Little Girl Lost (Georgiana Germaine Book 1)

by Cheryl Bradshaw

  “I thought it did. I don’t anymore. It was all a mistake.”

  “A mistake? I risked my life for you yesterday. The least you could have done was give me the benefit of the doubt.”

  I couldn’t imagine taking the time to explain myself would have made things any better, but I decided to try. “I found something tonight at Jack and Phoebe’s house.”

  “I assume whatever you found is in the plastic bag.”

  I nodded.

  “Let’s go in the house so I can get a better look at it,” he said.

  “It’s okay. It’s not necessary. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

  “It’s not okay. What is it?”

  “A money clip.”

  “What does a money clip have to do with me?”

  “It ... uhh ... has your initials on it along with the inscription ‘with love.’”

  He nodded. “I see. Well, I’ve never carried a money clip. I’m a wallet kind of guy.”

  He dug inside his pocket, pulled his wallet out, and waved it in front of me. He was right.

  I flashed back to a memory from the evening before when Terry and I met in the parking lot outside the office. He’d left his wallet on the dashboard when he stepped out of his truck to talk to me. It didn’t mean he didn’t own or carry a money clip, but I now felt certain he wasn’t the man I was after.

  “And if you met my wife,” he continued, “you’d know she’d never give me a keepsake inscribed ‘with love.’ She’s a good woman. She’s just not a sentimental one. Last year I received a subscription to Classic Motoring magazine for my birthday. The year before, she gave me the same thing. The year before, the same. I’ve received the same magazine subscription five years in a row now.”

  The broad’s not sappy.

  I get it.

  “I’m going to leave now,” I said.

  “Hang on,” he said. “Where did you find the money clip? I thought the police would have combed the entire house and collected everything as evidence.”

  Hunter had helped with combing the house, and I was sure she’d done her best. A cat bed wasn’t an obvious place to look. “I didn’t find the money clip.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Lark’s cat Willy did. I don’t know where he found it, but he dragged it back to a hidey-hole he had in his bed.”

  He shrugged. “Makes a bit more sense to me now.”

  “What does?”

  “Jack once told me their cat liked to bring them trinkets he found outside when he wandered around the neighborhood.”

  “Did he say anything else about it?”

  He shook his head, turned, and headed for the door.

  “You should ask Phoebe,” he said. “I’m sure she’d know.”

  I felt like I’d lost my sense of self, the part of me that discerned right from wrong and good choices over bad ones. To find Lark, I needed to think smarter, be smarter, keep my heart out of my head. I needed to resist pouncing on clues without giving enough thought to their legitimacy. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was tainted. The investigation was personal, and if I kept going the way I had been, it would lead to an infinite number of screwups.

  I considered calling Hunter to ask if she could follow up on a couple of leads for me and taking time the next day to clear my head. I even took out my cell phone and stared at the screen for a while. Then I pocketed it. I couldn’t allow her to take over, not even for a second. I may not have been in the perfect headspace, but I’d owned where I’d failed, and I told myself realization was the key to turning it all around.

  Wasn’t it?

  Tomorrow was a new day.

  A fresh day.

  Tomorrow, the answers would come.

  Tomorrow, I would find Lark.

  I draped an arm around Luka and leaned back on the pillow. I thought about my plans for the next day, where I would go, whom I would interrogate. I filtered all of the unanswered questions I still had through my mind.

  Could Mitch Porter have been the man Hattie saw out her window?

  Why didn’t Phoebe like his wife?

  Who was Phoebe’s stalker?

  And why did Jack hire a private investigator right before he died?

  My cell phone rang. I viewed the time. It was half past nine at night, and Harvey was on the line. I guessed he wanted an update. Or maybe Terry Pearson had called to complain about being accused of crimes he didn’t commit. Either way, I didn’t feel like talking. I sent Harvey a text and said I needed rest and that I’d come see him in the morning.

  I had peopled enough for one day.

  I was all peopled out.

  My phone rang again ten minutes later, and I realized my former assumption could have been wrong. Maybe Harvey hadn’t called to get an update. Maybe he’d called to give me one instead.

  I decided to find out, answering the call without even looking at the screen.

  “Hey, Harvey,” I said. “It’s late. Is everything all right?”

  “Georgiana?” a man’s voice said.

  The man’s tone was smoky and deep.

  It wasn’t Harvey.

  “Who is this?” I asked.

  “It’s Giovanni. Giovanni Luciana.”

  “Gio? It’s ... I can’t believe—”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to call this late. I’ve been out of town. I just returned, and my uncle gave me your message. I can reach out another time if you prefer.”

  I didn’t prefer.

  In the few seconds I’d listened to him talk, my body had relaxed. My shoulders no longer felt stiff and immotile. The sound of his voice was what I needed right now.

  “It’s fine,” I said. “I’m glad you called. I can talk.”

  “How are you?”

  I paused, unsure of how I wanted to answer the question and how much detail was too much detail after years of not connecting with someone.

  “It’s been a long day,” I said. “A long few days. So much has happened, I don’t know where to begin.”

