A Fortunate Encounter

by J A Whiting

  Jeena studied Claire’s face and then nodded. “Cori Ball. They’ve been roommates until this semester. Jade is living at home this fall to save money.”

  “Is Cori here?” Claire asked.

  “I saw her earlier. She’s in the crowd somewhere.” Jeena ran her eyes over the groups of people milling about, eager to start the search.

  “Did your sister ever go off on her own before?” Nicole questioned.

  Jeena spun back to face Nicole and Claire. “Never. I know young adults do that sometimes, but not Jade and not me. We would never do such a thing. Mom would be frantic if she didn’t know where we were.” The irony of her statement seemed to strike Jeena right in the chest and she raised her hand to her eyes. “I mean…. Oh, mom.”

  Bonnie placed her arm around her daughter and pulled her close, running her hand over Jeena’s long, dark hair. “I know, hon. I know what you meant.”

  Claire’s eyes misted over at the mother’s and daughter’s heartbreak.

  After a minute, Jeena stepped back and ran her hands over her face. “I’m okay. We’re going to find her. Everything will be fine.”

  Claire felt her heart sink. “Before we start out, can you tell me what happened the night Jade disappeared?”

  Bonnie cleared her throat. “Jade went out with a friend, Alyssa. Her friend picked her up at our house. They were going to drive around, maybe see some friends, maybe end up at a movie or a pub. She said she’d be home by midnight because she had an early class the next morning.” Bonnie paused for a few moments. “Alyssa told the police she and Jade met a few friends at the park across from Whittemore’s campus. There was going to be a bonfire. Jade supposedly left the bonfire with someone. Alyssa said Jade texted her later that night. Jade wanted Alyssa to come pick her up. She asked Alyssa to call her when she got the message.”

  “Did Alyssa call?” Nicole asked.

  “Alyssa said she did call, but Jade didn’t answer,” Bonnie said.

  “Do you know how long after Jade sent the message that Alyssa called her back?” Claire asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Bonnie said. “I can ask the officers.”

  A plainclothes officer came up to Bonnie. “We’re ready to go. Would you like to walk the first grid with us?”

  Bonnie nodded and before heading off with the man, she turned to Claire and Nicole and thanked them once again. “Coming, hon?” she asked her daughter.

  “I’ll be right there,” Jeena said.

  When her mother and the officer were out of earshot, the young woman said, “My mom doesn’t know this, but Jade’s ex-boyfriend has been contacting her lately. They met for coffee about a week ago. Jade told me she wasn’t getting back with him, but she was crazy about him for a long time. I wouldn’t be surprised if she agreed to see him again.”

  “Why doesn’t your mother know about this?” Nicole asked.

  “Mom doesn’t like him.”

  “Why not?”

  Jeena said, “She thinks he’s a cheater. She’s right. I don’t like him either. Blake’s a charmer, good-looking, a smooth talker. He’s no good.”

  “Your sister broke up with him?” Claire asked.

  “Yeah. About year and a half ago. Then she met Kyle. He’s a great guy.”

  “Why did Jade break up with Blake?”

  “He was cheating, but the real reason was Blake hit Jade. She wouldn’t stand for that so she told him off and wouldn’t see him again.”

  “Why meet up with him now?” Nicole asked as she pulled up the zipper on her jacket against the gust of chilly air.

  “Who knows? Blake can be very convincing. He told Jade he wanted to talk over a problem with her.”

  Claire’s eyes narrowed. “Do you know what his problem was?”

  “I don’t. It was probably a ploy to get Jade to meet him. He could really turn it on when he wanted to.” Jeena shook her head.

  “Did you tell the police this?” Nicole asked.

  “I did, yes, but I didn’t want to tell mom.” Jade shoved her hands in her pockets. “I’d better go catch up to them. I don’t want my mom searching without me.” Jeena said goodbye and walked quickly across to the other side of the lot.

  “Blake, huh?” Nicole said to her friend. “Could he be the reason for Jade’s disappearance? Did she fall for him again? Did she take off with him?”

