by Muth, Becky
“Buen provecho.”
“Pardon?”
Kurt chuckled. “That’s the Spanish form of bon appetit. My mom’s from Mexico, so it’s a frequent phrase around the family dinner table.”
“With your red hair?” Peyton eyed him as she took a bite of her food. Swallowing it with a sip of tea from her glass, she added, “I never would’ve guessed.”
“Most people wouldn’t. My dad’s ancestors came over from Ireland. All his family is back east. He went to Mexico for spring break during his senior year of college and met my mom. According to her, it was love at first sight, but if you ask him, he’ll tell you that he fell in love with her cooking.”
“That’s sweet.”
“What about your parents?”
“They were childhood sweethearts who met in kindergarten. When her braces came off during their freshman year and she traded her glasses for contacts, my dad saw her as a new person. He asked her to the homecoming dance, and they dated through high school. The wedding was a week after graduation, attended college together, the whole nine yards.”
“Do you get to see them much?”
Peyton shook her head and steeled herself before replying, “They died when I was fourteen. So much for happily ever after, right?”
“Wow. I’m not sure what to say.”
The words hung on the air, and she picked up a piece of broccoli with her fork. She let the beef drippings fall onto her plate before eating it. “What is there to say? It’s not something I talk about. Anyway, after that, Owen raised me. That’s why I have to find him. He’s the only family I’ve got left.”
Kurt stood and walked over to the living room. The open floor plan layout of her home gave Peyton the chance to observe his movements. He bent over his backpack, which he had left on the couch, and fished out a notebook and pen before returning.
“I hope you don’t mind if I take notes while we eat?” he asked.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. Friendly conversation with delicious food almost always reveals more details than an interrogation.”
Over the next thirty minutes, Peyton told Kurt about Owen—his job, his friends, his hobbies, and every detail she had poured out at the station. By the time she finished, she felt no closer to finding her brother than she did upon leaving the police station. Would this pan out? Could this person really find Owen?
“Are you sure I’m not giving you too much information? I mean, a lot of it seems pretty irrelevant.”
“There’s no such thing as too much information,” Kurt urged. Laying his pen down, he used his fork to spear a plump pink shrimp from the take-out box of seafood lo mein. He finished the morsel in two bites, swallowed, and continued. “Small details you might think are inconsequential could be big clues. The reason behind that is because the department almost always has details that aren’t released to the public. It helps to identify who’s really connected to a case.”
“Kind of like on Law and Order?”
“Kind of, yeah.” Kurt laughed. “We get compared to that show more than you could imagine. Hearing people talk, you’d think anyone with a television has what it takes to be a detective. My dad hates those shows because it gives false impressions about how things work behind the scenes.”
“Howso?”
“DNA tests, for one. I wish we got answers back the same day.”
“And what about on-the-job injuries?” Peyton asked, her eyes on his sling. “What can you tell me about those?”
Chapter Fourteen
“By ‘those’, I assume you mean this old thing?” Kurt wrinkled his nose at the sling on his arm. “Just a little flesh wound. It’s not broken. They had to splint it, though.”
“So how did it happen?”
“Snowball and I got a call for suspicious activity. When we got there, the suspect was less than enthusiastic about his free ride to the station.”
“Snowball?”
“My partner, also called by his last name, Winters. He was the one at the station who was encouraging you to give me a chance. We all have nicknames, though.”
“What’s yours?”
“K.C. Not the name Casey. The initials of my name, Kurt Collins.” He gave a half shrug. “It’s not very original, but my dad gave it to me. His name is Kurt, too, but since his promotion, everyone calls him Sarge.”
“So, the suspect...” Peyton trailed off, leaving the question open-ended.
“He stabbed me. Things could have been a lot worse, but I was lucky that I ducked when I did.” Kurt stared into Peyton’s sapphire-blue eyes as he spoke and, for the first time since Phil stabbed him, he felt the weight of the situation settle on his shoulders. I won’t tell her that my big mouth got me in trouble. No need to remind her about that first day on the beach.
