Chasing Shadows

by Liana Hakes-Rucker

  On that note, I hop up and scramble around, throwing my shit together like I'm late for work. I go from sleep to outside in less than ten minutes. What was I gonna do today?... Gwen! That's right. The roommates said she worked at Intelligencia. As I'm trotting down the steps a black bird flies by. It's not headed for the El. I grown and run my hand down my face.

  "Best laid plans." I mutter and I head off to follow the shadow bird. It leads me west and south. I get to Clark Street and am hit by a stiff wind. I have to stop and wait for a red light. As I'm standing on the corner a flyer whips across the street. I stare at it because I'm not sure it's real. It gets closer. I hear it flutter, sounds like paper. Its bright pink. Flash: my leggings on Qasim's floor. Flash: his skin under the cream colored blankets.

  Fwap! The paper hits me in the face. I take hold of it and stretch for a beat before I read it. Claudia's Cafe is scrawled across the top. Underneath is a picture of a coffee cup, very original, and some details for a Halloween promotion. I check the address, Clark Street. Pretty close to here actually. Who needs another coffee house on Clark Street? Are there really that many indie kids? Of course the answer is, yes there are that many and more. Well, this is trash. I go to crinkle it up and feel a little tickle behind my ear.

  "Is this where we're going?" I ask in a resigned voice. For and answer I feel a pinch on my side fat. "Ow." Okay, so maybe Gwen works at Claudia's now. The roommates aren't an information directory. It surprises me how easy it is to adopt this new idea as fact. Sure, Gwen Cross works at Claudia's Cafe. A bird told me so, literally. Hell who knows? Maybe it's not about Gwen. Maybe the shades are taking me to watch someone else die. I was looking forward to Intelligencia. Claudia's had better measure up.

  According to the flier I have four blocks to go. I look at my phone. There's a voice mail. It's from one of those numbers again. I should totally figure out which one's Qasim's and put him in the address book. The light changes and I cross the street listening to the automated lady. My heart does a sweet happy thing at the sound of Qasim's voice.

  "Hey Meegan. You're probably sleeping, but I thought you'd want to know, Kelly used the surname Geoffreys for her fiancé. Kevin Geoffreys, spelled with a G. Okay, hope that helps you... You can call me if you want... Ah that sounded stupid. I'll let you know if I find anything else. See you Friday. Bye."

  I smile and close the phone. This is nice. A force unseen exhales hot air into my ear and I grin some more. Life is good. I wonder if anyone's going to die today.

  ***

  I'm walking against the wind. The sun's still out. It makes all the snow sparkle and shine. There are more people on the street than I'm entirely comfortable with. I'm on my way to the coffee house where I think Gwen Cross works. I want to see what she knows about Madeline and I'm hoping no one kills her. Every few steps I choke down residual guilt over Luis. Did he die because I was going to talk to him? I sure hope not, but blaming myself is convenient.

  When I get to the place, I suck in a breath, adjust my posture to 'confident' and walk my ass inside. There's a small line. I retrieve some cash from my bag while I'm waiting. It's nice in here in a hippy-yuppie-white-indie-pop-star kind of way. The walls are plastered with old concert posters and artsy black and white photographs. There are six different hanging plants that I can see from here without turning my head. The plants have that over-grown, nature-loving look to them. In front of the counter is a glass case filled with an even mix of sweets and health snacks. The menu is colored chalk on a black board that's posted to the wall. I get to the counter and order a black coffee.

  "Anything else?" The trendy looking youth asks me.

  Here it comes, the moment of truth. "Actually yes." I say. "I was wondering if Gwen's working."

  The girl eyes me with disdain. "She's in the back."

  Cool. "Could you tell her I'm here?"

  "And you are?" She asks in an unfriendly tone while handing me my sixteen ounce cup.

  What should I say? What will work? "Kelly Morgan."

  Counter girl nods and turns her attention to the next customer. This leaves me nothing to do but find a seat and wait it out. I take a spot at one of the uncomfortable little tables in the center of the seating area. Normally I'd prefer a booth, but I'd like to stay visible for two reasons. One: So Gwen can see me when she looks out here. And two: In case Gwen gets axed, I'll be on the security cameras the entire time and so hopefully avoid another night at the police station.

