Parker Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  “I can think of a few things,” she said. “Yoga class.” She reached over and took a sip of her wine. “And what do you mean you’ve sort of taken a yoga class? How is that even possible? You either do or you don’t.”

  I grinned. “You’re getting into the real philosophical, heavy shit now.”

  “Not really. It’s just simple logistics.”

  “I say sort of because it wasn’t in a yoga studio and I can’t even remember if we had actual mats or not. And I sure as hell was not wearing any sort of leisure clothing, or Spandex. No, it was part of this day-long work conference, and someone... I think it might’ve been Jason, or maybe Ben... they knew someone who taught yoga and we had her come in for an hour and do stretching exercises with everyone. It was more stretching than yoga.”

  Gwen gave me a look that one might construe as a smirk. “What do you think yoga is?”

  I paused and then started to laugh. “Yeah, okay,” I said. “I guess you’re right. Well, I’m not sure I’d do so well; I’m not that flexible. I saw what some of those people at the festival were doing. I could probably do yoga for the rest of my life and I’d still never be able to do some of that stuff.”

  “Some of those people have been doing it for most of their lives.”

  I laughed, an image from the weekend flashing through my mind. “Yeah, like that one older woman? She must’ve been in her eighties. But spry as all hell. And I swear she was balancing her entire weight on one forearm with her legs all intertwined, and she stayed like that for damn near a minute!”

  Gwen smiled. “I think I know who you mean. That particular person, she has been doing yoga for a while, but she’s also just naturally flexible. That’s not just what yoga’s about, though. Every type of body can benefit from it. Especially in this fast-paced culture. It’s amazing, though, for, as busy as people are, so many are way out of shape and just don’t take care of their bodies.”

  “Is that so?”

  I dabbed at my mouth with my napkin, trying to hide the faintest traces of a smile. She was about to go off on a subject I could tell she was passionate about, and I had the distinct feeling there wasn’t a single thing in the world I could do to stop it. So might as well just sit back and enjoy the riff.

  “It is. How many people just sit behind a desk for eight or more hours a day, maybe getting up once or twice to go on lunch break or use the bathroom? And then spend who knows how long commuting in their car? Just to get home and park themselves in front of the TV or the computer again. I’m not judging, though—I really don’t want you to think that. It’s an awful grind, this vicious cycle, that’s easy to get trapped in. And you don’t even realize it, and you don’t realize how much your body actually needs to be stretched and maintained, until you’re in such pain you can’t ignore it. But it’s not always acute. Acute pain would actually get your attention. You know, you fall and sprain your ankle; you’ve got to deal with that pain. But how many people just grumble about their sore lower back or their tight shoulders or their stiff neck? The pain just isn’t bad enough to do something about, though. So they just carry on.”

  “And your fix for all this is yoga?”

  “Absolutely.”

  I nodded. “It’s a good sell.”

  She gave me a blank look. “Huh?”

  “Your pitch. All that you just said right there. Why people should do yoga with you. Very compelling.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Wait a second,” she said. “Are you implying that you think what I just said was some sort of marketing gimmick?”

  “Well... not a gimmick, because I can tell you really mean it.”

  “I don’t believe it because I’m trying to get more students,” she said. “Oh, my God, do you seriously think that? I just want people to do what is going to make their bodies feel better. Whether that’s in a class or a YouTube video or just by yourself for a few minutes every night before bed. Because most people really do have all the tools they need to be able to feel healthy and good, but they just don’t realize it.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. That’s cool, that you’re just interested in doing it for the betterment of everyone.”

  “Why does it sound like something bad when it’s coming out of your mouth?”

  I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not—her tone gave no clue and her expression gave even less. Were we about to get into an argument? Was this the direction things were suddenly headed?

  It was such an abrupt departure from the previous happy ease I had been feeling that I couldn’t quite believe it, so I smiled. I looked right at her and gave her my most winning-est smile, which might have been completely corny, but it worked because she returned the smile and then we both started cracking up.

  And it was one of those laughs that you might have with a friend (particularly if you just smoked a bowl), where you quickly forget what got you laughing, which only makes the whole situation even funnier; the laughter continues to escape you in peals, on a repeat cycle. When you finally stop, you’re gasping and clutching at your sides and saying, Please stop! I can’t breathe and my stomach muscles are killing me! I didn’t say it but I sure as hell was thinking it. People had stopped their meals and were staring. Such laughter had probably never happened here.

  It took us several minutes to recover. I actually wiped at tears in my eyes. We took several long sips of water, the elation of the moment still buzzing on my skin.

  But…

  If I was going to talk to her about the journal, now was probably the time—our evening was almost over. Not that I wanted to spoil these delicious desserts, but I needed to bring it up.

  “So, I’m curious,” I said. “How is it that your uncle came to be in possession of my sister’s journal?”

  She took a bite of her raspberry soufflé and slowly moved her mouth around, as though mulling over whether or not she should actually answer this question. She set her fork down.

  “I didn’t realize it was your sister’s journal.”

  “Yes. Her name’s Ashleigh.”

  “Did you give it back to her?”

