Parker Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  “I don’t know. But I’ve got to do something; I’m not just going to sit on this information. And what if I’m somehow able to find her? What if there’s some clue in this journal and I am actually able to track Ashleigh down?”

  “That would be wild,” Jason said. “But you know the chances of that happening are... not very good. Don’t you think the police would have turned something up all those years ago during their investigation?”

  “I had always hoped that, but they didn’t. And now I have this.”

  “Maybe you should take it to the police.”

  “Hell, no. They’re not going to do shit with this. They’ve got plenty of other stuff they’re dealing with; they’re not going to dedicate a single minute to pursuing some cold case that’s nearly two decades old.”

  As I said it, though, I wondered if I felt that way because, deep down, I knew the chances of anything in this journal leading to Ashleigh were basically next to none. It wasn’t like she had included a detailed map within the pages here of where she was going to go. I would read through the whole thing again; I would write down every name that I came across and try to track each person down, but so much time had gone by that I wasn’t very hopeful.

  Chapter 12

  Gwen

  “Is everything okay?”

  I looked up from my purse where I’d been digging around, trying to find my phone. I was pretty sure I’d put it in there before class had started, but it seemed to no longer be there.

  Laurel sat down at the table across from me. “I’m only asking because you seem a little tired. And you’re usually always well rested when you’re here.” She paused. “I wasn’t sure if it had anything to do with that guy who wanted your number. Now, I’m not prying and you don’t have to give me a single detail if you don’t want to, but... if you ever want to talk about anything, you can talk to me.”

  I stopped pawing through my bag, not quite sure what I should make of what she was telling me. The way she was making it sound, it was like she thought there might be something bad I needed to talk to her about.

  “Everything’s fine,” I said slowly. “I am a little tired, but that’s just because I didn’t get the greatest night’s sleep last night. Not for the reasons you might be thinking,” I added.

  “I’m certainly not thinking anything,” Laurel said, “other than if it has anything to do with that guy, I hope he’s treating you well. You never really mention any guys or anyone special in your life, Gwen, and I just want you to know that you’re an incredible person and you should never settle for, never be with a guy who is going to try to diminish you or isn’t going to take you seriously.”

  “Oh, I know that. Drew isn’t actually like that. I mean, he wanted to pay for my dinner last night, but that didn’t end up happening.”

  “You didn’t let him?”

  “Um... yeah.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Sort of good for me, except you probably wouldn’t be that impressed with how I went about it.” I gave Laurel a few of the details, sparing her most of it. She knew a little about my past. She would at least know why the journal had significance.

  “Never mind the dinner,” she said. “I’m more interested about this journal. So it was his sister? That’s who this journal belonged to, that your uncle inexplicably had?”

  “Yes.”

  She slapped the table, a look of wonder on her face. “If that isn’t something,” she said. “Clearly, you and Drew were meant to be together.”

  I stared at her. “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, I don’t necessarily mean married or anything. I just mean... there is a real connection here. I certainly don’t think you’ve seen the last of him. No matter how bratty your behavior was at the restaurant.” She gave me a wink.

  “I don’t know what I think about anything,” I said. “This whole thing seems surreal. But... I do have a few unanswered questions. Especially if there’s the possibility that Drew’s sister and my cousin Brandon ran off together. Are they perhaps still together? Why the hell didn’t one of them try to get in touch with us once they were far away from Joshua’s grasp? Doesn’t that make sense?”

  “A lot of things that might make sense to one person seem like nonsensical babble to someone else.”

  “I know, but... it’s always been hard for me to accept that Brandon would just leave like that and not once try to get in touch with me. Just to see how I was.”

  “Sounds like you’re not going to be satisfied until you get some answers. But sometimes we don’t get answers to the questions that seem most important. And we have to learn to live with that.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’ve been living with it for a while, actually. And things have been fine. It’s just Joshua’s death, and then finding that journal, and now knowing Drew and learning what his history with all this is...” It was a lot, but it was also striking, the similarities between Drew and me. Like I could see what Laurel was saying, how we were connected. “I went over there last night after I realized how awful I’d been at dinner, and I apologized.”

  “That was good of you. How’d he take it?”

  “Fine. Well, he had a panic attack, but that had nothing to do with me going over there to apologize.”

  “A panic attack?”

  “Yeah. He’d never had one before, so it freaked him out, but I was there to talk him through it.”

  “He strikes me as the sort who is used to being in control of his environment. Doesn’t like it when things come along that he wasn’t expecting.”

  “That probably applies to most people.”

  “Not to you. You’re someone who likes it when the unexpected happens. Which is what I’ve always admired about you.” Laurel studied me and I couldn’t help but feel a little self-conscious. “I don’t know where this is going,” she said, “but you have a good head on your shoulders. You’re a capable person. And if you’re meant to find out those answers, you will.”

