Little Girl Lost (Georgiana Germaine Book 1)

by Cheryl Bradshaw

  Phoebe’s photo wall had amassed over ninety frames over time. Each photo captured was a cherished memory frozen in time—when life was breezy and the reality of the chaos of the present day was unimaginable. Now it had all changed.

  I pressed my hand against the wall and hung my head, gasping for air.

  “Detective,” a male voice said. “You wanted to see me?”

  I closed my eyes and attempted to force myself back to some sense of normal before I addressed him.

  I glanced in his direction and said, “Are you Mitch Porter?”

  He nodded.

  “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’ve been avoiding me,” I said.

  “Sorry, I’ve had a lot going on. I’d planned to contact you today.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed it.

  Mitch was handsome, in a rugged, rough-around-the-edges kind of way, a vast difference from the polished look of his wife. His long, dark hair had been fastened into a bun, and he sported a goatee that hadn’t been spruced up in a couple of days. Phoebe had said Mitch and Jack golfed together, which, given his appearance at present, amazed me.

  “Has anyone ever said you look like Leonardo DiCaprio?” I asked.

  “Yeah, a few times. I’m not sure why. I don’t see it.”

  “Your eyes and the shape of your face are similar.”

  He seemed unnerved by the compliment. But I hadn’t elaborated on what I saw when I looked into his eyes. They were shifty.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked.

  I gazed at his shoes, a pair of dark blue Nikes.

  “Nice footwear,” I said. “Heard you’re a size eleven.”

  “I am. What about it?”

  “Forensics found a shoe print in Phoebe’s back yard the night of the murder. Size ten. And Hattie thought she saw a man run past her house wearing Nike shoes right after she heard gunfire coming from Phoebe’s house. Size ten isn’t much different than size eleven.”

  “I was here the night Jack was killed, so even if the print is mine, it doesn’t mean I had anything to do with what happened to him or to Lark.”

  “I never said you did.”

  He slid his hands inside his pockets and leaned against the wall. “Didn’t you? Whatever you’re thinking, why not just say it?”

  Fine.

  I will.

  “Where were you last night?” I asked.

  “Home, with my family.”

  “All night?”

  “Yep. Talk to Holly. She’ll verify it.”

  I didn’t doubt it, but would she be telling the truth?

  “I’ll ask her,” I said.

  “Fine, anything else?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Take off your shirt.”

  “What?”

  My instructions had been clear.

  “Your shirt. Take it off.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I asked you to do it.”

  He crossed his arms in front of him. “I don’t think so, no.”

  I jerked my gun out of the holster and pointed it at him.

  He threw his hands in the air. “What the hell?”

  “Take. Your. Shirt. Off. Mitch.” I paused for effect and then added, “Please.”

  “You can’t force me to remove my clothing.”

  “I’m not asking for a lap dance. I just need to take a quick look at your chest.”

  “What you’re doing isn’t okay. You can’t just pull a gun on me.”

  “You know what Lark means to me, and to my sister,” I said. “Do you think I give a shit about what’s right and what isn’t right at this point? I’ve given you a simple request, and the fact you’re not accommodating it raises even more questions than I had before. Do what I ask, and I’ll put the gun away.”

  “Man,” he said. “Jack told me a while back that you kinda went off the deep end, but I never expected you to be this—”

  “Stop talking.”

  “Why? Because I’m speaking the truth? You think because you have a badge, you can do whatever you want? You can’t.”

  Take a breath, Georgiana.

  Take a breath and think it through.

  I took a breath.

  Then I took another.

  I felt no different.

  I flashed back to a conversation I’d had with Harvey when I first became a detective. He’d said it would be a lot easier if I applied the sandwich rule when trying to get information out of people. His suggestion was to first offer the suspect a compliment. Second, in a casual, non-threatening way, tell the suspect what I needed to know and why. And third, end the request with a generic statement like, “Any information you could share with us would be great. We appreciate your help.”

  In my own experience, all the sandwich rule did was give guilty suspects the chance to appear innocent, and that wasn’t a game I was willing to play. Holly was a perfect example. I was convinced part of her buttery-sweet persona was due to the fact she was gifted at the art of being fake-nice. But whether the level of fake was twenty percent or eighty, I didn’t know. What I did know was that Harvey’s advice was ringing so loud in my ears, it was like he was right there with me.

  I angled the gun away from Mitch and said, “Last night I was ambushed inside of a private investigator’s office downtown. It was too dark for me to get a good look at the man who shot at me, but I fired back, and he was hit. Before we go any further, I need to be certain that man wasn’t you. If you take your shirt off, I’ll have my answer.”

  Mitch paused for a moment and then said, “Good story. I’m still not taking my shirt off, though.”

  And there it was—a perfect example of why the sandwich rule didn’t work for a person like me.

  I raised the gun again, but this time, I pulled the trigger. The bullet whizzed past Mitch and lodged into the wall behind him.

  “I can’t believe it!” he said. “You shot at me!”

  “I didn’t shoot at you. I shot next to you. Now, get your shirt off before I become more annoyed than I already am.”

