Worth Searching For

by Wendy Qualls

  He’d said he couldn’t wait until next time. Having the text sitting on his phone was one thing, but seeing Lito actually sitting at the picnic table chatting with Rick and Sharon was much nicer. Lumpy and Woozy both leapt out of the car the moment Dave opened the door and commenced burning off whatever energy they’d accumulated from lying around all day.

  “Can’t believe we actually beat you here,” Sharon teased. “Steve called to say he wasn’t going to make it tonight and Scooter had to cover an extra shift so he’ll be late. Janet’s on her way.”

  “You want to run your two?”

  Sharon inclined her head toward Lito. “This one’s been wriggling out of his skin to get Spot going again. I’ll give you a hand with her, if you want.”

  Lito huffed. “I am not. I just said—”

  “—that Spot has been looking forward to this for two days,” Rick finished for him. “We can read between the lines, thank you.”

  Dave had to work hard to suppress his grin. Guess I’m not the only one who’s been eager to spend time together again. “Spot’s the excited one, is she?”

  Lito rolled his eyes, but his cheeks looked a little pink. His skin was too dark to tell for sure. Dave found he really liked the thought of Lito blushing, though.

  “Let’s get her off-lead and into the woods a bit, shall we?”

  Lito and Sharon tagged along behind him as he led them a little ways up the north path and then off the trail to a relatively flat area without too much undergrowth. Spot trotted along perfectly at Lito’s side, even without the benefit of a leash. Obviously she thought the world of her owner. That was a good sign, both in terms of her trainability and about Lito’s character. The treats or the toy were only minor rewards for the dogs. What mattered more was praise from their human—and really, who wouldn’t want Lito’s attention?

  Dave offered Sharon the bag of hot dog pieces but she already had her own. He sent her about ten yards away and had Lito grab Spot’s collar. “Ready?”

  Spot remembered the previous practice well, it seemed. Either that or she really, really liked hot dogs. Dave and Sharon had done this countless times with new dogs and handlers, some who’d stuck with the team a while and some who didn’t, so she already knew the right distance to move away each time without needing Dave to prompt her. Spot’s tail was wagging madly as she pranced back and forth.

  “Try standing behind this tree next,” Dave told Lito. “Think of this as hide and seek—one treat each time she comes to you and then lots of praise. High, excited voice like last time.”

  Spot slowed in the center of the training field, head cocked in confusion, but she got a visual on Lito quickly enough and bounded over to him.

  “She’s so proud of herself,” Lito said to Dave, ruffling Spot’s ears and getting her even more wound up. “Send her back?”

  Sharon had already ducked behind a rock. “Yep.”

  “Should I switch positions?”

  Dave glanced around—and then couldn’t help himself. “Both of us. Here.” He tugged Lito over to stand behind a shortish pine a few yards away, then got out the rest of the hot dog bag and took Lito’s place behind the original tree. “Gonna see if she notices I’m not you.”

  Lito laughed—quietly, but open and charming and just exactly like Dave had hoped to hear. “Don’t think anyone’s going to get us mixed up,” he murmured. “You’d make a terrible Lito, but you do pretty damn well as a Dave.”

  Why that made something inside him twist, Dave didn’t want to examine.

  “Good girl!” Sharon cooed. “Ready? Ready? Go find!”

  Spot took one short, disdainful look at Dave, then went straight for Lito and slobbered all over him.

  * * * *

  Lito spent the weekend getting the rest of his Atlanta stuff put away. There was something satisfying about condensing the stack of not-yet-unpacked boxes to one small corner of the living room instead of them covering every surface of the house. Even after he got to work on Monday morning, he still felt like he was glowing. Slightly dimmed for having to be at the office, but glowing nonetheless.

  “You must be Lito.”

