Signature of a Soul

by Riona Kelly

  He sat down on the bed and addressed her calmly. “I just spoke to the police in Marbella. Michelle has not been involved in an accident or drowning; however, she was on a police report from early this morning as a witness to a break-in at Roberto Aponte’s studio. She was fine. The kids were not there at the time. Now, my guess is she spent the rest of the night at Roberto’s, and she hasn’t returned to the hotel yet.”

  “Oh, my Lord,” Lindy said, her southern accent stronger than ever. “They’re sure she’s all right?”

  He nodded. “Yes. I gave them my phone number in case they have any more information. She probably misplaced her phone or forgot to call you in all the excitement of the break-in.”

  Relieved, Lindy felt tears of relief start down her cheeks and reached for a tissue to wipe them off. “I am sorry I yelled at you. All I could do was think of the worst situation. I was so afraid.”

  Colin came to her, pulled her to her feet, and into his arms, then rocked her back and forth as she cried against his shoulder.

  In spite of Lindy’s efforts to hurry Colin along, they still arrived at the port only a little earlier than originally planned, so they took the ferry they had expected to take. Lindy was calmer now. Even though she still didn’t connect with Michelle when she tried calling while waiting for the ferry, she was comforted by knowing the police had Colin’s phone number. If something happened, they would call.

  Now she was more angry with her niece for not keeping in contact as she’d told her to do. This was the last time on this trip she was going to allow her to do anything by herself. She was fearful of talking to her brother until she had the whole story, although she’d received a text from him just asking how it was going.

  They had a sandwich from the snack bar, and Colin showed her some of the photos he’d taken through his tablet. The sites he’d chosen were great, and she was sorry she hadn’t actually been with him for either the kasbah shops or the sea road. That certainly hadn’t worked out the way she hoped it would. But she’d enjoyed the evening on Saturday and was happy to know he was an understanding man.

  “You really are quite something, Colin Haines,” she said as they sat on the deck watching the coast of Spain come closer. “I meant it when I said your ex-wife was a fool and not just for the sexual reason. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t taken charge today. I don’t usually fall apart in a crisis situation, but Michelle is my responsibility, and I feel like I failed.”

  “Likewise, even if you do keep me on my toes.” As his broad smile spread, his eyes twinkled. “Is this a good time to point out that if you hadn’t met me, you wouldn’t have been in Morocco?”

  “No, don’t apply logic to it. Meeting you is one of the great perks of this trip. I hope we can remain friends after we go our separate ways.”

  “I’m counting on it, Melinda Morton.”

  She took off her sunglasses, biting the end piece as she studied his face. Not many people knew her full name. “You’ve known who I am all along, haven’t you?”

  “Not entirely. When you said your name was Lindy Morton, it rang a bell, but I didn’t put it together right away. Eventually, it connected. I have seen your work often. It’s usually just signed L. Morton, I believe. I admit I did Google you and found the full name in your bio.”

  “Damn Internet. Nothing is secret anymore.”

  He caught her hand and squeezed. “Nope. Miss Melinda Morton, born in Charleston, South Carolina to two mathematicians and was a child prodigy as an artist.”

  “I suppose you know my birth date as well, so you know how old I am. Honestly, nothing is sacred.” She frowned at the thought.

  “I do indeed and frankly, my dear, I truly do not give a damn.”

  They both laughed, lightening the moment. She was growing fonder of him by the days, but she wasn’t sure it was a good thing.

  The boat docked a little late, and it seemed to take a long time to get off and through Spanish customs.

  While Lindy waited, she heard a ping from her phone and checked to see a text alert from Michelle, but there was nothing in the message. Had it been sent accidentally? She tried calling again but still no answer.

  Once they reclaimed Colin’s car, they were on their way northeast to get back to the hotel. Worry set in again after the false alarm phone call, then it was replaced with annoyance. She growled when Colin said anything for the last thirty kilometers into Marbella.