  I sip my coffee and burn my tongue. "Fuck." I mutter. Now I won't be able to taste it. I sigh, may as well put cream and sugar in at this point. I slide my chair back and it makes one of those horrifying metal on cement noises. This garners me some looks from the other patrons. What? I think at them. You never do that? All of you are just so cool and so experienced that you never produce unsightly noises in public. I try to avoid eye contact on my way to and from the creamer bar. When I return to my seat, Gwen Cross is waiting. She has this irritated look. What did I do now?

  "You're not Kelly Morgan." She says with attitude.

  My eyes bug out. "Really?" She narrows her gaze. Maybe she thinks I'm being caustic. "Everyone else says I'm Kelly." I say quietly.

  Gwen puts her hands on her hips. "I saw you at the memorial." I nod. "You knocked over a chair and chased Luis Finch out of the building."

  I turn red. "Sorry."

  "So, what do you want?" She glares at me.

  I'm stymied. I think I say something like: "Ahhhuhhch." Gwen turns to leave. "Wait." I say. "Please. I need your help."

  "Why?"

  I'm at a loss. I feel my hands lift palms out. I must looks like a dying fish. "Cause you must know something." I'm pleading. I can hear it in my voice.

  "Who are you?" She demands.

  "My name is Meegan Jones, or at least it has been for the last three years. You're sister called me Kelly, and I've been running around town trying to figure out who Kelly is, and who Madeline was, and why people keep getting murdered, and if it had anything to do with me."

  Gwen looks confused now. Whatever she'd been expecting, my little confession wasn't it. "You do look a little like Kelly, but you're not her."

  "How do you know?" I ask gravely. She shrugs and looks down. Is that shame I see? "Please." I say softly. "Will you tell me what you can? I keep finding dead people, and people who think they know me. I just need to figure out what's going on."

  Gwen meets my eyes. She looks calmer now. "My shift ends in twenty minutes. You can wait for me."

  "Thanks." I say. "I'll be in a booth." The twenty minutes oozes by like molasses in January. I'm not sure where I picked up that phrase, but it fits. Eventually Gwen slides into the booth across from me. She removes her apron and folds her hands on the table.

  "What do you want to know? Not that I'm promising you anything. Mads only ever told me just so much."

  I shrug. "She never told me anything. All I know is what I read in the paper. I tried to find out what Luis Finch knew, but he got killed before I could talk to him."

  Gwen's eyes go wide. "Luis is dead?" I nod. "Well, first off," Gwen says. "The arrest was a joke. Madeline was dating some cop, she wouldn't say who, and he wanted her to settle down. She told me that much. She thought it was funny." Gwen shrugs. "She was like that. She loved attention, especially from men. He asked her to marry him, and she laughed in his face."

  I sigh, motive? "Okay, but no name on that guy. You think Luis knew something?"

  Gwen fidgets a little. "He must've if he's dead."

  I shake my head. "If those guys loved her, why would either of them kill her?" It sounds naive even as I'm saying it.

  Gwen stares at me. "Mads didn't attract normal men. I mean she did, but she never went for them. Madeline tended to generate stalkers; she loved that. She'd lead them on and drive them out of their minds. She was not a nice girl."

  "But you were going to Loyola to be with her."

  Gwen gives a curt little head shake. "To try and keep and eye on her.
Our parents were begging me."

  "Oh."

  "Oh is right. Don't get me wrong. I loved her. I loved her way too much. The whole world revolved around her, but I'm really mad at her for getting herself killed. She was brilliant you know it? Straight A's. She'd have been a hell of a lawyer."

  I tuck my hair behind my ears. "Did you ever meet Kelly?"

  Gwen nods. "Once."

  "Was Kelly her real name?"

  "I don't know. She was kind of quiet when I met her, and then I never saw her again."

  "And she looked enough like me that people think I'm her?"

  Gwen shrugs. "You're not." She's avoiding my eyes again.

  I'm sure she knows more. I chafe inwardly. I don't know how to wheedle information out of people. Everything I've learned so far has been by virtue of mistaken identity. "Is there anything else? Anything you can tell me that might help me out here?" I'm begging again, this sucks.