  The voice came out of nowhere, making him jump. Christ. Lito made a mental note to put up a mirror next to his monitor so he could see the doorway behind him, then stood and offered his new boss a polite handshake. “You’re Ms. Bronton, I’m guessing. And yeah, that’s me. You caught me by surprise—it’s nice to finally meet.” He’d been at this particular Dayspring Inn & Suites office for two weeks already, but his new supervisor had left for a two-week business trip literally the day before he started. Her absence hadn’t made the transition any easier. The woman before him had the sharp business-suit-and-heels look the Dayspring owners tended to look for in their female managers; it wasn’t hard to imagine her ruling this little office with an iron fist. That was fine with him as long as she was fair about it.

  “Glad to finally meet you face-to-face too,” she said. “And ‘Vanessa’ is fine. You’re really not what I expected, but Ronald and Betty think the world of you and I have high hopes for you settling in here.” She paused a moment and took in the scattered wall decor Lito had put up in his office so far. “You’re the one behind the new mint-green theme I keep seeing, aren’t you? I like it.”

  “Thanks.” When Lito had first fallen into the night clerk job at the middle-of-nowhere Dayspring Inn on the I-4 south of Orlando, the chain had still been clinging to its kitschy Florida roots. Peach and teal pineapples, fake seashells embedded in the concrete, 1950s beach music, the whole shebang. By the time he worked his way up the ladder to the Atlanta corporate office and started getting to make actual design decisions instead of just rubber-stamping purchase orders, the owners were willing to potentially maybe possibly consider trying something a bit less tacky.

  Lito took that sliver of a chance and ran with it. Two years ago, the entire chain underwent renovation for his new-and-improved design scheme and reviews went up practically overnight. Now the Alabama locations were supposed to be a test case for Dayspring going entirely local—local artists, local flavor, individual design accents. He’d done some networking with artists before, back in Atlanta, but Ronald and Betty hoped this could be a for-the-foreseeable-future thing.

  “Anything you still need, please do let me know.” Vanessa pulled a business card out of her purse and put it on the corner of Lito’s desk. “I’m not in the office all that often but I try to check email at least a few times a day and if you send me a text, I’ll call you back as soon as I can. You’ve met everyone else?”

  “I think so. Carrie gave me the grand tour.” Lito slid the business card into his pocket. The office was seven women plus him. Six who made up the chain’s entire customer service department, booking corporate events and taking complaints, plus Vanessa. She was the regional manager for the state of Alabama and—the way Lito heard it—spent ninety percent of her time on the road.

  “Anyone tell you about lunch today yet?” she asked.

  Lito shook his head.

  “Walk with me, then.” She waited for him to log out of his computer, then walked him to the conference room at the end of the hall. “It’s not really a meeting, necessarily, but I order lunch for the office whenever I’ve been away so everyone can catch me up. You can consider the ones after today optional.”

  The way she said it suggested that they weren’t, really, but he nodded anyway.

  “Do you like fried chicken? If you’re new in town you might not have tried Mama Josie’s yet, but it’s pretty amazing Southern home-cooking. Or—sorry, I shouldn’t assume. It may be a bit different than what you’re used to.”

  What, because I look gay? Or because I’m brown? Lito tamped down the instinct to bristle. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had made assumptions about him based on either demographic, but his first face-to-face meeting with his new superv
isor—his supervisor on paper, at least; he hadn’t really had a direct boss other than the chain’s owners in ages—wasn’t really the best time to fuss. And truth be told, he really didn’t eat a lot of red meat, but that had nothing to do with anything she might have “assumed.” He may not have made the rounds of the local restaurant scene, such as it was, but that didn’t mean he only ate Mexican food. Although it wouldn’t surprise him if at least one of his coworkers assumed that all Latinos eat tacos for breakfast, lunch, and dinner—they hadn’t shown themselves to be the most culturally educated people so far.

  He was being pissy, and some part of him knew it was probably not the best mood to be in at the moment. “Sounds good,” he said instead, and held the door for her as they entered the conference room. Everyone else was already there, chatting and unloading the aluminum carry out trays onto the counter.

  “Lito!” Carrie waved him over and pulled out a chair for him next to her own. “You and Vanessa finally met today, eh? I told you she’d love you.”