  “Why don’t you start at the beginning? What have you been doing since I saw you last? Where are you now? I want to know everything.”

  Everything could wait. For now, I decided to approach the conversation with baby steps. “I’m in Cambria. Been here off and on since I left college.”

  “You moved back home, then. I thought you might.”

  “After graduation, I returned home for a couple of months, and then I was going to take a year off and travel the world with Tiffany, a friend of mine from high school. It didn’t work out.”

  “Why not? What happened?”

  “Right before we were set to go, Tiffany found out she was accepted into the law school program at Stanford University. She suggested we do a shorter version of the trip than we’d planned, but I knew she was anxious about all the things she needed to do before she devoted her life to school for the next several years, so I gave her a pass. It was worth it. She’s a hotshot lawyer in Los Angeles now.”

  “You should have called me. I would have traveled with you.”

  His comment was an unexpected one.

  He couldn’t have gone with me.

  At the time, he was involved with someone else.

  “What about you?” I said. “Are you still with Jodie?”

  It was a blatant, obvious attempt to assess who was in his life and who wasn’t. I didn’t care. I wanted to know.

  “Jodie and I broke up the day you left for home,” he said. “Don’t you remember?”

  “I don’t. You never told me the two of you broke up.”

  “I wrote you a letter. I left it on top of one of the boxes in your room.”

  “I don’t know what to say except I never got it.”

  And I had a good idea why.

  It had been intercepted.

  There were times when I lived with Daniela when I could tell she didn’t like to share me with her brother. She’d narrow her eyes at us, cross her arms, and sulk when she wasn’t getting all
of the attention. Giovanni never seemed to notice. Or maybe he had, and he hadn’t thought it warranted recognition. Right before I moved home, Daniela tried to convince me to stay in New York with her. As much as I loved being there for college, New York was big enough to swallow me whole. It was her dream. It wasn’t mine. Still, she had no right to do what I assumed she’d done. Her one selfish act changed everything.

  “How is Daniela?” I asked.

  “She runs the family business now. It suits her. I’ve retired from it all. Far better for her to be in charge.”

  Giovanni had never given me a clear answer on what the family business was all about. Whenever I’d asked, and I had a few times when we were young, Giovanni and Daniela became a united front. They’d said their father was involved in construction and dabbled in business on Wall Street. Something about the way they responded furthered my curiosity. I wanted to know. I just got the impression I was better off not knowing.

  “The other day, I was thinking about the restaurant you wanted to open,” I said. “Remember?”

  “And yet you’ve never stopped by.”

  I was taken aback. Had he opened it after all?

  “You opened Osteria dei Mascalzoni?” I said.

  “I did. You should come in next time you’re in New York. Let me know when you do, and I’ll join you.”

  “All right, I will.”

  He paused. “It’s good to talk to you. But you sound, I don’t know ... There’s a hint of sadness in your voice. You said the last few days had been long. Care to talk about it?”

  Even after all this time, he still seemed to know me better than almost everyone else.

  “I don’t want to burden you with my problems on our first call together,” I said.

  “You could never be a burden. What is it? What’s wrong?”

  I closed my eyes.

  I took a deep breath.

  I told myself to save it for another day.

  And then it all came tumbling out.

  “A few days ago, when my sister was out of town for the night, her husband was murdered in their back yard, and my niece, Lark, was taken,” I said. “We have no idea where she is. Every lead has led somewhere. They just haven’t led to Lark or my brother-in-law’s killer. Time is slipping away from me. My niece is slipping away from me. I’m running out of time.”

  “What about the police? What are they doing?”

  “I’m ... ahh ... I guess you could say I’m the police. I’m a detective now.”

  “A detective? It suits you.”

  “I keep making mistakes. If I don’t get on the right path soon, I worry I’ll never find her.”

  “Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without one.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a Chinese proverb.”

  Of course. I remembered now. He had quoted random proverbs all the time when we were in school. I’d always assumed it was to get a rise out of his sister Daniela, who found them annoying.

  “I’m a lot more pebble than diamond right now,” I said.

  “No, you’re not. Diamonds are rare. Pebbles are common. Don’t seek perfection. Don’t focus on your weaknesses. Use your weaknesses to make you strong. Even when a diamond has a flaw, it’s far more valuable than an unblemished pebble.”

  Giovanni knew the old Georgiana.

  What would he think of the woman I was today?

  “Can I do anything to help with the investigation?” he asked. “Or to help you?”

  “Talking to me is helping.”

  More than he knew.

  Over the next half hour, we filled each other in on our lives.

  Giovanni had married a woman named Valentina, not because he loved her, but because his father and her father pushed them together. Giovanni’s father died, and he took over the family business. Valentina bore a son. His name was Marcelo. He was eight. He wasn’t Giovanni’s biological son, but Giovanni was the only father the boy had ever known. Two years earlier, there had been a fire at his home. He didn’t explain how it started. He just said he wasn’t there when it happened. Marcelo made it out unscathed, but Valentina was trapped beneath a beam inside the house. She didn’t survive. After the fire, Giovanni reassessed his life and what mattered most to him, and he handed the keys to the family’s kingdom to Daniela with a promise to be there if she needed him. So far, she’d managed just fine on her own.

