I hated getting into situations like that. If I had been more like Isa, I probably would have agreed to show the guy around and maybe ended up sleeping with him, or at least getting him to take me out to dinner. That’s just how she was—she was always able to get something out of a situation, and awkwardness was just not something that she ever entertained. As I drove, I pulled my phone out of my purse and checked to see if she’d gotten back to me. She hadn’t. I kept replaying the situation with that guy in my head, and how Isa would have handled it so much better than I just did. I supposed that was one of the things that came along with having a twin, or maybe even just a sister, especially one that was so wildly different than you were. It had always been that way; I was used to it by now. Or at least that’s what I told myself, though I always had the sneaking suspicion that Isa probably never doubted herself or wondered how I might have handled a situation.
I wasn’t entirely surprised to see that Dad’s Lexus wasn’t in the driveway when I pulled up. He’d taken a real interest in golfing recently, and would spend most weekends out on the golf course. My mother, who had battled all sorts of various mental issues my entire life, had not left the house in several years. The social anxiety that had always threaded its way through any outing that I can remember going on with her had colonized my mother’s brain over the years like a cancer, metastasizing into full-blown agoraphobia. Trying to cajole her out of the house, or threaten her, or even down-on-your-knees plead with her didn’t work. I had assumed that she’d eventually need or simply want to go out of the house, but that assumption was profoundly incorrect: the longer she stayed shut in, the more it seemed to affirm to her that she was making the right choice.
But still. I had a big smile on my face and I tried to leave the front door open behind me when I stepped inside. My mother was there, though, to immediately close it, sealing off the outside world.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said breathlessly. She leaned against the closed door, her fingers splayed against the white wood. “Something very strange just happened.”
“What?” I asked, the smile sliding off my face. The curtains were drawn, the entryway was dim. To my left was the living room, the coffee table covered in neat stacks of all the books and magazines that got her through her day. The house was immaculate, of course (what else was she going to do all day?) but there was a staleness to the air, a dire need for the windows to be wide open, the sunlight streaming through. “Want to open a window or two?”
“Oh, you know I can’t do that, Emmy.” My mother shook her head. “My allergies will go crazy. Come in; sit down.” She pushed away from the door and herded me into the kitchen. I set one of my mesh bags on the counter and she got busy putting the produce away in the refrigerator. I sat at the breakfast table and watched her.
“So, what just happened?” I asked. “You said something strange had happened.”
“I received a very upsetting call,” my mother said. “To our landline. How did someone get that number?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “The phone book? Landlines are still listed in the phone book. Who was it?”
“It was someone wanting to know if I knew where Isabel was. It was a man, and he wanted to know when the last time was that I had heard from her. He was rather brusque, if you want to know the truth. I just didn’t get a good feeling. Where is your sister, anyway? Have you talked with her?”
“I haven’t,” I said. “Well, I texted her earlier but I haven’t heard anything back yet. You know how Isa is, though.” Yet even as I said this, something didn’t quite ring true. I knew from Facebook that Isa was in town, because she was playing at some club called Heathens last night. Whenever she was in town, she’d always at least try to make some sort of effort to get together, or at least send a text asking how we were doing.
“Yes, I do know how she is. But I called her several times and she didn’t pick up. Or call me back. She’s always been good about calling me back. And the last time we spoke, she was in Spain, I think, but she said that she was going to be back in California and would come home for a visit. You’re sure you haven’t heard anything from her?”
“No,” I said, trying not to sound exasperated. “I already told you I hadn’t. I wouldn’t be keeping it a secret from you.”
“I’m not saying that, sweetie.” Mom closed the refrigerator and came over, sitting down across from me. “I just have a bad feeling about all of this.”
If my father was here, he probably would have rolled his eyes to hear her say that. She was always getting a “bad feeling” about any number of things—it was no longer a source of alarm for anyone in our family when she said she had a bad feeling.
“Look, Mom,” I said. “I think it’s probably just that she’s been busy and hasn’t had the time to call. I know she was playing at a club last night, and those things go on late. We’ll probably hear from her before the day is over.”
“I always assumed that she’d get that sort of thing out of her system and then do something else for a living. I just don’t understand how a person could sustain a lifestyle like that.”
“Plenty of people do,” I said. “They think it’s fun.”
“You don’t.” She said this almost as if it were an accusation.
“I know I don’t. I’ll admit, maybe it’s a little odd that Isa didn’t get in touch with any of us since she’s been back in California, but maybe it’s not that strange, considering how busy she is with everything. I wouldn’t actually know anything about it, seeing as I’m not busy and don’t have a life.”
“I’m not saying that, Emmy. You two made different lifestyle choices and there’s nothing wrong with that.” She didn’t need to add that because I was the one who did not travel the world playing the hottest clubs, she fully expected me to settle down and provide her with a grandchild. Which, when you thought about it, was kind of hilarious, because what was she going to do with a grandchild? Certainly not take him or her to the park or story time at the library.
“What should we have for lunch?” I asked, eager to get the conversation on to something else. “And is Dad going to be joining us?”