  “That would be an easy answer and a wonderful outcome.” Claire gestured to an organizer who was setting up the nearby volunteers into single file, preparing them to enter the field. “Let’s go join the line.”

  “Why can’t the sun be out?” Nicole grumped as she and Claire took their places at the edge of the grass and listened to the woman explain the process. “Do you sense anything? Did you sense anything when we were talking to Bonnie and her daughter?”

  “Nothing unusual,” Claire said. “Nothing you weren’t experiencing, too. Sadness, worry, anxiety. Wondering what in the world happened. Friends go out together and one doesn’t return. Why?”

  Nicole let out a sigh. “We’ll find out eventually.”

  Pulling a knitted cap over her head and buttoning the top button of her coat, Claire said with a disheartened tone, “Let’s go look for the body.”

  Nicole stopped in her tracks and stared at her friend with wide eyes. “You said body … you said look for the body. Do you sense Jade is dead?”

  A look of horror showed on Claire’s face and she swallowed hard. “I didn’t mean to say that. I meant clues, let’s go look for clues.”

  Didn’t I?

  3

  “This morning creeped me out.” Nicole sat behind the wheel of the rental car heading towards the South Shore. “I was so afraid I’d actually see something I could hardly focus on finding anything.”

  Claire looked out the window watching the landscape of beautiful colored leaves shimmering in the glow of the late afternoon sun. “I think most people felt the same way. I know I did.”

  “None of the searches found a single thing. Did Jade vanish into thin air?” Nicole tightened her grip on the steering wheel.

  Claire took the flyer from her bag and stared at it. A young woman with straight dark hair falling to her shoulders smiled back at her. Jade Lyons – Missing, it said across the top. Other information about her was also included, five feet six inches tall, one-hundred and twenty pounds, brown eyes, dark brown hair. A student at Whittemore College. It gave the place and date she was last seen and a number to call to report any information.

  “How can someone disappear without a trace?” Nicole asked.

  “I don’t think she left without a trace.” Claire glanced out the window again. “It’s just that no one’s found it yet.”

  “Tell me again what she was wearing when she disappeared.”

  “Jeans, a black turtleneck sweater, a bright blue zip up jacket.”

  “Did you say earlier she was wearing sneakers?” Nicole asked.

  “That’s right.” Claire mentioned the brand of high-end sneakers Jade had been wearing. “They were blue and yellow.”

  The two women were driving around the roads of two towns, the first was Smithtown, a pretty seaside community about twenty minutes from Boston. Whittemore College was located in the town and was where Jade and her friends had gathered to watch the bonfire. The second town, Hadwen, also on the coast, was next to Smithtown and was the area where Jade sent a text to her friend asking to be picked up at a convenience store.

  “Is this the right place?” Nicole pulled into a gas station-convenience store and cut the engine.

  “It’s the address the police gave Ian.” Claire looked around. “Let’s go inside.”

  When they approached the middle-aged woman behind the counter, her face hardened as soon as she spotted the flyer Claire had in her hand. “I don’t got anything to say about that.” The woman nodded at the poster.

  “Sorry to bother. We’re friends of the family,” Claire explained. “Were you working the night of October 15?”


  “I don’t have to answer your questions.” The woman folded her arms over her chest.

  “Have people been in here bothering you?” Nicole asked with a kind smile.

  “Some.” The older woman’s name tag said Jean on it.

  “We’re trying to find out if anyone working here saw Jade Lyons that night,” Claire said ignoring the clerk’s protests. “She’s still missing.”

  “I know she is,” Jean said.

  “It could help if someone could tell us some things,” Claire said, “anything at all might help.”

  Jean blew out a long breath. “I wasn’t working. If you want to come back tomorrow night, the clerk working then might talk to you. Not promising nothing though.”

  “Okay, thank you.” Claire smiled. “Can you tell us the clerk’s name?”

  “Nope.” Jean turned away and started to fill in the candy counter.