  As soon as they arrived at the hotel, Lindy checked at the front desk to find Michelle’s key wasn’t in the slot, meaning she was either in the room or, most likely, on the hotel property, since the standard convention was to check the key at the desk if you’re leaving the property. She and Colin went to her suite but didn’t find Michelle, although her purse sat on the counter in the kitchenette.

  “She’s probably at the pool or on the beach,” Colin said.

  “I hope. Why isn’t the girl answering her phone?” Lindy dialed the number again, and they heard a faint ring coming from Michelle’s bedroom. Lindy opened the door and spotted the phone on the bedside table, plugged in and charging. She frowned, threw up her hands in exasperation, and picked up the phone. It showed about fifty-percent charged. “Well, this explains the lack of an answer. She didn’t keep it charged and apparently hasn’t been anywhere near it while it has been recharging.”

  Following the course of better wisdom, Colin remained silent, shaking his head in sympathy for Lindy’s plight with her niece.

  “Thanks for putting up with me today.” She came back to his side to give him a hug. “I have just been worried about her. Just wait until I find her. I’m going to head down to the pool area to look. There’s no need for you to come along with me.” She couldn’t see him wasting more of his time with her problem, and she knew he had some people to contact about the locations.

  “You’re sure?” he asked, a look of concern on his face.

  She nodded. “Yes. If I can’t find her, I’ll let you know.”

  “Okay. Will I see you for dinner?”

  “Looking forward to it. I’ll call you later.” She walked out the door with him and down to the elevator. Thankfully, her ankle didn’t bother her much, and the elastic wrap on it was keeping it comfortable, but she would have words, along with a few limps on it, for Michelle when she found her.

  The pool area, which encompassed three pools, teemed with a moderately large crowd of tanned bodies of all shapes and sizes. Lindy worked her way to the verandah above to see if she could spot Michelle’s more pale body among the people. She walked slowly along it, squinting into the sun in spite of her sunglasses. Only beginning its long descent toward the mountains, it promised quite a few hours until the late sunset.

  Despair crept up on her. How would she spot Michelle in all these sun-seekers? Then she spotted a young woman lying face down on one of the loungers so her backside could tan. It looked like Michelle, although she couldn’t be certain until she got closer. She elbowed her way down the steps, weaving through the lounge chairs and tables. Her ankle was beginning to bother her some, and she cursed Michelle roundly in her mind.

  She was almost to her when the girl turned toward her. Same color hair and light skin, but it wasn’t Michelle. Lindy’s spirits dropped as she continued on by the lounger and continued to search. She came to the end, then took the path toward the beach. She fretted about walking much more than she’d wanted to do, and the sand wasn’t proving any easier for her sore ankle to handle.

  She came to the end of the path to the beach, then turned to gaze to the south where a few umbrellas formed shelters against the sun. Under the third one, she spotted Michelle, who was sprawled on a towel and reading. She stalked up to her, ankle protesting every step.

  “You were supposed to check in every few hours,” she said, the anger seeping into her voice even though she had wanted to keep calm.

  Michelle’s head popped up from the book in surprise. “Aunt Lindy?” She sat up straight, her eyes
wide and lips turned down in shame. “I’m sorry. I misplaced my phone, and I didn’t find it until this afternoon, then it had run out of juice. So I brought it back here and plugged it in. It’s still charging.”

  “I saw,” Lindy answered. “I was very worried about you. I imagined all kinds of scenarios happening. Why didn’t you use another phone to call me?”

  She looked down. “I didn’t have your number. It was on my phone, and I don’t have it memorized.”

  “Oh, for cripes sake!” Lindy’s voice took on the deeper southern drawl it gained when she was annoyed. What did these young people use for brains? “Let’s go back to the room now. My ankle’s killing me, and I want to get off this sand.”

  “What’s wrong with your ankle?” Michelle hurried to obey, gathering up the towel, her sunhat, and beach bag.