“Were you scared?”
“Not at the time when it happened. I was more scared of the needles they used repeatedly to numb the area before giving me stitches.”
Peyton frowned.
“What’s wrong? Does my fear of needles tarnish my image of being an officer of the law?”
“That’s not it. You mentioned needles and it reminded me that there were needles on the floor in my brother’s living room.”
“Is that unusual?”
“Very. He’s never done any kind of drugs that I’ve known about.”
“Would he tell you if he had?”
“Ugh.” Peyton exhaled, her cheeks puffing out a little. “Before a few weeks ago, I would have said yes, but now I have no idea. He’s changed in the past few weeks. Maybe he would have? I didn’t expect him to ever go missing again.”
Kurt tilted his head. “Again? Are you saying that he’s gone missing before?”
“Yeah, it was about six months after our parents died. He was twenty and a junior in college. I was fourteen and a freshman in high school. I stayed after school for drama club and he never picked me up. There was a brick wall outside the school and I sat on top of it, waiting for what seemed like forever. About the time the street lights started coming on, my algebra teacher had returned to grab something from her classroom. She saw me sitting there and gave me a ride home.” She paused to take a sip of her tea. “The whole town knew about my parents, and I couldn’t take one more person looking at me like I was a poor waif out of a Charles Dickens novel. I lied and told her that Owen had a late class. The truth was that he just never showed up.”
Kurt remained silent while Peyton talked. Her hands stayed in her lap and she looked at the table more than once. When she paused, he jotted went missing at age 20 on his notepad and looked up to see her staring out the window with a hand covering her mouth.
“How long was he gone?” Kurt asked, his good hand poised to write down her answer.
“A few days.”
“Did he say where he’d been?”
Shaking her head, Peyton sighed. “No. I asked, and he said he had to take care of a few things. He never told me anything else.”
“Did you call the police?”
“No! I didn’t tell anyone, and when he came home, we agreed not to ever tell anyone. When my algebra teacher asked the next day, I told her he came home with pizza even though he was still missing at the time. It was the furthest thing from the truth. I had dry cereal because we were out of milk. But then Owen did come home, and it no longer mattered.”
Kurt pressed his lips together, as if he could force himself not to badger her. Peyton wasn’t a suspect. Without further details, however, she was the only person besides her brother with knowledge of both disappearances. He didn’t want to screw up this friendship or whatever it was that was forming between them and let the matter drop. Gripping the pen in his hand, Kurt jotted Peyton → witness 2x on his notepad. If he was ever going to be a detective, he had to start thinking like one. How many times had he heard his father say, You’ve got to remain objective if you’re going to crack the case?
Peyton’s voice pulled him back to the present. “I know
it was probably wrong not to call them, but you have to understand. Without our parents, it was me and Owen against the world. At first, they wanted to put me in a foster home. He went to court to fight to become my legal guardian. They kept saying a college kid couldn’t raise his teenage sister, but he won in the end, and he proved them all wrong.”
A sense of awe spread through Kurt and, despite having never met the man, he felt himself warming to Peyton’s brother. Would any of his siblings have fought that hard for him in that situation? He hoped they would but was glad he wouldn’t ever have to know.
“He sounds like a good guy, your brother.”
“The best brother ever. I can’t tell you how many times Owen has been there for me. A lot more than I’ve been there for him. Every time he helps me train Gilda, he buys us pizza afterward.” Peyton wiped at a fallen tear that threatened to run down her cheek. “I can’t imagine not finding him. It’s not an option.”
The catch of emotion in the woman’s voice tugged at Kurt’s heart, and he found himself promising, “We will find him. I’m here for whatever you need. It’s the least I can do in exchange for your saving my life. Oh, and for saving me from that redhead.”
“It was all Gilda, but if she had to save anyone then I’m glad it was you. I’m sorry I judged you that day on the beach. If we had stuck around, we could have met the teens with the video, too.”
