Chapter 18
My tongue is the size of a tennis ball when I wake. Drumsticks practice on my temples with the incessant bass of Rage Against the Machine. The sun is high and bright, and a warm beam slants across my face.
I roll over and peel one eye open as the drumsticks grow more insistent.
“Oh-feel-eeee-yahh.”
It’s not a rock band. It’s Beau. I stumble from bed and swing open the door.
“Whoa.” Beau says as I collapse back on the bed. “What are you wearing?”
“Pajamas.”
“You managed to put those on last night? Even with all those straps?” He flicks his fingers in the air in some crisscross pattern with an expression of pure confusion.
I look at my matching tank and sleep shorts—it’s a cheap satin set with thin black lace around the edges. I think I got it at Target. The top has spaghetti straps that cross low on the back. Not exactly rocket science. “I wasn’t that drunk.”
“Drunk enough.”
“You had as many drinks as I did. Why are you upright and so awake?”
“It’s the alcohol-to-weight ratio.” Beau walks to the coffee maker to start a pot before stealing another glance. “You wear those even without anyone to see them?”
“It’s a pair of shorts, Beau.” I pull the sheets over my legs. “If a guy isn’t around to gawk at her, does a woman even exist?”
He snorts and fiddles with the coffee maker.
“I should ask you the opposite question. Why do you hide all that muscle and skin under so many clothes? Leaving girls to wonder isn’t nearly as seductive as you’d think.”
He looks at his jeans, boots, and flannel as if he’s unaware of what he’s wearing. I roll over to the side of the bed, propping myself up on an elbow. He looks away, his cheeks pink.
“You don’t have any tattoos,” he says, his eyes still cast away from me. “I figured with the ever-changing hair, you’d ...” He trails off.
“How do you know I don’t have any?” I tease. I’m hiding enough skin that he shouldn’t assume. I don’t, though. Tattoos are permanent, and I don’t make permanent decisions.
“We have to get moving. Check out. Make decisions. Drive to another interview. Up.” Beau shoves a watery mug of coffee in my face, and I take it.
I don’t fix my strap when it falls over my shoulder, and he darts his focus away as if I’ve flashed him full frontal.
His cheeks turn ruddy. Maybe he’ll get so uncomfortable he’ll escape, and I can go back to sleep.
I grab my phone and flip through my messages and emails: photos from Lowell of the Chihuly in its new home, paperwork from Ronald to finalize the sale, new absurd tasks from Juniper, an overdue notice from my utility company.
Shoot. I drop my phone on the nightstand and take a sip of weak coffee. “This is terrible,” I say.
“You’ll have to get out of bed if you want to go to a café for that saccharine nonsense you call coffee.”
“Black-coffee-drinking sanctimony,” I grumble.
A gray maxi dress lands in my lap before a jean jacket hits me in the head. “Get dressed,” he says. I inspect the choices. Not bad.
“You’re so bossy.” But I stomp over to my bag, fish out underwear, a bra, and my toiletries, and head into the bathroom.
Beau has cleaned up the room and stuffed all my clothes in my bag when I step out a few moments later.
He winds my phone charger around his palm and tucks the stray end in before starting on my laptop cord, placing them neatly in the small compartment of my backpack.
Next up, my headphones. His packing habits are as tightly wound as he is.
“You don’t need to clean up after me.”
“I’m sick of listening to you swear like a sailor while you fight with your tangled cords.”
I load the car while he checks us out, and he meets me at the curb moments later. He raises his brows in question.
“Let’s check out the house. Maybe we can just stroll by?” My curiosity is overpowering my fear. As scared as I am about finding—or not finding—the truth, I can’t leave without at least taking this next step.
It’s a short drive back to the downtown.
When we park and get out, Beau falls into step with me.
I’ve memorized Mary’s last known address, so it doesn’t take us long to find the boxy cottage with peeling peach paint.
There’s a white picket fence bordering a dying lawn, and a brick walkway leading to a narrow wooden porch.
I freeze outside the gate and Beau verifies the address on his phone.
The thing about decisions—and being bad at them—is that you have to keep making them. Each decision leads to another, and at each juncture, they demand answers.
Beau lifts the latch and wraps his hand around mine, compelling me to follow. He knocks on the door once, then again, before we hear shuffling inside. The door swings open to reveal a wiry, shirtless tween with a shock of white-blond hair falling in his eyes.
In television, during a moment like this, there’s suspenseful music, a close-up of the kid’s face to suggest he might be the main character’s long-lost sibling, before a cut to commercial.
But I feel nothing. I don’t know who this kid is, and my curiosity is overpowered by my doubt that I made the right decision to follow this lead at all.
He looks from Beau to me and back. I feel Beau’s focus on my face before he snaps into action. “Good morning. I’m Beau Augustin and this is Ophelia Dahl. We’re looking for someone, and this was listed as her last address.”
“Are you the cops or something?”
“No.” Beau clears his throat. “Family, actually.”
“Does someone named Mary live here?” I try.
He shakes his head. “It’s just me and my mom.”