  As Nicole and Claire left the store and walked to the car, a gust of cold air hit them in the faces and they hurried to get into the vehicle.

  “It’s too cold, too soon.” Nicole shivered.

  “It’s supposed to warm up tomorrow.” Claire buckled her seatbelt and took a look back to the store. “Jean wasn’t all that helpful, but she did give us the tip to come back.”

  “Why so tight-lipped?” Nicole started the engine. “I thought people would want to gossip, spill what they knew, or thought they knew.”

  “Not Jean.”

  “You think she knows something?” Nicole asked.

  “I wonder. Maybe she’s suspicious of us, or maybe she doesn’t know anything at all.”

  “Or maybe she knows a thing or two, but doesn’t want to share.” Nicole pulled onto the main street. “Where to now?”

  “Want to drive around these streets for a while?” Claire asked. “Get a feel for the area?”

  “Sure.” Nicole started chattering about the upcoming wedding contract and the expansion of the chocolate shop. “I could never have done this without you. I could never afford to expand. I’m so glad we’re partners now. It means so much to me.”

  “Me, too. The money of mine sitting in the bank needs to get used for something good. I wouldn’t have had the chance to invest like this if I hadn’t answered your ad looking for a baker.” Claire chuckled. “Now look at us.”

  “Our partnership is great for both of us,” Nicole said. “No one ever knows what’s just around the corner.”

  A dog darted out from a yard and dashed in front of the car causing Nicole to slam on the brakes and the auto to skid a little to the side.

  “Whoa.” Claire’s hands were planted firmly on the dashboard. “That was close. Lucky dog.”

  “Like I said,” Nicole looked at her friend out of the corner of her eye. “No one knows what’s just around the corner.”

  “Literally.” Claire shook her head.

  Nicole touched the gas and was straightening the car out so they could move forward when Claire pointed across the street. “Look over there.”

  “Where?”

  “In the corner of that yard with the big house being worked on,” Claire said.

  “It’s an old Victorian,” Nicole said. “It looks like they’ve got a big job ahead of them.”

  “In the corner. There’s a dumpster.”

  “So?” Nicole didn’t understand why Claire would point out a dumpster, then a second later she swerved the car to the side of the road. “Do you sense something?”

  The October light had nearly faded away causing the trees’ long shadows to spread out over the yards.

  Claire’s eyes were pinned on the big metal container. “I don’t know. Let’s go walk around that dumpster.”

  “Oh, no.” Nicole cut the engine and then they got of the car and walked to the house being renovated.

  No one was around. The workers had left for the day.

  “If someone picked Jade up at the convenience store and drove around for a while with her, they might very well have come past here,” Claire said as she stepped gingerly around the dumpster. She knocked on the side of the tall, metal container trying to get a sense of how full it was. “I’m going to climb up to the top.”

  “Do you think that’s a good idea?” Nicole had her arms wrapped around herself. “What if there’s something in there?”

  Claire turned to her friend with a half-smile. “I’m pretty sure things have been tossed inside. We won’t know if there’s anything relevant to Jade’s disappearance unless we look.”

  A frown formed on Nicole’s face, but she nodded her head. “Do you want me to climb up there, too?”

  “Would you?” Claire asked. “It might be better to have two sets of eyes on the contents.”

  There were metal jut-outs on sides of the dumpster about the size of two-by-fours which allowed helpful footholds and handholds for the young women to reach the top.

  “There’s a lot of construction debris.” Nicole narrowed her eyes as she scanned the contents.

  “Luckily, that streetlamp is shining right into the dumpster.” Claire moved her feet over a horizontal jut-out so she could get a better look inside.

  Old tiles, sheets of linoleum, wallboard, an old kitchen countertop, and cheap cabinets had been tossed into the container in a jumble.

  “Thankfully, it’s just stuff.” Nicole breathed a sigh of relief. “I was worried we’d find … a body.”

  Staring at the piles of material, something caught Claire’s eye and she squinted trying to make out what it was. Swinging her leg over the side, she prepared to jump down into the dumpster.

