by Edwin Hill
Other cards in the group showed scenes from around the city, including a view of San Francisco Bay with a beautiful house in the foreground that Hester thought might be in Pacific Heights, a street sign for Pacific Avenue, and the photo of the farmer’s market. The last card in the group was the one of the Golden Gate Bridge.
She created a quick spreadsheet to record the date, city, zip code, image, and message from each card. Sam had lived in San Francisco for nearly eighteen months and had sent a total of nine cards. The majority of them had a 94110 zip code, which turned out to be the Mission District.
After the last card from San Francisco, there was a break of nine months before postcards began to arrive again, this time from Chicago. What had Lila thought during those long months? Had she hoped that Sam had moved on or worried that something had happened to him? Had she scratched at her fingers with anxiety like she had today? What had she felt each time one of these cards arrived in the mail? In Hester’s years of finding lost people, she’d learned that families came in many different shapes, sizes, and forms—like her own odd family of Kate, Waffles, Daphne, and Morgan—and that much often lurked beneath the story a client told.
The cards from Chicago went on for more than a year, followed by another break before Sam wrote from Baltimore and then New York. In all, Sam had lived in four cities before moving to Boston, and the longest he’d stayed in any of them was two and a half years.
Finally, Hester laid out the cards he’d sent from Boston. There were five in all, with the first one coming in March of this year. Most of the cards had a 02144 zip code, which was right up the road on the other end of Somerville. She read through the messages again, but like the ones from the other cities, they made no sense without context.
She yawned. She’d lost herself in this project and it was already two a.m. Friday the 13th still played on the TV, though it was coming to the end where all the counselors but the Last Girl were dead. The girl clutched an axe and was about to save herself till the beginning of Part Two, but Hester had seen this movie dozens of times and didn’t need to watch to know what would happen next. She turned the light out and lay on the love seat. Waffles woke with the movement, and then settled in with a sigh. Hester closed her eyes and listened to the sounds of the movie, the music (ch-ch-ch-hah-hah-hah-hah) the dialogue, the screams. She could practically recite the script herself. Maybe she’d sleep right here tonight and let Morgan take care of Kate in the morning. It was his turn, after all. Maybe she’d stay in bed till nine.
But as she felt herself drifting off, she sat up, fully awake, and turned on the light. The thought that had flitted through her mind earlier had returned, fully formed. She flipped to the very first postcard Sam had ever sent, the one of the Castro Theatre, and then read the message again, What was your special order? She searched for the exact wording online. She was right. Now, what the hell did it mean?
CHAPTER 3
Three days later, listening to NPR on the radio with Waffles on the passenger’s seat beside her, Hester looked out the frosty window of her truck toward the mansion on Louisburg Square. She compared it to the house on the postcard Sam had sent. It was definitely the same building. The mansion was four stories of austere beauty, with Christmas wreaths hanging in each window. It had been easy enough to find the location using Google Maps and painstakingly “walking” down the street till she recognized the image from the postcard. With the address, she’d accessed the property records and learned that it belonged to Pearly and Elise Richards, the multi-millionaire former owners of a local sneaker company. They’d sold the company a few years earlier and become well-known conservationists. They were prominent enough to employ a publicist, one who tracked their travels. One online photo showed Pearly, ruggedly handsome, scaling a mountain. Another of Elise, blond and tight-skinned, featured her speaking about preserving local architecture. Right now, they were kayaking off the coast of Chile, near a 2.2-million-acre preserve they’d bought to protect the rain forest.
Pearly and Elise had one child, a daughter named Wendy, who called herself a philanthropist and a lifestyle guru, but who was more like a Boston-based Kardashian. Everyone knew who she was, but couldn’t explain why. Wendy, who had to have been in her early thirties, was all over social media alongside stories about farmers’ markets and yoga. She was tall and striking, with chestnut-colored hair that seemed to engulf anything and anyone around her. She served on various boards and committees, including ones for a charter school, a women’s shelter, and the VA. A glance at her LinkedIn page showed that she’d gone to Boston College for undergraduate, and Harvard for business school, and since then had worked for her family managing their considerable wealth.
