. She might be out there somewhere, trying to get back. My only hope…well, it’s that empty patch of earth next to my Kenny.”
Spasmodically, I tightened my hand around hers. “Don’t go talking like that, Mrs. B. I can’t handle it right now.”
“Of course. Now…coffee?”
My belly roiled at the thought of it, but I needed to get upright and somewhat mobile. I had a meeting later. “What time is it?”
She told me, and I groaned.
It was already later.
I was meeting the PI in just under two hours.
“Yeah, coffee. Toast. And water. Lots of water.”
I needed to get my head out of my ass.
Standing in front of the diner where Clive had asked me to meet him, I fought the urge to hit something—maybe the smooth pane of glass that stretched down the block, which let the diners look out over the street and, if they were lucky, catch sight of a movie star.
That window would be a perfect thing to hit.
I doubted I’d break it. It would just hurt like hell.
Why hadn’t I been thinking clearly when he’d asked me to meet him here?
I didn’t know.
I didn’t fucking know.
As I studied the people chatting away in the booth nearest the window, I told myself I’d asked for this. Staying up late. Getting drunk. I’d asked for the misery I was now experiencing. A whole different kind of it.
Was every place I went from now on going to hold a memory of her?
Maya and I had never eaten at this particular diner, but this was where I’d told Florence I didn’t love her, that I couldn’t marry her as she’d been hoping. That night, I’d also gone to Maya’s little guest house and confessed my feelings for her.
“Hey, are they busy?” Clive's voice caught me off-guard, and I jerked around to see him standing just a couple of feet away.
“No.” Shaking my head I looked back at the diner and started for the door without offering any sort of greeting.
Busy. Why the hell couldn’t they be busy, today of all days?
If they’d been crowded, I could’ve convinced him to join me at the coffee shop on the next block over. But that wasn’t going to happen.
I had no excuse now but to go inside and think about that night, and the days that followed, the days that had led up to the night I’d asked her to marry me.
Then she’d just vanished.
The hostess looked at me with a beaming smile.
“Two?”
Giving her a terse nod, I shoved my hands into the pockets of the faded leather jacket I wore and looked around restlessly. I couldn’t stop myself from looking for her. But she wasn’t here.
She wasn’t anywhere.
As the hostess led us over to a table, Clive followed along with me.
“Where is Hannah?” I asked as we slid into the booth. He gave a low, amused chuckle and shook his head, offering a rakish grin at the blond as she put down a carafe of coffee and two mugs. She blushed and wiggled her fingers at him in a flirtatious goodbye.
“Hannah is…grand,” he said a few seconds later. “She’s just grand. She’s on an undercover gig.”
“I thought she mostly handled phone calls and paperwork.” I didn’t want to mention Maya yet. Too many people were looking at me, including the couple across the aisle, gathering up their things to leave. The hostess was already coming over to hurry them along.
“Yeah.” The grin on his face started to fade. With a shrug, he said, “For the most part, people won't talk to a girl when it comes to this line of work. Not now. Maybe in twenty or thirty years. I don't know. But there are certain situations where being female actually makes it easier to elicit certain… information.”
He chuckled again and took another sip of his coffee.
Steeling myself, I prepared to ask what information he’d uncovered. The arrival of the waitress kept me from doing that and I gritted my teeth, managed not to growl as I told her I was sticking to coffee. Clive ordered what seemed like the biggest damn breakfast in the history of the world.
Once we were alone, waiting for his colossal breakfast, I braced my elbows on the table and stared him down. “Please tell me you have something.”
His face went carefully blank. He placed a file on the table, one I hadn’t even noticed he’d been carrying until that moment.
“You haven’t found her, have you?” My insides started to twist. This had been my last chance.
Immediately, my mind shut down on that. No. That’s not true. Something will turn up—
“I haven’t found her.” Clive’s words cut through the haze in my brain. “But…”
I latched onto the but.
“But what?” I demanded.
When he hesitated, I slammed my fist down on the table before I could stop it. Silverware rattled, as well as my empty mug, while coffee splashed out of his.
Several heads turned in our direction before people went discreetly back to what they were doing.
I was too angry, too scared to care. Leaning forward, I glared at him. “But what?!”
“Glenn, please. Calm down, okay? I know it’s hard.”
I almost reached across the table to grab him by his tie and jerked him to me.
Looking like he was aware of every thought, Clive smoothed said tie down and leaned back. “Trust me, I know I’m asking you a lot. But just…calm down. And listen.” He blew out a breath. “I’ve been digging around. This has become a lot more complicated than just a typical missing person’s case.”
“There are typical missing person’s cases?”
“You’d be surprised.” A faint half smile came and went before he went back to nursing his coffee. “This deal with your lady…Maya. I can't find anything on her.”
“You’ve mentioned that.”
“You’re not following me.” He shook his head. “I can’t find anything on her—it’s like before her arrival at the studio, she didn’t exist. No records of any kind. And more…nobody at the studio gate even saw her arrive.”
“What…what are you talking about?” I shook my head. “That’s bullshit. Florence was expecting her.”
“Actually, no. She wasn’t. The Ms. Cruz who applied and was hired for the job was a twenty-four-year-old who lived in San Francisco—she sold her house to move here for the chance to work with Miss Woods. Now she’s having to share a room with her brother and his wife while she tries to find another place to live. She’s also rather…perturbed about that matter. Still.”
I searched his eyes for some sign that he was joking—although, why would he? All I saw was dead confidence.
“I called
the studio. They had to dig the resume out of storage. They never actually saw the San Francisco Ms. Cruz, but her address is most definitely from here in California. Didn’t you say Maya said she was from back east?”
“Philadelphia,” I said, feeling numb. “But this…shit, this doesn’t mean anything. So, she’s not from California and some sort of weird mess-up happened with the hiring process.”
“It wasn’t a mess-up.” He shook his head. “The correct Ms. Cruz—whose name was Donna, by the way—showed up at Miss Woods’ home, as it was originally scheduled. I assume Miss Woods didn’t think anything of it when Maya showed up at the studio, but that wasn’t how it was arranged. I spent about an hour talking to the woman who handled the interviews and the hiring. Maya arrived at the studio a day before the actual assistant was scheduled to be there—and, as it turns out, when I spoke Donna, she told me that when she went to Miss Woods’ home, she was met by a woman who fit the description of your Miss Woods. To a T. Then she was sent away.”
He lapsed into silence as the server appeared carrying three plates. She deposited them in front of us and after making sure we didn’t need anything else, whisked herself away to serve another table.
While I processed everything Clive had just told me, he ate in silence.
“What else?” I asked, still struggling to work everything into place. “Have you managed to find any of her family?”
“No.”
His tone was…odd.
Meeting his eyes, I waited.
“When I told you I couldn’t find anything on her, I meant it.” He finished a slice of bacon before picking up his fork. As he dug into a fluffy pile of eggs, he continued. “I’ve contacted several high schools back east, the college you say she attended, as well as a few others, both co-ed and those for just ladies. But nobody has had a Maya Cruz as a student, current or former.”
The twisting in my gut had long since turned to ice, but I refused to believe him.
I couldn’t.
Not yet.
“There aren’t a lot of families with that name in the city. Hannah and I have been making calls. We’ve got an upwardly mobile couple with the last name of Cruz—they are expecting their first child. A couple of families with a few kids. But so far, we haven’t found a single Maya Cruz. At all.”