  "Yeah." Gwen says. "Move far away. If people think you're Kelly then they'll..." She stops. "You should just keep your head down. You don't want to be in this if it blows up."

  "Blows up how?"

  Gwen looks at me with pity. "I believe Madeline had something good on someone terrible. I think she was going to a reporter. At least, the morning after she died there was a reporter who called for her. I'm not sure where Kelly figured in, but I know she did. I don't have any proof, and I'm not trying to get any, but I believe Mads got killed to keep her quiet, and maybe Kelly... I don't know. It's Meegan, right?" I nod. "Well, Meegan, you should stay out of it. I sure as shit won't come to a memorial for you."

  My jaw drops. How to the point. I like her. "Thanks for your time." I croak.

  "Watch your ass." She replies and she stands up turning to leave.

  "Gwen!" She looks at me. Her eyes are shiny. Shit she's crying. "Did you get the reporter's name?"

  Gwen rolls her eyes. "Craig something, but it's your funeral." And with that, she turns and stomps out of the cafe.

  I'm sitting there in contemplative silence when whoosh into the booth slides Ashley, of all people. I blink a few times. "Hi." I offer.

  "Hey." She says. "I see you're busy winning friends and influencing people."

  I smile. "Its what I do."

  She smiles back. She's had a haircut.

  "I like your hair." I say.

  "Thanks. I like yours."

  "Thanks." And now it's quiet. "How've you been?" I wonder if this means she's forgiven me.

  Ashley shakes her head. "No, Meegan. I think that's what went wrong." Okay that makes no sense. I give her a questioning look. "I like to talk." She continues. "You know that, and so you just let me talk all the time. You never told me anything. So now its two years later, and people you've only just met know you better than I do. That really hurts my feelings, but I can see now that, while I still believe it's mostly your fault, some of it was my fault." She sighs. It clearly took some effort for her to say that.

  "Thanks." I say. "I'm sorry."

  She nods. "I know, but you see every time you needed to do something, or you forgot our plans, or you forgot what I'd already told you, I got mad. It hurt my feelings, not just because you weren't paying attention. Also because you never, ever, EVER, give me an excuse. You never told me what you were doing, or where, or why, or anything!" She's getting loud now. This really isn't going well. "Like your life was top secret, need to know, covert shit and I couldn't be trusted with any of it. You see how unfair that was?" She's shrieking, and I am sooo embarrassed to be here right now. "And then you go and spill big, GIANT secrets to total fucking strangers!"

  I'm exasperated. I fucking hate scenes. "I told them for you!" I whisper shout, and immediately realize how dumb it sounds. "I figured I messed up with you, so I'd try to be more open and flexible if anyone else on the planet saw fit to give me a chance... I never would have told a single thing to anyone, ever probably if you hadn't accused me of being selfish and 'emotionally unavailable'." She sniffles. I press further. "I'm trying to be better." I murmur. And failing miserably, I add silently. Not completely though. Qasim likes me, and Schuyler puts up with me... "Besides, I liked listening to you. Your life sounds so interesting and normal and fun... going out with you is like watching a movie, and I always hate it when people talk through a movie. It's rude to interrupt."

  Ashley rolls her eyes. "Whatever, that's a dumb ass excuse. If I'm ever your friend again I'll expect full discloser."

  I suck in big breath. I can't promise her that and I know it so I watch with a lost look on my face as she gets up and leaves me alone with my coffee. I wonder if she noticed that for all her complaining, she didn't even ask me how I'm doing, or what's going on, or even why some random girl left crying from my table. That's why I tell other people things. Other people ask questions. Ha! That totally would have been a good point to make but she's gone now. "Fuck it." I mutter. I have research to do.

  ***

  Ah... Back in my apartment. I've only been gone an hour or so, but it seems like many, many days since I've had any time to just hang out. Neighbor's home but even his thud, thud, boom is pleasant to me tonight. The sun hasn't set yet, wonderful. I toss my bag on the couch and head to the fridge. Hmmm... Precious little. I check the freezer, still have four frozen dinners, so I won't starve. I sigh and run some tap water. Tastes like the city. I guess some research is in order.

