I gritted my teeth. ‘Fine. Whatever.’
We got fried rice from the Chinese place and found an empty table in the food court. I was worried at first that he’d want to talk about Frankie again, but he was concentrating on his food, or at least pretending to while I concentrated on mine.
It took till I was about halfway through mine before my stomach stopped feeling like it was devouring itself. I paused to take a drink of water, and ended up downing most of the bottle in one hit. I hadn’t drunk anything all day, either. I watched Elias across the table as he picked the peas out, placing them in a neat pile on the table beside his plate.
‘Why did you pluck your eyebrows?’ I asked suddenly. I knew the basic story, obviously, but there had to be more to it than that.
‘I thought it would be cool.’ A little laugh. ‘No. I’m supposed to say something profound here, right? Okay, give me a second…’ A long pause. His chopsticks hovered in the air. ‘I think it’s important to try different things. Not play it safe. It’s all part of the process of trying to work out who I am, you know? My parents always encouraged me to work things out for myself, things I liked or disliked…Helped me understand that I’m an individual, sort of thing. I guess it was something they felt they had to do, because of my adoption.’
In some weird way, I kept forgetting that adoption was where this had all begun. I knew in my head that Neil and Patricia weren’t his biological parents, but that fact had faded to the background when I was actually in their home. Watching them interact—their inside jokes, their affection for each other—it would have been easy enough to dismiss Elias’ adoption as somehow insignificant or irrelevant. But of course I of all people should have been more sympathetic to the ongoing impact events in a person’s childhood can have.
‘So basically your parents are the complete opposite of mine.’
‘I haven’t met your parents.’
He was right, he hadn’t. I was totally fine with that. ‘Just picture the most uptight, control-freaky parents you can.’
‘Sounds like fun.’ A pause. ‘Is that why you ran away from home?’
‘What?’
‘There are rumours. Jaz told me. Well, asked me if I knew.’
‘What else is Jazmin telling you about me?’
‘That’s about it. I mean, she asks how the search is going, stuff like that. We text a lot. Don’t worry, it’s not like we’re having daily debriefs about you.’
‘Better not be.’ The thought hadn’t occurred to me; now it unsettled me. I knew it was rational for Jazmin to be involved in what was going on. She had been part of Elias’ search before I had. But it still raised my hackles. And I really didn’t like the thought of them talking about me.
‘So, why did you run away?’
‘I didn’t run away. I’m just…having some time out from my family.’
‘Isn’t that the same thing?’
‘Shut up.’
He grinned. ‘Am I allowed to know where you’re staying?’
‘Nope.’
‘Are you going to school tomorrow?’
If I had my way, I wouldn’t go to school ever again. For now: ‘Nope.’
‘Cool. You can come with me to check out the rest of Sephora’s friends.’
‘I’m not going to my dad’s work.’
‘You can wait in the car. I’ll roll down a window.’
I had an ever-growing list of things I had forgotten to pack when I left home. Now that I had money in my pocket, I realised I should get myself organised. We ducked into the supermarket so I could pick up some things, and that was when we ran into her.
Little white shorts, cut-off style with the pockets hanging out. White sneakers and an incongruous baggy jumper, grey with a graphic print of a wolf. A black baseball cap, backwards. Totally different from the previous ensembles and yet somehow I’d still recognised her instantly. I stopped in my tracks.
‘Ugh.’
‘What?’
I flicked my head, gesturing to Vogue. ‘My little friend.’
Elias watched her for a minute. ‘Your little friend is a little shoplifter.’
‘What?’ I looked closer. The sleeves on the baggy jumper seemed bulky. I watched as she grabbed a Snickers and glanced around furtively. She spotted me. Rolled her eyes.
Elias laughed. ‘I don’t think she likes you very much.’
I would have been really happy to just walk away. Vogue Fontainbleau was none of my business. I didn’t like her, and I certainly didn’t have any responsibility for her. But Elias had apparently decided otherwise. ‘You need to stop her.’
‘What? Why? It’s got nothing to do with me.’