“No. He said he’d be on the golf course most of the day, so I don’t expect to see him until much later this afternoon. A salad, maybe. I don’t think my stomach could handle something heavier right now.”
I retrieved a few of the things I’d brought from the farmers’ market back out from the fridge and busied myself washing the lettuce, cutting the cucumbers and tomatoes.
“The man’s name was Warren,” she said suddenly. “At least I think that’s what he said. He was talking awfully fast.”
“That’s her manager. He left me a message, too.”
“I am pretty sure he also said something about the police, and that he had talked to them, but he thought he would check with us, too. If he called the police already, why haven’t we heard anything from them? Don’t you think they’d want to talk to her family?”
“They’ll probably get in touch,” I said. “If they think it’s a serious matter.” I dumped the cucumber slices on top of the washed lettuce, thinking back to my own encounter with the police. The group of guys had run off when they’d heard the sirens, leaving me sprawled on the ground, unable to get up because my meniscus had been torn. The pain was excruciating, but I was still far better off than my date, who was unconscious and covered in blood. I tried to push the memory from my mind. We’ll find whoever did this, one of the officers had told me at the hospital, when I’d tried my best to give them a description of the guys.
“It must be a serious matter if her manager called the police.”
I dressed the salad and we went and sat out on the deck. Mom only picked at the salad, though, which somehow had the effect of making me not very hungry either.
“You need to find her,” Mom said abruptly, putting her fork down. “Please, Emmeline. I would go out and do it if I could, but you know that just isn’t possible.”
Mom scrunched her face up. “Oh, yes, because driving in the city is just so relaxing. Sweetheart, you know there is no way I could do that. I’d probably have a heart attack before I even got down the front steps.”
“You don’t even want to try? How thrilled would Dad be if he got back from golf and you’d left the house?”
“I think your father would be more thrilled if we could tell him that we knew where your sister was and that she was safe. She was playing at that club she used to play at a lot? That’s what the man on the phone said. And Isabel might be a lot of things, but she wouldn’t skip out on something like that.” She looked at me, her eyes wide, wild. It seemed she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, like this was going to be the thing that finally sent her over the edge.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay. I’ll go down to the city and look for her.”
My mother nodded. “You promise?”
“Yes,” I said. “I promise.”
***
I left my parents’ house not long after that, with the plan to head down to the city, to the club that Isa was supposed to have been at last night. First, though, I decided to stop at Chickadees, which was the local café not far from the farmers’ market. The salad I’d had with Mom had been good, but I was still hungry, so I thought I’d stop and get a smoothie. I needed something of more sustenance if I was going to head down to the city.
Oliver was working, and he smiled when he saw me come in. “Hey, Emmy,” he said as I approached the counter. He was twenty, and tall and blond and handsome, home for the summer from college. “What can I get for ya?”
I gave a cursory glance to the menu written on a blackboard above his head. “I’ll take the Sunshine Shake,” I said.
He winked. “You got it.” As he pulled the almond milk, orange juice, and yogurt from the refrigerator, he said, “Hey, is everything okay with Isa?”
I stiffened. “Um, I’m not sure, actually.”
He gave me a serious look. “Yeah. A couple of pals of mine went down to Heathens last night, but they said she never showed. Someone said she got food poisoning, but then someone else said she’d OD’d?”
“She doesn’t do drugs,” I said. “And if it’s food poisoning, then it must be a pretty bad case of it because no one’s heard from her. We’re not sure what happened.”
Oliver stuffed some kale leaves and then dumped some protein powder into the Vitamix. “That sucks,” he said. “But... I bet it’ll be okay.” He said something else, but I couldn’t hear because he turned the blender on and drowned out his voice.
He gave me an encouraging smile when he handed me the smoothie, and I paid for it and thanked him before walking outside, sucking hard on the straw to get that first sip of smoothie. I happened to glance across the street as I did this, and I saw my father’s car. I knew it was his car because he had a vanity plate with his name on it: SHAWN. It wasn’t necessarily the strangest thing to see his car parked in the parking lot at Lilac, which was one of the more upscale dining establishments in town, but Lilac was several miles from the golf course, where he was supposed to be.
I was about to cross the street to go say hi to him when the front door to the restaurant opened and there he was. Not just him, though—he had a tall, blond woman on his arm. From where I was, I couldn’t tell exactly how old she was, but she did appear to be much younger than he was. She wore a sporty blue minidress and her blond hair was down, cascading over her shoulders in lush waves. I could’ve been a mile down the street and I would’ve been able to make out the grin on my father’s face, it was that big.
I hauled my jaw up off the ground, but not before I dropped my smoothie. It exploded out of the cup, thick, greenish sludge splashing over my lower legs, my flip-flops, getting between my toes. I ignored this unsavory feeling and fumbled in my pocket for my phone. I yanked it out and managed to get the camera app on and snap a picture before Dad and this woman got into his car. It would have been easy enough for him to see me—all he had to do was look in my direction—but he only had eyes for her. His pearl-colored Lexus pulled out of the parking lot and zipped down the street, leaving me standing there, my skin sticky with smoothie.