  I wasn’t sure what to think of this little pep talk after she left, and I went back to searching for my phone. I found it, underneath a bunch of old receipts that I promptly threw in the trash. She was right, of course—I might never know more about this situation than I did now. This could be it, which had been fine just a short while ago. But now, it was like this hunger had been reignited, this itch, this need to unravel this mystery that I thought I had moved on from long ago.

  I called Drew, without even really thinking about why I was doing so, or what I was going to say.

  “Hi there,” he said when he picked up.

  “How are you doing?” I asked.

  “Well, if you’re asking whether or not I’ve had any more panic attacks, the answer is no, thankfully,” he said. “God, that was awful. I’ll be perfectly fine if I never have to experience something like that again. And I meant to thank you for talking me through it.”

  “You don’t need to thank me,” I said. “They can be pretty scary if you don’t know what’s going on.”

  “What are you up to right now?” he asked.

  “I’m at the studio. I don’t usually teach evening classes, but I was just filling in for someone who’s on vacation.”

  “Oh, cool. I was about to order some takeout. Want to join me?”

  “Oh,” I said. “Um... sure.” I hadn’t been expecting that, but I also hadn’t been expecting how eager I was to see him again.

  “Great,” he said. “I’ll see you in a little bit.”

  ***

  When I got to Drew’s place, it was clear that he’d been working on something. His coffee table was strewn with papers, photographs, with the journal sitting front and center. He had a yellow legal pad with names written on it.

  “What are you up to there?” I asked.

  He surveyed the coffee table and took a deep breath. “I’ve gone through Ashleigh’s journal several times now, and I’m writing down every name she mentions. And it would seem, if you replaced Brandon with all t
he redacted marks, that it makes sense. It sounds like they were a couple.” He ran a hand through his hair. I wondered how long he’d been at it; he looked tired, like he hadn’t been sleeping well. “But, now that you’re here,” he continued, “I can take a break from it and we should order some food. Are you hungry? Feel like anything in particular?”

  “Whatever you want,” I said. “I’m not picky. But... maybe we should go out somewhere? It might do you some good to have a change of scenery.”

  “Yeah.” He looked around. “I’ve been at this for a while. Sort of feel like I’m going cross-eyed.”

  “You can come back to it. It’s not going anywhere.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  We walked a few blocks to a Mexican place, which served up giant burritos stuffed with rice and beans, cheese, shredded beef, tomatoes, lots of cilantro, all wrapped in foil. Simple but delicious, and the sort of heavy food that I didn’t often eat but allowed myself to indulge in every once in a while.

  “And I have a rule,” I said. “We’re not allowed to talk about it while we’re eating.”

  “Talk about what?”

  I grinned. “Exactly.”

  “So, how was this yoga class that you taught? Was it different having a bunch of students you don’t usually teach?”

  “I recognized a few faces,” I said. “There are some people at the studio who don’t have a regular teacher. They’ll just kind of go to whoever’s class they want to.”

  “We had this one client, early on; she was this rich lady who lived in Pacific Heights. Total wellness freak. There was this guy, a regular old joe, who taught yoga at one of the studios around here, I can’t remember the name. It might not even still be open anymore. But that’s beside the point. She would have followed this yoga teacher of hers to the ends of the earth, I swear. She tried to get him to leave that studio and give her private lessons but he wouldn’t. And then he ended up moving to Seattle and she stopped doing yoga because she said he was the only one she would take a class from. Not that I think everyone is like that. I mean, I sure as hell hope not.” He shuddered.

  “They’re not, thank God. But there are a few fanatics. All of my students are pretty normal, though.”

  “You’ve never a bad experience?”

  “Um... not really. I’ve had some frustrated students before, and there was this one class where these two guys got into a fight over who was going to have their mat closest to mine, which is at the front...”

  Drew laughed. “For real?”

  “Yeah, but... I think they were both really high. No, I’ve been fortunate that I’ve never had to deal with any stalkers or anyone getting too weird. That would definitely be a challenge.”

  When we were done eating, we moseyed back over to Drew’s place. I looked at everything he had spread out on the coffee table.

  “So, what names do you have?” I asked, glancing at his list, wondering if there might be any on there that I recognized. The whole time that we’d been eating burritos, in the back of my mind I was thinking about the fact that I might’ve met Ashleigh and not realized it. If she had been going out with Brandon, chances were actually pretty good that I would’ve had some sort of interaction with her. There were so many people around in those days, strangers, people I’d see a few times and then never see again. Then there were the people who always seemed to be around despite me wishing they would go. These were the true fanatics, the ones whose devotion to my uncle was clear in their eyes. Because I was his niece, and then, later, because he was raising me as his own, these people would see me as some sort of offshoot, someone to be revered and listened to, even though I was just a child. Jesus Himself was once a child! they would say, and they’d reach out and touch my hair or pat my arm, as if just touching me would somehow make them more holy.

  I shuddered at the thought of it.

  “This is bringing up a lot of weirdness for you, isn’t it,” Drew said. I hadn’t realized that he’d been watching me.

  “Kind of. It’s stuff that I thought I’d put behind me.”