  For once, he didn’t resist. He ripped his shirt off and thrust it to the ground.

  “There!” he said. “Satisfied?”

  Almost.

  “Turn around.”

  He spread his hands to the side and turned, and I had my answer. There wasn’t a single scratch on his gym-sculpted body.

  “If you had nothing to hide,” I said, “why didn’t you take your shirt off the first time I asked?”

  He opened his mouth to reply, and Hattie burst through the front door wielding the prize knife in her collection.

  She looked at me, and then at a shirtless Mitch. She stared at his chest a bit longer than necessary and said, “What in heaven’s name is going on?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Doesn’t look like nothing to me,” she said.

  “We’re fine, Hattie. I was just having a simple conversation with Mitch.”

  Hattie pointed the knife at the hole in the wall. “Simple, eh? Doesn’t look simple to me. No siree. You better start talking.”

  “Hattie,” Mitch said. “Call Chief Kennison. Tell him she pulled a gun on me and then shot at me.”

  Hattie squinted at me, debating his request, and then shifted her gaze to him. “She shot at you, eh? I’m looking right at you. I see no bullet wound.”

  “Yeah, well, she missed,” he said.

  “I don’t think so,” Hattie said. “I know you, Mitchell. And I like you. But you’re a stubborn mule of a thing at times. I’ve heard the way you talk to your wife when you think no one is listening. You seem to forget the windows in your house are often open. If the detective shot at you, I suppose she had her reasons.”

  Mitch’s jaw dropped open. He appeared too stunned to speak.

  “Looks like you have everything under control here, Detective,” Hattie said. “You’re not going to kill him, right?”

  “Of course not,” I said.

  “Well then, carry on.” Hat
tie walked over to Mitch, picked his shirt off the ground, and handed it to him. “A bit of advice if I may, Mitchell. Drop the ego, stop your faffing, and help the detective find our girl.”

  Mitch sat in a chair across from me. He appeared less peeved than he had been a few minutes before, but it was clear he was not over what had just happened.

  “Do you want a drink or anything?” I asked.

  “I want to get back to my family,” he said. “Tell me what I need to say in order to do that.”

  I wondered if he’d exact his revenge later by snitching on me over the gun incident. Another conversation with Mayor Wheeler was one I’d hoped to avoid, but I didn’t regret my actions. And something about the tone in Hattie’s voice when she spoke to Mitch about having eavesdropped on his conversations with Holly led me to believe whatever she’d heard wasn’t major, but enough to convince him to keep his mouth shut about me stepping over the line.

  “I’d like to talk to you about the night Jack was killed,” I said.

  “So, talk.”

  “Jack was wearing a lapel pin on his jacket. We’ve taken a closer look at it and now know the design is a scroll and quill. Any idea where he got it or why he was wearing it?”

  He shrugged. “None.”

  “Phoebe said he never wore jewelry. Did you notice him wearing the pin when you visited him that night?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

  It seemed short answers were all I could expect from here on out, which meant I was wasting my time. Maybe he couldn’t help me.

  Someone knocked on the front door.

  “Come in,” I said.

  Holly bounced down the hallway holding a plate of cookies in her hands. She slid them onto my lap and said, “These are for you!”

  “I, ahh, thank you,” I said.

  She moved her hands to her hips. “So ... how are things going here? You two almost done? I’m having trouble with the garbage disposal, and I need to steal Mitch away so he can take a look at it.”

  “We’re done,” I said, “for now.”

  “Hope he was able to help,” she said.

  “Can I ask you a question before you go, Holly?” I asked.

  “You bet,” she said.

  “Was Jack wearing a lapel pin the night he was murdered?”

  She tapped a finger to her lips, thinking. “You know, yeah, I think so. I didn’t know what it was, so I asked him about it.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said it had been given to him by an old friend, someone he’d known a long time ago. I remember thinking it was strange because he’d never worn it before.”

  I looked at Mitch. “You said you don’t remember if you saw it or not. Where were you when Holly’s conversation with Jack took place?”

  “I dunno,” Mitch said.

  “I was in the kitchen with Jack at the time, helping him grab some dishes and utensils for the food,” Holly said. “I believe Mitch was outside with the kids.”

  “Did Jack say anything else?”

  She shook her head. “Not about the pin, but while we were in the kitchen, he pulled up a music playlist on his phone and put on a Matchbox Twenty song. Hmm. I’m trying to remember the name of it.”

  “Unwell?”

  She shook her head. “I think it was ‘If You’re Gone’ ... yeah, that was it. He started humming the words to it and then he said the oddest thing.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He asked me if there was ever anyone I loved before Mitch whom I considered to be the one who got away.”

  “Why did you find it odd?”

  “Because Jack didn’t talk much about personal things. It was obvious the song meant something to him. I was sure he was thinking of someone else—someone other than Phoebe.”

  “What did you say?”

  Holly craned her head and noticed Mitch hanging on to her every word.

  “I said no, of course,” she said. “I’ve never loved anyone the way I love my husband.”