  “It’s a long damn story, but the upshot was I twisted it in the casbah.” She set off limping a little ahead of her niece but called back over her shoulder. “You do know the phone works while it’s charging, don’t you?”

  While relieved to find Michelle and know she was okay, Lindy seethed with fury that the girl hadn’t kept in touch as she’d promised to do. Losing her phone was not unusual, especially for her niece, who seemed to lose or break them on a fairly frequent basis. But to not have noted her number in an address book or her tablet or to have had the sense to call the hotel in Tangier was just plain annoying. Now, her ankle really ached by the time they got back to the room and put Lindy in a real snit.

  Michelle darted into her room as soon as they got there, and Lindy presumed it was to avoid a tongue-lashing. That might be the wisest move the girl had made.

  She hobbled to the bathroom to get a towel then went to the refrigerator for ice before crashing on the sofa. She propped her injured leg up and removed the bandage. Making an ice pack, she wrapped it around her ankle the best she could. Then she leaned back and closed her eyes to wait for the throbbing to stop. She almost drifted off until she heard Michelle come out of her bedroom. Opening an eye, she noted the girl was dressed in jean shorts and a t-shirt top tied at the waist.

  “I hope you’re not planning on going out,” she said. “Because you are grounded.”

  Michelle plopped in the chair across from her like a dropped anvil, her shoulders slumped. “I said I was sorry. Jeez, my phone was missing, then dead. How was I to call? I was with Roberto. He was doing some sketches of me, then we went to dinner and after—”

  “And did you spend the night with him? I called here, and your key was in the box, but no one answered in the room.”

  Michelle’s gaze dropped to the floor. She said nothing.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t try to contact you? That I wouldn’t be concerned about what might have happened to you when you didn’t check in, and you weren’t here? I trusted you, and you betrayed my trust.” Lindy’s face reflected the anger she felt as her eyebrows angled in toward her nose, and her lips spread into a tough-looking line. “No, you are not going out again tonight or tomorrow night, or for the whole time we’re still here.”

  “But Roberto—”

  “No, but anything. I said you’re grounded, and I mean it.” Lindy was not in the mood for any excuses or arguments. “You may call him and tell him you’re grounded from going out.”

  “Can he come here?” Michelle asked in a meek voice with a touch of whine in it.

  “Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow.”

  Undisguised anger in her face, Michelle jumped to her feet, went to her bedroom, and shut the door with unnecessary force.

  Lindy shot a glare in her direction and shook her head. No help for it. She picked up the hotel phone and called Colin’s room. “Hello, handsome. I found Michelle, and she is fine. But I irritated my ankle again with all the walking I had to do. She was on the beach, and that didn’t help it any. I’m afraid I am not up to going out to dinner tonight.”

  A smile blossomed on her face when he suggested they have dinner in her room. “That sounds perfect. We have a dining table here, so why not use it? In about an hour?”

  He readily agreed, settling the issue. She wasn’t sure if Michelle would join them or continue to sulk in her room, but they would order enough food for her. While she remembered how unjust her parents sometimes seemed when she was Michelle’s age, she also knew that she had to be firm. The girl broke her agreement and quite probably spent the night with Roberto. If they did anything, she could only hope that they used protection. At times like this, she wasn’t sure how well she actually knew her niece.

  Chapter 11

  Devastated by her aunt’s reaction, Michelle called Roberto to tell him she couldn’t meet him. While she expounded on the unfairness of it, she nonetheless would obey her aunt’s directive. He commiserated with her and agreed with her decision.

  “She’s your aunt, and her word is the final one in this,” he said, being more reasonable than she.

  “I’m not a child. I’ve traveled places alone or with girlfriends. I can take care of myself, but she treats me like a child. I thought this would be more fun, two freewheeling women on an adventure.” Anger fueled her words as she felt her aunt didn’t let her explain and was being unreasonable.

  “That may be true, carita. But to her, you are still a young girl who needs protecting. She left you on your own for her own reasons, and she probably feels guilty about it when you didn’t do as you promised.”