  “Funny how the past has a way of coming back to haunt you when you’re least expecting it.”

  “I know. I always knew that my uncle was going to die someday, and I figured that I’d have more than just email contact with my aunt, Grace. And I was always looking forward to that, because I always felt guilty about leaving her there. But it was her choice to stay, and she’ll be the first to admit it. I just thought that once Joshua was gone, things would be better. I mean, they are better, because I know he’s dead.”

  Drew raised his eyebrows and let out a low whistle. “That’s some strong emotion right there. Being glad someone’s dead.”

  “He wasn’t a good person. I don’t think he was always like that, but I can’t really remember him before he was the leader of his cult.”

  “Did this cult have a name?”

  “It was called the Divine Order of the Holy Brethren. Where men, of course, were at the top of the hierarchy, and women were somewhere below. Joshua being at the very tippy top. What my uncle was good at was charming people into believing him. He would’ve been quite successful as a politician, but he decided to go the religious route. I think because it gave him more freedom.”

  “He sounds like an interesting person. Not saying I’d want to be friends with the guy or anything, but I bet he had some ideas about shit.”

  “Oh, he had ideas about plenty of things.”

  “And Brandon was his son.”

  “Yes.”

  “What was he like?”

  I didn’t respond right away, and instead let my mind drift back, a long ways back, to my childhood. What was Brandon like? There were so many things that I could say, and I felt an ache in my throat because I had never really gotten a chance to say goodbye. In fact, I couldn’t even remember my last interaction with Brandon—what we had done the last time before he’d taken off and left that note. He must’ve known. He must’ve known that last time we were together that this would be it, yet he hadn’t tried to give me a single clue. Did he hug me when we departed? Give me any parting words of wisdom? I was thirteen when he left, so he probably thought it was too risky to let a little kid in on his plans, but still... Up until that point in time, Brandon had not been just a family member but a true friend, someone whom I believed I could trust with my life. An ally when we were surrounded by people who thought very differently than we did.

  “He was like the big brother I never had,” I said finally. “And I looked up to him, probably the same way Ashleigh looked up to you. I always wanted to tag along, and he was usually pretty good about letting me do that. He was patient and kind and the sort of person who would always help someone out, no matter what. He was the one whom people should’ve been following, if they needed a leader. Which was what my uncle had in mind. He was basically grooming him to take over the cult, eventually, but Brandon didn’t want anything to do with it.”

  “Can’t say I blame him,” Drew said. “But he sounds like a guy with a good head on his shoulders, your cousin.”

  “He was. Is. I mean, he might not even be alive anymore; I have no idea. You probably feel the same way about your sister.”

  “It’s pretty awful, the not knowing. It can completely eat away at you if you let it. I did at first. It totally consumed me, was the only thing I could think about. Almost cost me the business, because I really couldn’t focus on anything, and we were still relatively new on the scene at that point.” He shook his head. “But the idea that she had left never crossed my mind. I didn’t know if she was alive or dead, but I was certain that she had been taken somewhere against her will. Now it looks like that might all be up in the air and not how it happened at all.”

  “I can only imagine how disconcerting that must be,” I said. I could see the pained look on his face, the way that he wasn’t quite able to reconcile the possible truth with what he had thought happened.

 
“You probably have plenty of questions of your own,” Drew said. “You ever think about that? What you would say to your cousin if you saw him again?”

  “I used to. Not as much now. I used to think about him a lot, and then I sort of went through this period where I was mad at him because he just left me behind. I wanted him to take me with him, but I realize now how completely impossible that would’ve been, and my uncle probably would have sent the authorities after us. And I don’t even want to think about what would have happened after that, when we got back.”

  “Think he would’ve done something awful?”

  “He felt betrayed by Brandon; that was for sure. I mean, in the sense that Brandon is his son, and he just left like that, I get it—I might feel betrayed, too. But on the other hand, I would hope that I would never be such an asshole to my kids that they would feel that way to begin with.” And that made the memory suddenly burst into my mind of one warm summer afternoon when I was probably seven or eight. My parents had taken Brandon and me out for ice cream, and after we’d gotten back, our fingers still sticky from where the ice cream had melted down the cones, he told me: Sometimes I feel like your parents are my real parents. And that you’re my sister, not just a cousin.

  The memory was as clear to me as if I had just watched it on a movie screen, yet it had been a long time since I’d last thought it.

  If I was your sister, though, wouldn’t you have taken me with you?

  I pushed that thought aside. It wasn’t helpful. Obviously, there had been more going on in Brandon’s life than I knew about, even if I had erroneously believed that we were close, that he would tell me something big like he was planning to run away.

  I looked at the list Drew had made, wanting to shift my focus somewhere else. There were maybe two dozen names, some with an asterisk next to them, some with check marks, a few with nothing.

  “What are those?”

  “The asterisks are for names that I know. I know who Ryan, Sharyn, Hector, and a few others are. The check marks are next to the names that I’m not sure of, and the number of check marks denotes the number of times the name was mentioned.”