‘No way she’s walking out the door like that. They’re going to catch her red-handed.’
‘So what? That’s what she wants. She’s a poor little rich girl trying to get some attention.’
‘You could be nice to her.’
‘You know I don’t do nice.’
He grabbed my arm and tugged me forward. ‘Come on, let’s go talk to her at least.’
Vogue had her arms crossed by the time we reached her, the sleeves hanging low, probably loaded up with half the confectionery aisle.
‘You know you’re gonna get sprung,’ Elias pointed out to her. ‘No way you’re not going to catch their attention.’
She curled her lip. ‘Says the guy with no eyebrows.’ The same scornful tone I remembered. ‘Maybe I should just walk out right behind you. They’d never notice me that way.’
I had to smother a smirk. I’d thought Elias was looking less weird than normal, but I’d clearly been spending too much time with him because I hadn’t really noticed that he was still pretty out there. He was wearing his black skinny jeans and combat boots, with a pale blue polo and a random…thingie—something that looked like a blue patterned silk handkerchief—tied around his neck. He looked like a wanky French tourist, at least from the waist up. With no eyebrows. And eyeliner.
‘You like?’ He gestured to his ensemble.
‘Dress-ups from your mum’s closet?’
Ouch. That stung me more than it did him. I didn’t like that Vogue and I had had the exact same reaction. Elias just looked at me. ‘I like this kid.’
What a surprise. ‘You like everyone.’
I gave up and went to cruise the chocolate bars while they talked. In my hungry state I wanted to splurge and get one of everything, but that wasn’t reasonable. M&Ms and a Snickers; no, maybe Smarties instead of M&Ms. Or a Crunchie…
I decided on a Snickers and some Smarties, and tuned back in to Vogue and Elias’ conversation. He was telling her to stop round the café next time he was working and he’d make her a free drink. I wondered if his bosses knew how much free stuff he gave away.
I sighed. ‘I’ll meet you out the front.’ I didn’t want to be around when Vogue tried to sneak out with her stuffed jumper sleeves.
I grabbed some basic toiletries—and with some reluctance, a kilo of apples and a loaf of bread, because I knew otherwise I’d regret it later—and went through the self-serve checkout. I found a concrete pillar to lean against next to the exit and started in on my Snickers, waiting for Elias and Vogue, vaguely curious about whether he’d manage to talk her out of it—he was pretty persuasive, after all—and at the same time making sure to keep my distance.
They appeared finally, and came through the self-serve checkout like I had. They each swiped a couple of things across and then Elias paid. I couldn’t see anything in Vogue’s sleeves but they were still baggy so it was impossible to tell for sure.
‘You know she’s got more money than either of us,’ I pointed out as they approached me.
He shrugged, unbothered as always. I exhaled, annoyed at Vogue. She’d worked Elias out quickly enough.
‘We need to go,’ I told him. I gestured to Vogue. ‘She doesn’t need babysitting; she’ll be fine.’
‘I didn’t ask to go with you anyway,’ Vogue pointed out. She put her hands on
her hips. ‘I got here by myself, I don’t need you taking care of me.’
‘Perfect. Because I have no intention of taking care of you.’ I had enough actual siblings at home if I felt like playing big sister.
I grabbed Elias’ arm. ‘Come on, let’s go.’
He let me lead him away. ‘You really could be nicer to her,’ he said once we were out of earshot.
‘She’s a spoilt brat.’
‘She’s just a little kid. All kids think the world revolves around them.’
‘Yeah, that’s called being a spoilt brat. I have to deal with enough of that at home.’
‘Your family’s not so bad.’
‘You’ve never even met them,’ I pointed out.
A shrug. ‘I’ve never had a brother or sister. I’d rather have one than not.’
Ugh. Why didn’t I see that coming? Was that part of this whole wanting-to-find-Sephora thing? I hadn’t even thought about the fact that she might have other kids.