  Her eyes said something else, but with Mitch sitting in the same room, I forgave the lie.

  “What else did you two talk about?” I asked.

  “I asked him the same question. He didn’t answer at first. It was like his mind was somewhere else. Then he said we’d better start eating before the food got cold, so the discussion ended.”

  Mitch and Holly left the house, and I remained, thinking about what she’d just said. I did a search and found it was the sixth most popular song on the Billboard music charts in 2001, which also happened to be the same year Jack graduated.

  I assumed Jack was thinking about an old high school flame when he posed the question to Holly. I walked to his home office and scanned his bookshelves. On the far left, beneath a decorative candle, were Jack’s old yearbooks. I took them to his desk, sat down, and opened his freshman one. I flipped through its pages and found nothing of real significance. The written messages left by other girls were innocent and funny. There was nothing to suggest he’d had a romantic attachment of any kind.

  I moved onto his sophomore yearbook. It offered little more information than the first one had. Jack was a model student. He was well-liked by everyone. He played on the junior varsity football team and was on student council. He was the proverbial boy next door.

  Jack’s yearbook for his junior year took a turn I hadn’t expected when I came upon a group photo of Jack and several other classmates. It was the yearbook club photo. Jack had his arm draped around a girl. I checked the caption for the photo and found her name: Rebecca Martin. The fact he was cozy with her wasn’t what stood out the most, though. It was the matching lapel pins every student in the group had attached to their shirts, pins that looked just like the one I’d analyzed that morning.

  I flipped to the back of the book and searched the name Rebecca Martin and then looked through the photos attached to it. In the football section, I came across a photo of Rebecca in a cheerleading uniform arm-in-arm with Jack at a football game. A heart had been drawn around the photo with a blue ink pen, and next to it the words “R+J forever” were written in cursive.

  Was Rebecca the one he’d referred to when listening to the song playing on the night of his death? Why was he so nostalgic about it? Could she have been the person he’d hired the PI to find?

  I set the first three yearbooks to the side and reached for the last one. I opened it and an envelope slipped out. I reached down, picked it up, and removed the folded letter tucked inside.

  Dear Jack,

  I’m sure it comes as a surprise to you to hear from me after all these years. The truth is I’ve thought of you many times over the years, and I’ve often wondered where you ended up after high school. I know you were upset when I made the abrupt decision to move away and then asked my parents not to give you my contact information. I was young and still reeling over the last discussion we’d had right after you started college. It’s been so long ago now, you may not even remember what was said, but it was a conversation I’ll never forget.

  I remember thinking when you picked me up that night that you’d come home from college to propose. In my mind, it made sense. You took me to the nicest restaurant in the city, gave me a bouquet of roses, and showered me with compliments. You told me you missed me. You told me you missed being home. You told me how much I’d love college next year after I graduated. I was so happy I didn’t realize that for everything you’d said, there were things you hadn’t. All I could focus on were the images swirling around in my head of the life we’d have together. But I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  When you dropped me off at home that night, I leaned in for a kiss, and you said, “Becca, wait. There’s something I need to tell you.” You said you would always love me, but you were in college now, and you wanted to be free—free to date other girls and hang out with friends on the weekends, which you weren’t able to do since you’d been coming home to see me. My tears and heartfelt sentiments about how good we
were together weren’t enough to sway you. I’ll never forget getting out of the car and hearing Matchbox Twenty playing in the background. You put your window down and tried to console me by saying after I graduated and joined you at school, if we were both single, maybe we could pick up where we left off.

  To this day, I don’t understand when you decided I was a weak enough person to have entertained the idea of a reconciliation after you ripped my heart out. But for the first time, I saw you as you saw me instead of the way I’d always imagined you had. Bitter and broken, I learned weeks later of your relationship with my replacement, a girl named Phoebe. I moved to San Francisco and vowed never to speak to you again.

  I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve decided to dredge up the past after so long. It’s time you knew the truth. And I hope you’ll understand why I chose to do what I did.

  The last night we were together, when we had sex in the back seat of your father’s car before you took me home, I got pregnant. I thought about telling you, but I didn’t because I know you, and I knew you’d do what you considered to be the “right thing.” You would have dropped out of school, you would have married me, and I would have spent my life wondering if you loved me or if you just did what you felt you had to do. I deserved better. I deserved someone who loved me for me. Our baby did too.

  You have a daughter. Her name is Maya. She’s eighteen years old. She graduated this year and has a scholarship to Stanford University. She’s smart, funny, has the same drive you always had in school, and when I look at her, she reminds me more of you than myself. She has your eyes.

  I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about her before. I should have, and the truth is, she doesn’t know she has a different father than the one she’s known all her life. If you can find it in your heart to forgive me, I would like to see you. Maybe we can ease her in, and after a few visits, we can tell her together. She’s an adult now, and I believe she’d want to know.

  If you have no interest in being in her life or mine, I understand. The choice is yours. Before I offer my phone number and address, I’d like to ask you to respond by sending me a letter in the mail first. I know it seems like an archaic way of communicating, but for now, it’s the most discreet way for both of us.