  My turn.

  I told Giovanni I’d left Cambria a few years after we graduated college and traveled on my own. I bought an RV and visited all fifty states, spending a month in each one. Living on my own, I’d realized how much I liked my autonomy. I liked who I was when I was free of the pressure that so often accompanied pleasing everyone else. After touring the States, I returned home and rekindled an old flame with a boy I’d dated in high school. I became a cop. Then a detective. I married the old flame. The marriage lasted several years and then fizzled out. I blamed myself. My life had been through its share of ups and downs, but I’d managed to find a sense of peace within the chaos.

  Then Lark went missing.

  Hearing myself summarize almost twenty years out loud, it seemed my life had shifted and folded until the sum of its parts had fit inside a bland, medium-size cardboard box. The box wasn’t as vanilla as it appeared in the story I had just told him, though. The box had secrets of its own, and I was sure Giovanni’s did too.

  I wanted to stay awake and talk to him for the rest of the night. I thought I could push through and then start the day with a Red Bull and a guarana tablet, but it was almost midnight and way past my bedtime. If I was to be a diamond instead of a pebble, the diamond needed sleep.

  I yawned.

  “You’re tired,” he said. “It’s late. I’ll let you go. Let me know when we can speak again.”

  It would have been easy to return the sentiment and end the call.

  But I had a knack for making things hard.

  “I should have asked Daniela if you married Jodie all those years ago,” I said. “I shouldn’t have assumed you did.”

  “And I should have called you to make sure you received my letter. You were a good friend to me, Georgiana. I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you over the years when you needed me. I’m here now. If you need anything, call me anytime, day or night.”

  I could have taken away all the positives in what he’d just said. Instead, I hung on to his comment about me being a good friend. I supposed he was right. It was what we were and what we’d always be. It was a fact I’d come to accept long ago.

  “I’ll speak to you soon, okay?” I said.

  “Arrivederci, Georgiana. Tu sei sempre nel mio cuore.”

  He hung up, and I did a quick internet search of the sentiment he’d just spoken before I forgot it. I was surprised to learn its meaning. He’d said: You are always in my heart.

  And he had always been in mine.

  I checked in with Harvey the next morning and then headed to my mother’s house to see Phoebe, who had decided it was best to remain with our mom instead of returning home. If the roles were reversed, my mother’s home wouldn’t have been my first, second, or tenth choice of places to stay, but I understood why it was Phoebe’s. She had always been Mom’s favorite.

  My mother opened the door with a hand on her hip and a frown of disapproval on her face. It was a look I knew well and one she’d perfected over the years. It wasn’t the first time I’d been greeted in such a manner, and I was certain it wouldn’t be the last.

  I wanted to say: What is it this time?

  I didn’t.

  “Is this how it’s going to be, Georgiana?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, Mom,” I said. “How is it?”

  “You may be back in town, but it still feels like you’re gone. You haven’t stopped in for days. You haven’t called. There are people here who need you. While you’re out gallivanting around, I’m here with your sister, day in and day out. She’s deteriorating, you know. She’s a complete wreck.
The least you could do is support her in her time of need.”

  My mother acted like it was an inconvenience to care for Phoebe on her own, but it was all an act. She relished feeling needed in times of crisis.

  “I’m not gallivanting around. I’m doing my best to find Lark.”

  My mother threw her hands in the air. “How would we know? This is the first time you’ve stopped by since the day you got here.”

  I had just about reached my threshold, the place where the respect I had for her went out the window.

  “Are you finished?” I asked.

  She cocked her head to one side. “Yes. Now get in here, spend some time with your sister, and stop being a stranger, okay? We’re family. We all need to band together right now.”

  My mother backed away from the door and allowed me inside. She kissed my cheek and said, “You know I love you, right? I dislike having to take a tone with you like I just did. I wouldn’t do it if I thought you didn’t need to hear it.”

  Sure, Mom. Whatever you say.

  She always knew the perfect thing to say to make me feel like I was thirteen years old again.

  I entered the living room and found Phoebe flipping through channels on the television.

  Without looking in my direction, she stood and said, “I’ve been trying to call you all morning.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “You haven’t checked in. You haven’t told me what’s going on or what you’ve found out, and I’ve had to get all of my updates from Harvey. It isn’t okay, Gigi. It’s Thursday. I haven’t heard from you in three days.”

  Round two of family shaming had begun.

  “I invited you to come stay with me,” I said.

  She flashed me a look like she’d just called my bluff. I had invited her to stay with me, and the offer was genuine, but we both knew I hoped she’d decline. I wanted to help her in any way she needed, but living together, even for a few days in a tiny mobile home, wasn’t a good idea. I was the kind of person who needed a lot of alone time in order to function. Without it, I behaved like a caged animal trying to claw my way to my freedom.

  “You can’t go this long without letting me know what’s going on,” she said. “Not this time. Not when my daughter is missing.”