  Now it was my turn to mull over whether or not I should answer the question. But it was only fair, I decided, if I was going to try to get answers from her.

  “No,” I said, “I didn’t, because I have no idea where Ashleigh is. She’s been missing for quite some time. So much time that most people who knew her have accepted the fact that we will never see her again. She could even be dead. No one knows.”

  A pained expression crossed Gwen’s face, and I felt bad for making her feel that way. I wasn’t trying to be a jerk.

  Just end the conversation right now, I thought. Start talking about something else and enjoy the rest of the night. You were actually having a good time, so don’t start bringing this shit up now. Remember that laughter? Whatever the hell you’d been laughing about, anyway? Hadn’t that started because you thought you were avoiding a potential fight? Just do it again. Whatever you did that first time, do it again!

  But I couldn’t remember exactly what I’d done, and as I tried to think back, Gwen continued to talk, which was just making it harder for me to recall things.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know how ridiculously trite that sounds. But I am sorry. I know what it’s like to have someone run off, because my cousin did the same thing. He and I were pretty close.” A sad smile crossed her face. “And I also know what it’s like to be the one who runs off, because I did that, too. I didn’t entirely disappear—my aunt knew where I was—but I had to get away.”

  “From what?”

  “My uncle. Joshua. The one who had your sister’s journal.”

  You did not come to a place like La Fille to talk about missing people, or rapists, or perverted uncles, all of which I was thinking about, now that Gwen had mentioned it. What sort of horrific fate had befallen my sister at the hands of this person, Joshua? Who was dead now anyway. So it wasn’t like he’d be tellin
g anyone anytime soon.

  “My uncle was the leader of a religious group,” Gwen continued. “Really, what it was, was a cult. Luckily, it never gained serious traction, but he did have a small group of followers. Fanatics. Whatever you want to call it. I don’t know if that’s maybe how your sister knew him.”

  A religious cult? My little sister, who could skateboard and slamdance and had multicolored, eight-inch liberty spikes decorating her head? Who wore ripped fishnets and heavy-duty steel-capped boots and anything leopard print she could find? Hell, no.

  “I don’t think Ashleigh would’ve been part of some sort of religious cult,” I said. “That was definitely not her thing.”

  “I’m not really sure how else she would have known Joshua, then,” Gwen said. “I mean, I guess they could have met at a store or something. Maybe started talking. He could be very charismatic when he wanted to be.”

  “Was he... violent?”

  Gwen eyed me. “Are you asking me if I think my uncle killed your sister?”

  “Maybe. Not necessarily. Just if he was violent. Ash and I were pretty close, so I feel like if she had been involved with some sort of cult like this, she would’ve told me. Or I would’ve noticed.”

  “People don’t always tell everyone everything, even if they are really close.”

  “I know that, but... this just seems like something I would have known about. That she might have mentioned: Hey, I met this charismatic leader of a religious cult. You know. It’s not like it’s an everyday occurrence.”

  “I don’t know,” Gwen said, “because I got the hell out of there as soon as I could. So I’m not really going to be able to provide you with any more information about this—sorry.” Her gaze traveled around the restaurant, before finally landing back on me. “Is this why you brought me out? To grill me about your sister?”

  “Huh?” I said, because the question caught me off guard. That had been part of the reason, sure, but not the entire reason—the other part of the reason was that I had my every-other-week-first-date schedule to adhere to, though I had a feeling that answer wouldn’t please Gwen either.

  “Because if that’s the case, you sure as hell didn’t need to waste all this money taking me to a place like this. You could’ve just asked me on the phone. I have no idea what happened to your sister because I wasn’t around. I only went back there to help my aunt out, who was the one nice person to me in the family, besides my cousin, who—” She stopped talking abruptly, right as the waiter came back over to see if we wanted more coffee.

  “No, thank you,” Gwen said.

  “Is everything all right with your dessert?” he asked, looking at her plate which still had most of the soufflé on it.

  “Yes, yes, it’s fine,” she said. “Could you bring the check, please? And when you do, would you mind splitting the bill?”

  The waiter gave her a confused look. “Pardon?”

  “Splitting the bill,” she repeated.

  “That won’t be necessary,” I said, aware that the people closest to us were trying to discreetly look our way. I doubted, in the whole history of La Fille, that anyone had ever asked to split the bill.

  “Actually, it’s very necessary,” Gwen said. She refused to look at me now. The waiter glanced from her to me, clearly uncomfortable.

  “I’m not... I’m not sure I can do that,” he said.

  “Sure, you can,” Gwen snapped. “It’s really simple. If you’d like, I can show you how.”

  “Gwen,” I said. “Stop it. Please. Let me pay for this; it’s the least I can do.”

  Wrong thing to say—I realized that the second the words were out of my mouth and those big brown eyes of hers flashed angrily at me.

  “The least you can do?” she hissed. She threw her napkin on the table and grabbed her purse. “Did you know I actually went out and got a new dress for tonight?” She pulled her wallet out and extracted a credit card, which she handed to the waiter. “Just take this,” she said. “If you can’t split the bill, then just put the whole thing on this. He is not paying for my dinner tonight.”