“Things still worked out pretty well.” Kurt shoveled another forkful of food in his mouth and perused his notes. When he looked up, Peyton was gazing out the sliding glass door that led into her backyard. She must be thinking about her brother. “Listen, it’s almost impossible for someone to go missing these days. Last year, I sat in on a workshop about technology and crime. One of the leading experts in the country said as long as a person has at least one social media account and a phone, it’s possible to find them in a couple of days.”
“Really?” Peyton sat up straighter in her chair and put her elbows on the table. The corners of her mouth lifted in a hopeful smile. “That’s awesome. Owen’s on every social media network you've ever heard of and maybe some that you haven't. I don’t think he’s spent more than ten minutes off the grid in the last ten years. In fact, he made me promise that I’d only drag him to search and rescue locations with at least three bars of cell service.”
Kurt chuckled and dropped the pen on the notebook before nudging the pair of fortune cookies in Peyton’s direction. “Well, there you go. This should be a breeze.”
Chapter Fifteen
Peyton picked up the fortune cookie closest to her and turned it over in her hands. That was the most she had shared about her past to anyone, even the school psychologist. That woman pestered all through Peyton’s high school years, but she was unable to penetrate the teen’s tough outer shell. After she graduated, Owen landed the job at Gold Coast Community College here in Redwood Cove, and they left San Francisco behind.
Pulling the end of the cellophane wrapper open, Peyton retrieved the cookie, broke it with one hand, and pulled the paper free with the other. She snorted. “It says that I will make a new friend today.”
“Really? No way.”
“See for yourself.” Peyton held the paper at arm’s length and laughed when Kurt’s eyebrows shot up and his mouth formed an O.
“Now it’s official. We’re friends.”
“Oh, we are?”
With a solemn nod, he replied, “We are, and you can’t argue with a fortune cookie or it’s bad luck.”
Peyton laughed. “I guess you can’t. Now it’s your turn. What does yours say?”
Kurt fumbled with the plastic and Peyton held out her hand. Conceding defeat, he dropped the cookie into her open palm. After removing the wrapper, she handed it back and popped a piece of her own cookie into her mouth.
With his good hand, Kurt dropped his fist, breaking the fortune cookie into small bits. Moving the crumbs around, he grabbed at the slip of paper. . As he read it, his face turned crimson.
“Well? Read it aloud.”
“Your actions speak louder than your words.”
“That’s very true.” She smiled at his fortune cookie, but her thoughts went to her brother. She never would have guessed that his radio silence and distracted behavior were precursors to disappearing. Something important weighed on him. Something that he was obviously not ready to talk about. I should have pressed him harder, Peyton thought. Peyton stared back out the window, memories of her brother threatening to overwhelm her. It took her a full minute to register Kurt’s voice saying her name.
“Sorry. I went all daydreamy for a second there. What was that?”
“I was asking, well, never mind. What can I do to help clean up?”
Peyton peered into the takeout containers and laughed. “It looks like all we have remaining are a couple of forks, those empty boxes, and cookie crumbs. I’ve never not had leftovers. Sorry, Gilda, all you get is half a fortune cookie.” She tossed the cookie across the room to Gilda, who caught the tidbit in her mouth. Two bites later, the dog licked her lips while giving the humans a pained expression.
“Aww! She looks hungry.”
“Don’t let her fool you. The vet said if we didn’t do search and rescue work, she’d have obesity issues. I probably would, too.”
“Pfft. I can’t imagine either of you having that problem.”
Peyton tilted her head. “Oh yeah?”
“What I mean is, you both look good to me.”
Peyton’s felt her mouth twitch in an effort not to laugh as Kurt fidgeted in his chair. Looking directly at him, she raised an eyebrow.
“I didn’t mean, good as in, but, you’re not...You’re laughing. Geesh, you’re laughing at me.”
“I’m not laughing at you. Can I get you more tea?” A giggle leaked out before Peyton could suppress them with her hand.