  I dig into my bag and pull out the netbook. Oh tiny computer, how I've missed you. The netbook is an excellent friend of mine. It looks cool, trendy, like I'm up on what's hot, but it was also cheap! I like cheap. I turn it on and settle in to wait while it powers up. I don't have a super cool background picture like Schuyler does. I have the pastel colored lines that came on the computer. Not that I'm against personalization, just that I didn't read the fine print. It came with Windows 7 starter edition, and with that starter edition you can't change the background without updating to the home premium edition ,which defeats the purpose of computing on the cheap.

  I brew up some coffee and step outside to smoke while I'm waiting for the machine to boot up. I've learned through bitter, hair-pulling, experience to be patient while it does its start up thing. Click on Explorer too soon, and everything takes forever to load. I breathe deep, drawing the smoke all the way down into my lungs. I'd hate it if just the top half of my lungs got cancer. I smile. Gotta die of something.

  The cigarette burns by all too fast. I head back in and pour myself some coffee. It's good I guess. My tongue's still burnt from Claudia's. I stretch my legs like a runner, pick up the computer and head to the couch. I assume the usual position which is cross legged with a stack of books on my lap, to hold up the computer and keep it from burning my legs. I plug it in so it doesn't die in the middle of something and hit Explorer. Ah, Google, the fastest way to find yourself wading through slogs of unrelated information.

  I type in Kevin Geoffreys. Well, that's pointless. There's one Kevin Geoffrey, not Geoffreys, and then it jumps right to people named Kevin Jeffries. So... Kelly misspelled her fiancé's name, or she used a made up name, or she made up the fiancé entirely... or her man was never written up in anything that went online. Yeah, not likely, everyone's online. I switch to Yahoo. The first two sites listed offer addresses and phone numbers for Kevin Geoffrey. 123 users... Damn. So I begin scrolling through pages and pages of unlikely sites. I switch the spelling to Jeffries. I find a congressman, and more useless things. I get sidetracked a couple of times by pictures and newspaper listings. By the time I'm disgusted, it's long since dark out. Way to kill an evening. I'm about to give up, when I hear a thud from the bedroom.

  "What?" I ask the air... Nothing. There's a sudden surge of static electricity and I feel my hair begin to frizz. It's sticking to my face. I reach into my pocket, pull out a pony tail holder and tie it back. Just for kicks I hit next page one more time. Third entry down there's a Jeffries highlighted in the small print, 'son of Joseph Burk and Annabelle Jeffries. Services to be held...'
/>   Okay. I'll bite. I click on it and find myself on someone's blog. The highlighted text comes from an insert of an obituary listing. I scan the page. The writer of the blog seems to be a friend of the deceased. The deceased's name is Kevin Burk. It's a pretty emotional piece about the tragedy of suicide, and the guilt our writer feels as a survivor. I keep reading. Could this be the guy? I get a shiver. I scroll back up and check the date, 2009... Inconclusive.

  I go on for any clues as to the age of the departed. I feel a chill on my foot. I look down and there's a shade. This one is a sickly green color, and as I look at it I'm hit with an overpowering sense of grief and hopelessness. It's bleak. From the piece, Kevin sounds like he was in his twenties. It mentions that his mother was diagnosed with major depression. Is this the guy? I look to the smoky thing at my foot.

  "Were you Kevin?" I ask softly. I feel a pull on my ponytail. "Ow." Is that a confirmation? "Were you engaged to Kelly?" And as the words escape my mouth the green shade disappears. It doesn't evaporate or fade away, like I've seen them do before. It just isn't there anymore. The chill is gone. The hopelessness is gone too. I sit quietly and drink my coffee for a moment wondering what this means. Maybe nothing, and maybe this is Kelly's ex who killed himself after their breakup and her disappearance... if she even disappeared. I look back to the entry to find any mention of a girlfriend or ex-girlfriend... nothing. I check out subsequent entries. The writer is female. Her name is Veronica, or the name she's using is Veronica. See? The thing with searching out someone you don't know is that it's almost never conclusive, even with otherworldly intervention. I leave off the effort with more questions than I had a few hours ago. A few hours! Oh my God what a waist of my life, but I had to check. What if the first hit had been 'Kevin Geoffreys ex-fiancé of missing sexual deviant, Kelly Morgan, offers cell phone number to the world'? Stranger things have happened... lately. Fuck it, as long as I'm on, I'll go check out some movie previews.