I picked up the cup and threw it away, then went back inside and got a few napkins and attempted to wipe myself off before I got back into the car. Luckily, Oliver was busy helping other customers, so he didn’t even notice that I had come back in. I didn’t want to have to explain why I was wearing most of the smoothie he had just made. My mind was reeling. Way too much was happening in way too short a period of time. My days were usually quiet, orderly, with the most unexpected thing being a client wanting me to tweak an illustration I had done. I got into my car but didn’t start it right away. I looked at the picture on my phone. I had to zoom in and crop it a little, but it was clearly Dad, and it was clearly a young blond woman. I sent Isa a new text message, with the photo attached. WTH??
She’d respond to that, I just knew it.
Chapter 3
Jason
You lost her.
Those three words had repeated themselves, running through my head like an LED ticker display.
YOU lost her.
That was the variation: emphasis on myself. Apparently, I was the last one to have seen Isabel Bender, better known as simply Isa, when she’d told me she was going out for a smoke and a drink and not to get in her way because she always got what she wanted.
But then she hadn’t shown up for her set.
Half an hour had gone by, and the crowd had started to cheer, calling to her, chanting her name. Everyone thought it was part of the act, that she was going to make her entrance suspended from wires from the ceiling or something.
As the minutes ticked by, though, and Isa did not appear, the crowd started to get restless. There was some angry shouting, then booing, then a more raucous, aggressive chanting of her name. The whole building shuddered to the beat of it.
But it didn’t matter how loud they shouted, or how angry they got; Isa never showed. Her manager, this slinky guy named Warren, and the promoter, this guy named Scout, were trying to play it cool, but they were clearly rattled as their emotions cycled through annoyance, anger, worry, and then back again.
“We were just chilling in the lounge and I had to get up and take a piss, and that was the last time I saw her,” Warren had said. “When I got back, she was gone.”
When it came to light that I was the last person to be seen with her, it felt as if everyone looked at me and expected the answers to be forthcoming. That I was somehow supposed to know exactly where she had gone to, and when she would be back. Drew and Cole watched the surveillance videos, but had come up with nothing. There were cameras, but they weren’t everywhere—just on the main and side entrances, the bar, the VIP lounge, and the stage. There was footage of Isa arriving, but that was it.
Warren had gone to the police department and filed a missing persons report. He must’ve made it sound like a pretty big deal, because the police had shown up almost immediately, while plenty of club-goers were still there, grumbling about the fact that the headliner was a no-show.
“Something really bad has happened here!” Warren kept exclaiming. “There’s no way in hell Isa would just disappear. Someone here knows what happened to her.”
We had all talked with the police, and they in turn had talked with the stragglers who hadn’t cleared out yet. No one had seen her.
Drew was obviously shaken by the whole thing, and not just because it had happened while we were supposed to be providing the security. His sister, Ashleigh (who had been going out with my brother all those years ago) had vanished and never been found. The case had gone cold and though Drew seldom brought it up anymore, I knew the whole thing haunted him. It haunted me, too, because my brother had been a suspect, though eventually the police realized he didn’t have
anything to do with her disappearance. Not long after they officially declared him no longer a suspect, he hung himself. My father had been the one to find him; I got home from school a short time after. I didn’t know why Dad wouldn’t let me into the house, but he had blocked the front door and told me I better get my ass down the street to my aunt’s or I was going to get the beating of a lifetime. Seeing as my father had never laid a hand on me before, I’d known something was up but the look on his face had scared me, and I ran all the way down to his sister’s house where I stayed until much later that evening.
Even though my brother had been cleared and had no longer been a suspect in Ashleigh’s disappearance, some people took his suicide as an omission of guilt. Not Drew, but other people around town did, and that would be the impetus for my father’s eventual move down to the crappy Daly City apartment he lived in to this day.
“You okay?” I asked Drew now, and he gave me a funny look.
“Yeah, of course,” he said, his tone a little cold. I didn’t take it personally, though. “Why don’t you get home,” he said. “Everyone should get some sleep. We’re done here; there’s nothing more we can do right now anyway.”
“Sure,” I said, though sleep was the last thing on my mind. “You going to do the same?”
“Mmm.” What that really meant was he was going to head into the office, and would probably stay there for most of the day, subsisting on coffee and energy drinks. “Go get some sleep.”
There wasn’t any point in arguing. “All right,” I said. “You should, too.”
***
I lived in a rent-controlled apartment on Pine and Jones, on the second floor of a three-story building. It was a big one-bedroom, with bay windows in both the living room and the bedroom that looked out onto Pine Street. I made the trek up Taylor because I thought maybe the steep hill would burn away the rest of my energy and I might actually be able to do what Drew had suggested: sleep. But when I let myself into the building, I didn’t feel drowsy at all; in fact, I felt wired, jumpy. Nothing like this had ever happened at our company before. Sure, we’d had our share of minor mishaps—breaking up fights, forcibly removing people from a venue, barring someone’s entrance to an event they swore they were on the guest list for—but we had never lost someone; we had never been running security at an event and had the headliner simply vanish.
Parker Security Complete Series Page 3