  She had. At length, and in a too-friendly way that made him wonder why she felt it was so important to reassure him that the office was so welcoming and everyone would just die of pride now that they had the Dayspring Inn & Suites decorator based out of their location. Lito wasn’t a “decorator”—or rather, he was a “decorator” the same way the manager of an art gallery was a “painter”—but obviously everyone had received advance word of The Gay Designer and it was a difficult stereotype to shake. He knew he did look the part, and hell would freeze over before he went back to trying to pass for a boring straight dude, but Black Lake wasn’t the easiest place to be The Gay Designer in either.

  Luckily the fried chicken was good. So were the mac and cheese, the okra, and the collard greens. They all ended up filling their plates for seconds and thirds.

  And gossiping. Christ. Lito got to hear all about someone’s sister’s engagement, someone else’s infertility woes, and somebody’s neighbor’s loud cat. Vanessa occasionally asked a few work-related questions about various clients or phone calls they’d received, but the overall atmosphere was one of a sewing circle rather than a business meeting. Everyone was very white, very heterosexual, and very female.

  “Liam wants a reptile-themed birthday,” the corporate accounts lady was saying. “Not any specific reptile, necessarily, just reptiles in general. So now I’ve got two weeks to figure out how to entertain a dozen six-year-olds and I don’t have the first idea what to do. What did Mason have for his, do you remember? I know it’s been a few years.”

  Customer Complaints woman shrugged. “Chuck E. Cheese, I think. I was still in the sleep deprivation stage with the twins being two months old at the time.”

  “Lot of help you are. This one has to be at our house because, and I quote, ‘I want my friends to see how stinky my dog’s breath is.’”

  No one else had small children, from what Lito had gathered. He cleared his throat. “Easiest would be to throw together a couple of reptile-themed activities and then just let them play,” he said. “Pin the tail on the alligator, ‘lizard races’ where they all have to speed-crawl, that kind of thing. I could probably rustle up some kid-sized boxes so you can have them all decorate their own turtle shells, if you want—I’ve still got a ton of moving boxes I haven’t gotten out to the recycling yet. And party food gives you lots of chances to include gummy worms, green grapes for ‘turtle eggs,’ lettuce and cut fruit, whatever.”

  Corporate accounts lady’s surprised look slowly morphed into one of appreciation. “Thanks,” she said, nodding. “Those all sound like things Liam would love, actually.”

  “You don’t have children, do you, Lito?” Carrie asked. “Sorry, I just assumed you were on the young side for that. And because, well—yeah.”

  And gay. Thanks. She didn’t have to say it; everyone else in the room must have been thinking the same thing. “I’m twenty-five,” Lito said, “and no. I don’t.” It wasn’t the first time he’d been mistaken for younger than his real age either. Hell, he still got carded every damn time he and his friends ordered drinks, which definitely got old after a while. Especially when the rest of them had all been accepted as twenty-one ages ago. “It’s just me and my dog. Although I do like kids just fine when they’re other people’s responsibility.”

  Vanessa laughed. “Fair enough. Kindergartners can be an acquired taste sometimes.”

  “So since we’re finally getting to know you better, I have a question,” Carrie chimed in, dropping her fork on her now-empty plate. “This is totally random, but I saw some paperwork that said your real name is Carlos. Is ‘Lito’ a middle name, or a nickname for ‘Carlos’ somehow? I’ve heard it before, I think, but I’ve never been close enough friends with anyone Hispanic to ask.”

  Everyone’s attention was definitely on him now. Like he was in a circus and being asked to perform for the visitors.

  That’s me, the exotic Latino wonder. Nothing like having to educate people about your ethnicity because they never bothered learning on their own. “It’s like ‘Billy’ for ‘William,’” he said, forcing a patient smile. “‘Carlito’ would be ‘Little Carlos,’ and everyone shortens it. ‘Lito’ is what I’ve always gone by, though.”

  “Huh. I never knew that.”

  Lito half-expected someone to ask him what part of Mexico he was from—or whether he truly was a real live homosexual and if so, could he teach them about that too?—but someone else brought up her grandson’s unusual nickname and from there it descended into a “strange things people name their children” discussion. Vanessa let them chatter on for a few more minutes before pushing her empty plate away and leaning back in her chair. “All right,” she announced. “I’ve got a backlog of emails to catch up on and I’m sure you all have work waiting for you too. Anything else I need to know about before I go bury myself in paperwork?”