“Steven, who’s at the door?” A tall woman—maybe late thirties—peers around the corner. She’s dressed in blue scrubs, her hair up in a slick ponytail. She sees us and puts on a polite smile as she slings a purse over her shoulder. “Sorry, we aren’t interested.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” Beau says. “We are looking for a family member—this was listed as her last known address. Her name is Mary Dahl.”
The woman shakes her head. “It’s just us here. And we’ve lived here since he was a baby.”
Beau looks at the address on his phone and back to the numbers hanging beside the door.
“She was probably going by Mary Johnson,” I say. “I have photos.”
“I’m sorry, who did you say you were?” She shifts forward as Steven steps back. Her forehead has deep worry lines, and her mouth is curved into a subtle frown.
“Sorry,” I reach out my hand, and she takes it, but her eyes don’t stray from my face.
“I’m Ophelia Dahl. Mary Johnson Dahl was—is—my mother.
” My throat goes dry, and I swallow twice as I dig through my purse to pull out a few old snapshots.
In one, Mary’s holding me in her lap. I’m about a year old.
In another, she and Dad are at a restaurant, posing with candlelight between them.
They aren’t the best images—faded from time and shot in terrible lighting.
The woman in the photos is in her early twenties—much younger than the middle-aged version who would have lived here.
The woman takes them, studies them. “Well, I can’t be sure it’s the same person, but I did rent out the cottage in the back to a Mary once.
Haven’t thought about her in years. Her last name could have been Johnson.
Maybe.” She shakes her head and looks back at me.
“But my son was young, I was in nursing school. I think it was about nine years ago or so. I was sleep-deprived and don’t remember much. ”
“Do you remember where she moved? Whether she might still be in town?”
She hands back the photos. “Sorry. But I don’t think she’s still around. She worked at a coffee shop on Main Street.” She looks up and purses her lips. “I think it was Mug and Muffin. But it could have been the Grind, which closed a few years back.”
“Thanks,” I say, accepting that this might be a dead end.
Beau slips her a business card. “If you remember anything else, we’d really appreciate a call.” Good move, Beau. His card is professional and credible—no one is threatened by a history professor with a kind smile.
“I hope you find her—and that she’s safe.”
“Thanks for your time,” I say.
She worked at a coffee shop. Not exactly a hot lead—but nice of this woman to talk to us.
We walk back to the car in silence, but Beau bypasses the car when I stroll up to the passenger door. “You still want coffee?” he asks.
“Always.”
He points toward a storefront with a sign in ornate script. Mug and Muffin . “Two birds?”
“Umm,” I say.
“Jesus, Phe. You’re a dog with a bone about almost everything, but with this, you—”
“Fine. I need coffee anyway. And a pastry.” I want answers, of course. But that doesn’t mean I don’t fear them as well.
We stride up to the counter at Mug and Muffin a few moments later. It’s a tiny café with only a few tables. The glass case showcases an impressive collection of pastries: eclairs, croissants, ten varieties of muffins, cinnamon rolls, and doughnuts.
I order a vanilla latte and a cinnamon scone, and Beau, predictably, orders black coffee and a protein bar that looks about as appetizing as cardboard.
“We’re looking for someone who may have worked here nine years ago. A missing family member,” Beau says to the teenage cashier while he presents his credit card.
“I wasn’t working here then.”
She would have been in grade school, I imagine. “But do you know of anyone who still works here who might remember?” I ask.
“Well, Pamela, the owner, might. She stepped out for a minute but should be back soon.”
I collect my scone before sliding into a ladder-back chair around a glass table, and Beau sits across from me. I’ve downed my latte when a woman in her sixties approaches our table a few minutes later.
“I heard you’re looking for a former employee?” Pamela, I presume. “Is someone in trouble?”
“I hope not,” I say, hedging, while I pull out the photos again. “I’m looking for my mom, Mary. Her maiden name was Johnson, married name, Dahl. We heard she may have worked here about nine years ago.”
Pamela takes the photos. “I did have a Mary Johnson for a time. She was a damn good pastry chef.” Beau picks his head up, his eyes wide behind his glasses.
“Can’t say for sure whether this was her.
My Mary was older, but blond too. Hard to recognize her as the gal in these photos.
Besides, my memory isn’t as good as it once was. ”
“These were taken over thirty years ago,” I chime in.
She tilts her head. “It sure could be her.”
“Do you happen to know where she is now?” Beau asks.
She sets the photos on the table. “She was getting married and moving away—somewhere south of here, I think.”
“Do you remember his name?” Beau asks, which is brilliant. We could be looking for someone who doesn’t go by Johnson or Dahl anymore.
Pamela hums. “No—but I remember his last name was some cartoon character. I teased Mary about it because she was planning on taking it. Bullwinkle, I think it was. Wait. No, maybe it was Garfield ... or Flintstone?” She laughs and shakes her head, realizing how ridiculous it sounds.
“Do you know if she had any friends in town who would know where she is now?” I ask.
“I’m sorry, I’m afraid I’ve told you everything I remember.”
“If you think of anything else that might be helpful, we’d really appreciate it if you could get in touch.” Beau fishes out another business card and hands it over.
Pamela shoves it in her pocket. “Sure. Good luck.”
But with clues like this, what we need is a miracle.