‘All right, I get it.’ I shrugged it off, and added flippantly, ‘You could adopt Vogue as your little sister. It’d get her out of having to move to the sticks, and you’d experience the joys of irritating little sisters. Win–win.’
He laughed out loud. ‘See? You’re a problem solver.’
25
I’d forgotten about the sun coming through the window. I was awake before six, just an hour or two after finally dropping off on the hard floor. I dragged myself up, groggy, splashing cold water on my face.
Elias called me and I gave him directions to pick me up at the bus stop two blocks away, where he’d dropped me last night. Given his incessant curiosity, I fully expected him to try to follow me to the house, so I’d gone the long way just in case, keeping an eye out for headlights or footsteps behind me.
Elias pulled up. There was a gift basket sitting on the front passenger seat. I stared at it.
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s for you. I figured seeing as you’re sleeping in a ditch you could use some toiletries. You didn’t get much at the shops.’
‘Okay, firstly: I’m not sleeping in a ditch. Secondly, that’s way too much effort.’ Thirdly, I added silently as I looked at the size of the gift basket, I already got toothpaste, toothbrush and deodorant. What else is there? Knowing Elias, probably stuff I’d never even heard of.
It was all packed in a blue cardboard box and wrapped with clear cellophane. I tugged the cellophane off and poked around. A fluffy white towel, rolled up neatly. A collection of hotel-sized toiletries, miscellaneous brands, and a few other things like a hairbrush and spray deodorant.
‘You forgot the clean underwear.’
‘I figured you could sort that out yourself.’ He picked out a bottle of shampoo. ‘This stuff is my mum’s favourite, she brings home a bunch of bottles every time she goes away for work. I figured she had plenty to spare.’
Okay, so it hadn’t cost him anything, but he’d obviously put time and effort into it. Nobody had ever done anything like that for me before, unless you counted all the stuff people heaped on us after Frankie disappeared. It was exactly the sort of thoughtful thing he would do, but it felt weird. Personal.
‘You don’t seem like the fragrances type so I kept things simple. Except the hand cream. It’s jasmine vanilla, you have to try it.’ He picked up a red tube and flipped the lid. Before I knew it he had grabbed my hand, turned it palm up and squeezed out a liberal amount. The smell of jasmine filled the car.
I didn’t have much choice so I rubbed it in. A hint of the fragrance was all right, but after a few seconds it was starting to become a little overpowering. Elias realised he’d put too much on my hands and reached out to scrape some off.
I shot him a look. ‘Do you and I have to have a talk about personal space?’
‘Sorry.’ He rubbed the moisturiser into his hands. ‘Couldn’t let it go to waste.’
‘You smell like a girl.’
‘At least I don’t smell like I slept in a ditch.’
We called one of Sephora’s remaining friends and went to see the other. Like the first two, they knew nothing. It was a lot of time spent telling Elias’ story with nothing to show for it.
‘She really did just drop off the map.’ Elias’ enthusiasm was starting to wane a little. ‘We’re running out of options.’
We’d left his contact details with everyone we had spoken to, but I wasn’t expecting anything to come of it. There was only one person left on our list to talk to.
I hadn’t been to Dad’s office for years. It’s a large white concrete block in a business park, surrounded by multinational pharmaceutical and tech companies. Not as corporate as the businesses in the city high rises, but still. Not exactly my comfort zone.
‘I’m staying here,’ I reminded Elias as he pulled into the car park.
‘Come on, I need you. Besides, what are the chances of us running into your dad?’
About three hundred people worked at Prado, from memory. Statistically, you’d think we’d probably be safe. But I had zero confidence in that being the case. And zero interest in Dad catching me and yelling the building down.
‘Nope. Staying here.’
He left the car running for me, but even so I had to wriggle out of the front seat and sit on the bare floor in the back to get away from sun burning through the windscreen. I had my folder full of notes but only made a half-hearted effort to skim through them. I was stupidly anxious about Elias being in the Prado building.
In the end, he was gone for nearly half an hour. I had started wondering if I needed to go in after him when the driver’s door opened and he slid in. ‘Hey.’