  One by one they all shook their heads. “Anything from you?” Carrie asked Lito. “Do you get, like, decorating emergencies or something?”

  Or something. “On occasion,” he answered, “but nothing at the moment. And it’s not so often emergencies with the decor itself. Usually it’s more like an artist flaking out and not actually getting us the paintings we paid for, or a contractor trying to substitute different materials than what we ordered. I do a lot less picking color swatches than you’d think.”

  The owners of the Dayspring chain had a “firm commitment to the community,” as they usually worded it in their promotional material, which translated to each location having a slightly different local vibe. They all now had the same base color scheme, thanks to him, but the lobbies and individual rooms had widely varying layouts and that meant fewer chain-wide economies of scale. It also meant Lito spent half his time on the phone trying to get managers to send him usable—and white-balanced—pictures of the problem areas so he didn’t have to drive all over the southeast to look at poorly lit corners and odd stained spots on the ceiling.

  “That makes sense.” She nodded politely at Lito, then at Vanessa. “Guess we’ll get to chat more later, then?”

  “Undoubtedly.” Whether I want to make friends with you all or not.

  Chapter 5

  Dave got the call around noon on a Sunday in early November, just after the first real cold snap of the year. Thirteen-year-old Grayson White told his mother he was walking to a friend’s house to work on a group homework assignment. When he didn’t come home by the next morning, she called the friend’s parents—only to learn that Grayson hadn’t been by all weekend and the whole supposed homework assignment was news to them. The Cullman County Sheriff’s Office spent the afternoon tracking down the boy’s usual haunts and finally called in Dave and the NALSAR team when it became clear the kid was actually missing. He lived way out in the country, more than a mile from the nearest neighbors and a full three miles from the friend’s place, and there were a hell of a lot of woods in between.
Even better, Cullman County was an hour and a half away from Black Lake and they only had a few good hours of light left. Sunset at 4:30 in the afternoon. Thanks, Daylight Savings Time. Dave sent the group call-out text and went to go put his pack in the Jeep. His phone rang not a minute later.

  “Hey,” Lito said. The sound of the wind over the speaker in the background suggested he was outdoors somewhere. “Just saw the text—do you want me to come? I mean, Spot’s obviously not ready to run a real search after only two months of practices, but I’m free if you want me.”

  “Definitely! This would be a good first call-out for you.” A missing kid was usually big news, meaning a crowded staging area, but this particular search was pretty rural. Incident command was likely to be just them and the sheriff’s office—probably a little less hectic and a lot easier for Lito to see how all the pieces fit together. “I’d like you to get a chance to see how it works,” he added. “Leave Spot at home; I’ll pair you up with one of the other handlers. Bring your gear. You want me to pick you up? There’s really no reason to drive your own car all the way to Cullman if you don’t have your dog along.”

  “Sure. Thanks.” There was the sound of a door slamming. “Just got home from taking Spot for a run now, but I’ll be ready by the time you get here. Oh, and I’ll text you my address. I’m renting a house in that little neighborhood that butts up against the back of the high school.”

  “I know it.” He had spent a fair amount of time skulking around just off school property when he’d been a student there—not smoking or getting into trouble, just hanging out with friends because there was nowhere else to go past nine o’clock at night when Walmart closed. “Be there in twenty.”

  Lumpy and Woozy were both on high alert the moment Dave opened the closet where he kept the rest of his search gear, but they were going to have to be disappointed. He disappointed them most of the time, nowadays. He still brought them along for practices, PR events, and talks to school groups, but that was about it—their tails wagged just fine even if the rest of them were slowing down. Dave dumped his coat and his first-aid pack on his bed, then sat on the edge of the mattress to change into his work boots. Lumpy immediately jumped up and settled with a huff of finality on the DayGlo NALSAR coat like she was just daring him to try to go without her.