  The waiter tentatively took her card. “No, no,” I said. She was going to pay for this whole thing? No. Ha ha—yeah, fucking right. That had never happened in the history of all the first dates that I’d been on and it was not about to start now. I had always paid.

  The waiter looked truly flummoxed. “Okay,” he said. “I will split the bill; I think that sounds like the solution that’s going to work for everyone. Let’s just not have a scene, all right?”

  I handed over my card and he took them both, leaving Gwen and I there to finish our desserts. Or not. She pushed her plate away and mumbled something I didn’t quite catch.

  “What?” I said.

  She glared at me. “Nothing. That wasn’t directed at you.”

  “Gwen... I think you’ve sort of misconstrued things here.”

  “No, I didn’t.” She craned her neck around. “Where the hell is the waiter? What is taking him so long?”

  “He’s only been gone for a few seconds. He’s probably never done something like splitting the bill before. Which we really don’t have to do, by the way. I’ve never done that before, either, in all the first dates I’ve been on—”

  Shit! Why did I say that last part? I sure as hell didn’t want to bring up anything about first dates. I hoped that she was so distracted anticipating our waiter’s return that she wouldn’t have really heard that last part, but of course she did. Her eyes narrowed.

  “How many first dates have you been on?” she asked.

  “I don’t keep a tally. That’s not the point, though. The point is—”

  “Actually, I’d say it is the point. Or at least part of the point. If you’re sitting there telling me that in all the first dates you’ve ever been on, you’ve never split the bill, then it does matter how many you’ve been on, because if you’ve been on three, then that’s not very notable, but if you’ve been on three thousand, that’s far more impressive. So, which is it? Three or three thousand?”

  “Gwen, I don’t think that recounting how many first dates I’ve been on is really going to help anything here.”

  Fortunately, I was saved by the bell, or in this case our waiter, who came back with the split bill and our two credit cards. It truly bothered me that this was the turn the evening had taken, and not just because we were splitting the bill.

  I watched as she signed her receipt. I could see behind her, across the restaurant, that Russell was looking our way; our server must’ve said something. He was probably trying to assess the situation from a distance, and only intervene if we started to reenact the Jerry Springer Show, but it was still embarrassing to me that this was happening to begin with. There wasn’t anything I could do, though, to salvage our time here, so now the best thing seemed to be to make our exit as quickly as possible.

  Gwen started walking the second she got outside; that was going to be it. She wasn’t going to say anything else, and for a second, I stood there and thought about just letting her go. But then I ran after her. We had enjoyed our time together too much tonight; it had been too good for it to end this way. I ignored the little voice in my head that was saying it was time for the date to be over anyway, and she was essentially saving me from having to explain to her that we weren’t going to be going back out again. But what the hell did that little voice know about it, anyway? This was a different situation.

  “Gwen!”

  She stopped and turned. “Look,” she said, “it was a mistake of me to accept going out to dinner with you like this. I realize that now. I should have just given you the journal and left it at that. But now that you have the journal, there really isn’t anything else for us to say to each other, now, is there? That’s the only reason you took me out tonight; so you could try to get more information about this journal. I told you everything I know, and now I’m going home. Good night.”

  “Wait a sec.”

  She was not going to wai
t long; I could tell by the look on her face. I didn’t have anything planned to say, so I just blurted out, “But I had a really good time with you. Before all that stuff about the journal even came up.” There was a tone in my voice that I’d never heard before. I almost sounded... desperate.

  Gwen rolled her eyes. “I know that someone like you is probably used to getting their way every damn time. Having girls fall all over themselves if you so much as look at them. Well, guess what? I’m not that girl. I’m not impressed by your good looks, or your money, or the fact that you took me out to some overpriced restaurant where they serve tiny portions on huge plates. Not impressed at all. In fact, the only thing I’m at all confused about is why you’re making such a big deal out of this—I’m sure it’s more than easy for you to find another date. Maybe someone who will be impressed by all of those things. I sure as hell am not. And do you know why I think you’re having such a hard time accepting this?” she continued.

  “No, but I have a feeling you’re about to enlighten me.”

  “Because you’re not used to not getting exactly what you want. You’re used to being the one in control, the one who decides where we’re going to eat, and that you’re paying for the bill, and how I’m supposed to feel about spending time with you. Like just because you had a good time, that means I did, too.”

  This truly surprised me, because she was making it sound like she hadn’t had a good time. But... she had, right? I hadn’t just been imagining the past few hours?

  “You didn’t?” I asked, unable to keep the disbelief from my voice, which obviously was a mistake.

  She let out a short, hard laugh, nothing at all like the way she’d been laughing over dinner. “Just listen to you,” she said. “You can’t get over the fact that I might not have, can you? Christ, what an asshole.” She glared at me and then stalked off.

  I didn’t go after her. I didn’t say anything else, but I did feel a strange sense of sorrow. Is that who she really thought I was? The type of guy who couldn’t deal with a woman making her own choices, having her own needs and desires? Because that wasn’t me at all. The reason I was having such a hard time accepting that this was the way our night was ending was because it had been so good up until the very end. Would it have gone like this if I hadn’t brought the journal up?