‘I was starting to worry they’d locked you up in there.’
‘Do they do that?’
‘Maybe.’ I scanned his face, trying to read it. ‘How’d you go?’
‘She doesn’t know anything.’
‘It took you half an hour to find that out?’
A shrug. ‘We were talking. I liked her. I guess she’s, like, my aunt, or second cousin or something.’
I’d given up trying to keep track of Elias’ new family tree. If she was related to Aurora, I could understand why a relatively simple conversation could take so long.
‘Was she curious to meet you?’
‘I guess so. But kinda cool towards me, you know. Like she didn’t want to get too emotionally invested, or maybe she just needs some time to adjust to the idea. I liked her, though.’
I felt like that part could just be Elias’ imagination, but didn’t say so. ‘What does she do at Prado?’
A shrug. ‘I didn’t ask, sorry.’
My dad would probably know, but even if I was at home to ask him, he would want to know why, and then he’d tell me to butt out of other people’s business.
I thought about our list of Sephora’s friends, now exhausted. ‘So we’re out of leads.’
‘You’ll think of something.’ That Elias optimism was back. Talking to Yvonne seemed to have cheered him up. ‘In the meantime, can we go get some lunch?’
‘It’s eleven a.m.’
‘Yeah. I could go a burger or something.’
We got burgers from a small takeaway place and sat at the picnic table in a park across the road. I hadn’t eaten breakfast and my hunger hit me all at once as I started in on the burger.
‘I was thinking about her paintings,’ Elias said finally. ‘I know we couldn’t find any information on Bridget Green, but maybe there’s something in the paintings that could tell us where she is.’
I thought about the artworks we’d seen online. ‘There’s photos of landscapes,’ I said slowly.
‘Yeah.’ Elias cocked an eyebrow. ‘What are you thinking?’
‘So maybe we can work out where they were taken. Maybe.’
‘And find where she is now.’ His eyes lit up, and I immediately regretted getting his hopes up.
‘It’s a long shot,’ I warned him.
He grinned at me, unfazed as alwa
ys. ‘Let’s go.’
26
We went to his place. The house was empty again.
‘I’ll grab my laptop and we can work downstairs. That way we can use the desktop too.’
Good. Some space to myself. I was even more relieved about that when I discovered Elias typed with two fingers. No way was I going to sit there patiently while he pecked at the keyboard like an eighty-year-old.
Elias sorted out the computers quickly enough. I could tell he was fired up about researching Sephora’s artworks, because he didn’t even raid the pantry first. To be honest, I was a little disappointed. It wasn’t that long since our early lunch but I was feeling a bit snackish. Elias’ influence, probably, rubbing off on me.
‘Okay,’ he launched in. ‘Where do we start?’
‘I guess we start by collecting copies of as many of her artworks as we can, then we isolate any details from them that might be useful. Geographical features, like mountain ranges, rivers, even power lines. Maybe stuff like trees, too?
I was already second-guessing myself. What if none of that gave us useful information? I mean, short of Sephora doing an artwork about some sort of endangered species that only happened to grow in her backyard, how likely was it we’d be able to narrow her location down this way? Real life doesn’t tend to work out like a TV show that needs to wrap up in forty-three minutes.
But I couldn’t say that to Elias. He was drumming his fingers on the table, keen to get started. ‘Look for any houses or buildings, too,’ I added. ‘Maybe we can find a match on Google Earth or a real estate listing or something.’
He snapped a salute. ‘Yes, boss.’
The first phase—collecting the artworks—took longer than I thought it would. Elias insisted that we put them in a document chronologically, with all the information he could find about them. There wasn’t a lot, just snippets on a few small local galleries’ websites. Bridget Green hadn’t exactly made it big as an artist, but you wouldn’t have known that based on Elias’ reactions.
‘I love that they’re immersive,’ he said, for at least the third time. ‘It adds such an element, once you allow the audience to really move into the work. Like, they become part of the work, and they bring all their own stories and history. It adds this whole extra level.’
The Finder Page 14