“Kate want juice!”
Hester glanced in the rearview mirror, where she saw Kate waking from her nap. She dug a juice box from her bag and speared a straw through the tiny foil hole. She really needed to come up with a Plan B for days like today, when Kate woke with the sniffles and couldn’t go to day care. Bringing her on a stakeout for a guy who changed his name every time he moved definitely fell in the shitty parent column.
“Need anything else?”
Kate sucked at the straw and shook her head.
Hester looked out the window toward the house. Thanks to the photo of the Castro Theatre with the double bill of the Alien movies, she’d also managed to connect Sam’s notes to quotes from films, a different one for each city. San Francisco was Alien, Chicago was The Big Lebowski, Baltimore was Terms of Endearment, New York was The Shawshank Redemption, and, finally, Boston was The Shining. A few of the quotes were famous, but most were simply lines from the movies, and if Hester hadn’t seen Alien a half a dozen times, she might not have recognized them. She looked for connections between the movies and found a couple—Stephen King had written the source material for two of them; Alien and The Shining were both horror movies; they had themes of escape and home, which was interesting, though only Sam could say what it meant to him—but nothing else stood out. Not even the directors or actors were the same.
And now that she’d found this house, what next? Somehow she didn’t think walking up to the front door and knocking would work, not with public figures like the Richards family, but she was in the middle of trying to build up the courage to do it when her phone rang. Waffles nearly raised her snout in the air to bay. “Good girl,” Hester said. “But keep quiet.”
She glanced at the phone’s display and recognized the 608 area code from New Hampshire.
“Any news?” Lila Blaine asked.
“Maybe,” Hester said. “I’ve made some progress, at least. Tell me, was Sam into any movies growing up?”
“We used to rent videos from the general store.”
“Nothing else?”
“That’s all I can really think of. The closest movie theater was in Meredith, so we didn’t go that often.”
“Okay,” Hester said. “I haven’t found him yet, so don’t hold your breath.”
“Do me a favor,” Lila said. “If you do find him, watch him for a few days before you say anything. Tell me what you see.”
Hester sat up and turned the radio down. Lila wasn’t the first client who’d gotten cold feet, but it said something that she had. “I thought you were selling that property,” she said.
“I am. And if I do, I’ll send him a check. Right now, I want to have some time, though. I think that’s fair after twelve years of these fucking postcards. Speaking of which, I have another one for you. I’ll text it to you.”
A message beeped on Hester’s phone a moment after she hung up. Lila had taken a photo of the new postcard, this one of the Beacon Hill Tavern on a snowy night with a message that read I just need to think things over. At least, Hester thought, the snow matched the setting in The Shining. The Beacon Hill Tavern was right around the corner, and the first snow of the season had fallen a week and a half ago on a Saturday, and then melted the next day. Sam must have been at the bar that night.
; Hester got out of the truck and held the door so Waffles could jump down after her, and then opened the rear cab.
“Where go?” Kate asked as Hester lifted her from the car seat.
“We’re going to a bar.” Hester checked her watch. “It’s after noon, right?”
*
The Beacon Hill Tavern was one of the last old-fashioned Irish pubs left on Charles Street. The oak door was heavy, the floors sticky, and the delightfully warm air scented by rotten beer taps. It was still early afternoon, so only two customers looked up as Hester walked in holding Kate’s hand. Waffles bounded in too and went straight into hound mode, sniffing around the edges of the room and chomping on something Hester hoped wouldn’t stink up the truck later on.
“You usually bring your kid to a bar?” one of the patrons asked, a woman with dishwater blond hair.
“Can’t start too early, right?” Hester said.
The woman raised a glass and went back to her phone.