“Eh, probably shouldn’t. I have to go home at some point.”
“Let me know when and I’ll drive you.”
“Thank you. Otherwise, I would have to wait for Snowball to get off work or call one of my sisters.”
“How many sisters do you have?”
“Five. They’re all older but they’re great. The youngest one, two years older than me, is just getting out of the Army. That’s why my mom is planning a big family dinner. It’s the first one in years when we’ll all be home together.”
“Do your sisters have families?”
“One is married with kids. The rest are all waiting for Prince Charming or Shrek or whichever storybook hero they think might save them.”
“That’s quite a variety. I think my brother might be seeing a professor on campus.”
“The one you mentioned before? Professor Mason?” Kurt rattled the name off without looking down at his notepad.
Peyton nodded once. “Impressive memory. You must be quite the crime solver.” Ugh. Seriously? I told him that what, twenty minutes ago? And he wrote it down. Of course he’d remember it.
“I have my moments.” Kurt grinned, and his dimples appeared once more. "And what about you? Are you seeing anyone?"
"Um, no. I don't date much. Gilda and I could be called to anywhere in the country for search and rescue work. Right now, I care more about her than I do a relationship."
As if on cue, Gilda raced through the room and stopped to whine at the patio door. Peyton welcomed the interruption and slid the door open to let the dog out to explore the backyard. “Gotta go outside? Good girl. Go outside. There you go.” Leaving the door open, allowing Gilda to return as she pleased, Peyton turned around to find Kurt looking at her.
"What? Do I have something on my nose?" she asked, bringing her hand in front of her face in case the answer was yes.
“Have you had her since she was a puppy?”
“I have.” Peyton refilled their glasses with iced tea from the kitchen before taking her seat again. “After my parents died, I was having a lot of trouble coping. I started sneaking booze from their liquor cabinet. When
Owen found out, he was livid. He made me pour everything down the sink and we took the bottles to the recycling center. Then we went to the animal shelter. Someone had dumped a litter of golden retriever puppies there the night before. We adopted one and I named her Belle, because I was obsessed with the Disney movie.”
“Gilda’s not your first dog?”
“No, she’s not. After Owen went missing, I became interested in search and rescue. After he came home, Belle and I went to training sessions and started volunteering to find missing people. Then, when she was about eight, she stopped eating. We took her to the vet to find out she had kidney disease. The vet warned that she could go downhill fast—even with medication—and she wasn’t kidding. Six days later, she died in my arms.”
“I’m sorry. That must have been rough.”
“It was almost as difficult as losing my parents.” Peyton gulped down a lump of emotion that had lodged itself in her throat before continuing, “But then Owen heard about this woman, Carol Graves. A golden retriever saved her from drowning and she went on to breed one litter per year, but her one requirement was that the puppies had to be working dogs.”
“Does that mean all of Gilda’s siblings are working dogs, too?”
“Yep. One of them is even a local TV star.” Peyton laughed. “Do you watch Good Morning Gold Coast?”
“Yeah. I’ve heard of it. Gilda is that dog’s sister?”
Peyton’s head bobbed. “Star is a blonde, and Gilda is more of a redhead, as you’ve probably seen. We try to catch it every morning with coffee.”
“Gilda drinks coffee? No way." Kurt's tone held a note of teasing.
“No, no. When I have my morning coffee, she gets a little bowl of chicken stock. She really loves it.”
“That’s pretty neat.” Kurt chuckled. “She seems more human than dog.”
“It sure feels that way sometimes. Do you have any pets?”
“I do. Want to meet them?”
“Now?”
“If that’s okay?”
“Sure! I'd love to.” Peyton stood and moved to the door, calling Gilda inside and securing her in a wire crate in the living room. Petting the dog through the wire bars, she whispered, “Be good. I’ll come home in a little bit.” A dog treat followed the gentle words and Gilda was soon distracted enough that Peyton felt comfortable leaving the golden retriever alone.