  “Maybe, but she won’t even listen to me,” she sighed with exaggeration. “Is there any news on the break-in?”

  “No. Nothing. I heard from Arturo, and the client has canceled the deal. He doesn’t want to wait any longer for the painting, so it’s a lost commission for both of us.”

  “I am sorry, Roberto.” She knew it meant a lot to him and even more to Arturo.

  “It’s okay. There will be others. I helped Arturo out, and he’ll find other work.”

  They talked for another twenty minutes before Michelle felt ready to say goodbye, telling him she hoped her aunt would allow them to see each other again before they moved on to the next city on their tour. It proved a painful reminder that this friendship was only temporary, and she might never see him again, although he swore he would keep in touch.

  After she hung up, she copied down her aunt’s cell phone number from the phone and put it into her tablet. If she’d done it before, she would have been able to call her from the tablet. She’d been stupid, and now she was paying the price for it. No matter what Roberto said, she still felt like her aunt was seeing her as a little girl rather than an almost adult. She tried to look at it from Lindy’s view. Given her father’s fears of her traveling in Europe, maybe it was easy to see why her aunt was overly cautious.

  When Lindy knocked on her door and called her for dinner, she almost didn’t respond. Then she was going to tell her she wasn’t hungry, but she was. And if she was going to reconcile with her aunt, then having Colin at the dinner table could mean she had a buffer. Her aunt might be more reasonable.

  She popped into the bathroom to wash her face and run a brush through her hair as she formulated her game plan. Satisfied she looked presentable, she stepped through the door and into the dining area with a hint of trepidation. Her aunt glanced up and nodded toward the chair at her left. A dinner plate was already set up, and dishes of food sat on the table. It looked as if she and Colin had ordered a family-style meal.

  Taking the indicated seat, Michelle sat and took a calming breath. “I am so sorry, Aunt Lindy. I didn’t intend to cause you any worry, and you’re right, I should have made a note of your phone number. I hope you can forgive me.” She spoke in a soft, contrite voice, trying to sound as sincere as possible.

  “Of course, I forgive you, Michelle. I had just put more faith in you to be responsible and do as I’d asked. I also blame myself. I should never have left you alone here.”

  “Oh, no. Nothing bad happened to me. Although there were some problems for Roberto and it’s part of the reason I
didn’t find my phone sooner.” Michelle put on her most imploring expression, willing her aunt to believe her.

  “Problems? What happened with Roberto? Why did you spend the night there?” Lindy’s tone was sharp, and her eyes narrowed in concern and worry. Michelle could tell she was thinking about the worst scenario possible in her mind; her niece slept with the street artist.

  “It’s not what you’re thinking. Roberto did some sketches of me, then we went out to dinner. When we came back, his studio had been broken into, and paintings were stolen. By the time the police came, and the reports were filed, I was so tired I slept on his downstairs sofa alone.”

  Lindy’s brow wrinkled in a perplexed look as she listened. If she was relieved at Michelle’s words, it didn’t touch her face. After a few moments, she asked, “Someone stole his paintings?”

  “Only a few of them. The one commission piece he was almost done with and two other paintings similar to the ones you bought. Others, like the street scenes and the seascapes, were scattered around the studio. Whoever it was made a mess, but the only things missing were those unique paintings.”

  “What made those special?” Colin asked, sitting forward in interest. “Why would someone want to steal them?”

  “They were not the kind he normally sells to tourists,” Michelle answered. “One was a dancer taking a break, and another was a pair of old men playing chess in the square.”

  “The character studies, “Lindy noted. “The ones that really show Roberto’s talent. They caught my eye when we were at his stall.” She appeared thoughtful as she turned to Colin. “I bought two of them. Let me show you.”

  Sliding her chair back, she rose and limped to her bedroom. She returned in a minute with the two wrapped packages. In a flash, Colin was beside her, taking the paintings and offering his arm to help her back to the table.