“Jaysus, no mutts,” the bartender said in an incomprehensible Irish brogue. He had white hair and a permanent flush of broken capillaries across his cheeks and nose. “You’ll have to take him outside.”
“Her,” Hester said, lifting Kate up on a stool and unraveling her scarf and hat. Kate waved a pink-mittened hand at the bartender, who sighed.
“I’ll be a minute,” Hester said.
“And it takes a second for the health inspector to fine me. Away with you. I mean it.”
“Be nice. Give us a sec to warm up. It must be ten degrees out there. I’m freezing my tits off.”
“Freezing tits off,” Kate said.
“Don’t say that,” Hester said.
“Nice,” the bartender said, though even he smiled.
“Don’t judge,” Hester said. “I barely know what I’m doing, and besides, I’m sure you’ve heard worse.”
She took the photo of Sam and Gabe from her bag. “Would you take a look at this, and then we’ll go. Any chance you’ve seen this guy around? The one on the left? The photo’s about twelve years old now.”
“What do you want with him?”
“Old friend,” Hester said.
“We all have old friends,” the bartender said.
“How often does he come in?”
The bartender took out a rag and wiped down the counter.
“He’s been here, right?” Hester asked.
“I’ve seen him once,” the bartender finally said. “Maybe twice. He met up with one of my regulars the other night. They left together.”
“Did you catch his name?”
“I thought he was an old friend.”
“What’s it to you?”
“I can certainly tell him a midget’s been asking about him the next time he comes around. How would that work out for you?”
“Hey, fill me up,” the woman at the end of the bar said. She waggled an empty beer pint.
“You said you’d be a minute,” the bartender said. “Get your mutt out of here.”
Hester called to Waffles, who was too busy sniffing under one of the tables to come. She hopped off her stool and told Kate to stay put, and then dragged the dog away from whatever she’d found before realizing that she’d left Kate perched on a bar stool, and that she could fall and crack her head open. She let go of the dog, who ran right back under the table. “I could really use a drink,” she mumbled, as she gripped Kate around the waist.
“You and me both,” the bartender said.
“Could you just tell me if you got this guy’s name?”
“If it’ll get you out of here, then no, I didn’t. He was too busy chatting with his new friend.”
“And who is that? His friend.”
“A woman who comes in here four or five times a week. Felicia something. Sweet but stressed out. Chubby. Good dresser. A Japanese last name. She works for a family up on the hill. Those people who own the sneaker company.”
“The Richards family?” Hester asked.
“Yep. And that’s about all I know.”
“That wasn’t so hard now, was it?” Hester said, slapping a ten on the counter. “Now we’ll go.”
“Thank Christ.”
*
At the truck, Hester got on her tablet and searched on the name “Felicia” and all versions of the Richardses’ family names, till finally a photo from a gala popped up showing Wendy Richards towering over a short, plump Asian woman identified as Felicia Nakazawa. A few more searches, and Hester had Felicia’s address, employment history (she’d only ever worked for the Richards family), and a blurry photo from her Facebook wall that looked very much like Sam dancing at a club. Felicia had written “Fun with new friends,” and 223 people had liked it, including Wendy Richards.
“Freezing tits off!”
In the rearview mirror, Hester saw Kate playing with Monkey and talking to herself. The kid had been patient and quiet all day. “Kate, I had a nice time with you today.”
Sometimes Hester had to remind herself to say nice things to Kate, but this time she was surprised not to be stretching the truth. It had been fun to hang out and to figure out a bit more about the mysterious Sam Blaine. “I’ll take you to the Disney store over at the Pru, but you have to promise you won’t say tits in front of Uncle Morgan. You’ll get me in trouble.”
“Freezing tits off!” Kate said.
“That’s exactly what you shouldn’t say. Why don’t we get pizza for lunch too?”
“Kate like pizza!”
“So does Aunt Hester.”
“Uncle Morgan like pizza?”
“Uncle Morgan loves pizza, especially Hawaiian. Unfortunately.”