  Alarmed, Nicole raised her voice. “What are you doing? Don’t go in there.”

  “I see something by the cabinets.” Claire let herself drop gently into the debris and pushing over the items, she squatted to get a look at something tucked under a broken sheet of wallboard.

  Reaching into her jacket for her leather gloves, Claire slipped them on, and with her heart sinking, she lifted something up with one hand. “Look.”

  Nicole blinked. “A shoe?”

  “An athletic shoe.” Claire stood, still holding the sneaker. “It’s the brand Jade wore on the night she disappeared. It’s the same colors, too.”

  Nicole let out a groan. “No one’s in there, right? Jade’s not….”

  “No, she’s not.” Lifting boards and tiles, Claire searched around looking for the matching shoe. “Here’s the other one.”

  “Oh, no. Come out of there,” Nicole said with sadness in her voice.

  Claire told Nicole to put on her gloves so she wouldn’t transfer fingerprints to the objects, and then she slowly tossed each sneaker up to her friend.

  Before stepping down off the dumpster, Nicole dropped the shoes to the grass.

  Claire climbed to the top of the debris at the other end of the container and then swung her leg over and used the jut-outs to move down to the ground.

  She and Nicole stood staring at the shoes.

  “They must belong to Jade,” Nicole said with a sigh. “Same brand, same colors. It can’t be a coincidence. What does it mean? It doesn’t have to mean something bad, does it?”

  Anxiety rushed through Claire making her feel ill. “Well, I don’t think it means anything good.”

  “There could be a reason those shoes got tossed into the dumpster.” Nicole tried to grab at straws.

  Claire turned her eyes to her friend. “Can you think of one?”

  Nicole’s shoulders drooped. “How did you know to look in there?”

  “I thought whoever was with Jade could easily have driven past here after leaving the convenience store.” Claire reached up and twisted a long strand of her curly hair around her gloved finger. “It was just logical thinking.”

  “It wasn’t a feeling?”

  “I guess that could have been mixed in with the logical thinking,” Claire admitted.

  “What should we do?” Nicole asked. “Should we call Bonnie Lyons? Should we call the Bayside Police Departm
ent?”

  Headlights shined into the yard as a vehicle pulled to a stop at the curb.

  The passenger side window slid down and a man’s voice spoke from inside the car. “Evening, ladies. Can I help you with anything?”

  It was a squad car belonging to the town of Hadwen.

  “Yes,” Claire said to the officer and gestured to the shoes on the grass. “We found something.”

  4

  Nicole had her hand on the side of her face as she looked at the wood studs outlining where the wall would go. “This is going to be incredible.”

  Claire had a wide smile on her face as she listened to the head of the construction team point out where things would be located.

  “This wall will separate the additional seating area that will tie in with the existing shop’s tables,” the man told them. “The catering kitchen will be to this side which will become part of the kitchen you’re using now. There will be a row of glass cases right here. In about a week, we’ll break through this wall and the two spaces will become one and then we’ll complete the finish work. Some of the work will be done at night so it won’t impact the chocolate shop’s customers.”

  “It’s great. Better than we ever expected,” Claire said to the man.

  Robby, the shop’s part-time employee opened the door and stuck his head inside. “Can I come see?”

  Nicole hurried to the young man and tugged his arm pulling him inside. “Look at this. Isn’t it great?” She led Robby on a short tour of the addition to the chocolate shop.

  “It’s going to be fabulous.” Robby stood in the center of the room and turned in a circle. “You know … I’m still waiting to be brought in as a partner in this venture.” He looked to Nicole.

  The brown-haired woman flapped her hand in the air. “Don’t look at me. Talk to Claire. She’s the one with the money.”

  Robby eyed his blond co-worker. “Claire?”

  “You need to talk to Nicole. She was the original owner.”

  “Why do I feel like I’m getting the runaround?” Robby turned to the head of construction. “Do you have any advice for me?”