“Waffles like pizza?”
“Waffles likes everything.”
“Mommy like pizza?”
Hearing Kate mention Daphne surprised Hester. Kate hadn’t mentioned her mother in weeks, and Hester had actually wondered if Daphne had begun to fade from the girl’s memory. Even for Hester, it took some effort to remember that her friend was more than resentment or the woman who’d left her kid behind, or that, in spite of everything, Hester still thought of Daphne as the very best of best friends. Why else would she be doing all of this for her? Hester’s job was to find lost people. She could have figured out where Daphne had gone in a day, maybe two, tops, but she understood that her friend had left because she wanted to be lost, because she’d needed time to herself, and for now, no matter how annoying, Hester planned to give Daphne what she needed.
“Mommy loves pizza,” Hester said. “She likes anchovies, which may be even worse than Hawaiian.”
“Kate like ankobees.”
“I bet you do, sweetie.”
And that’s when the front door to the mansion opened. Hester recognized Wendy Richards, who stepped out onto the front stairs, the points of her stiletto heels poking from beneath her tailored suit. She looked about seven feet tall, with that mane of chestnut-colored hair following her like a taffeta prom dress. She spoke to someone inside, her breath freezing in clouds of white. Then Sam Blaine stepped out after her. He’d filled in a bit in twelve years, but there was no doubt in Hester’s mind that it was him. He had the same arrogance that had taken over that photo and made the lakeside setting and the other boy nearly invisible. And it happened here too, where the mansion, and the holiday decorations, and even Wendy Richards, with her privileged confidence, faded into the background as Sam kissed her on the cheek and waved goodbye. Wendy went back into the house. Hester told Kate to stay put and got out of the truck. Sam tripped down the stairs to where a town car idled. He turned to the house and opened his arms as if to embrace everything in front of him. He seemed amazed, by the day, by his life. He looked happy and grateful and proud. And, like Hester, he looked like someone who had experienced how quickly everything could change, for the good or the bad.
CHAPTER 4
A week and a half earlier, Sam Blaine had stepped out of the Park Street T station in downtown Boston. The winter light had faded, and the air was
heavy with pending snow. It was the first Saturday in December. Sam tucked his plaid scarf into his collar, buttoned up the pea coat he’d stolen from the back of a chair in a coffee shop, and headed into the Boston Common. All around him, elms and maples were lit up with long strands of looping white lights. On the Frog Pond, skaters glided in a circle. He crossed into Beacon Hill, with its gold-domed capitol building, where gas lamps bathed the narrow cobblestone streets in a warm glow.
He wandered till he found himself in Louisburg Square—again. He stood in the shadows, across the green from the Richardses’ house. Sam had come to this square a few times over the past months, ever since he’d met Wendy Richards at a benefit where he’d worked an evening as a catering waiter. He’d observed her more than met her, the way she moved through the room, confident in a black cocktail dress, towering over nearly everyone else at the party. She’d slipped him a hundred-dollar bill at the end of the night for keeping the wine flowing. “I can’t make it through these things without it,” she whispered.
It had been easy enough to find her house, and since then, he’d come to watch how she lived, and she lived well, in a way Sam could only dream of, in a way that he had dreamed of. She had cars and clothes and knew people Sam wanted to know. She belonged to the University Club and golfed in Brookline and went to Nantucket for the weekend. Here, tonight, he could see her, on the second floor, looking out into the darkness, the glow of a fire lighting the room behind her. She must have plans. She had to! It was a Saturday in December, and people like Wendy didn’t stay home with Netflix when there were parties to go to, and everywhere Sam looked another party was starting. Couples alit from taxis in Brooks Brothers and velvet, with expensive gifts from expensive stores, wrapped in expensive red-and-gold paper. He could have felt like the little match girl, wandering in the cold. He could have felt put out, but this was where Sam belonged. All he needed was a way in. All he needed was one small chance.