I was high up on a frozen rocky crag. In fact, I wasn’t very far from the peak itself, which was about where I had tried to “land,” as I’d come to think of this last step. It was true night, and the crescent moon was farther to the south, but there it was, shining down, along with, exactly, one trillion stars, all winking at me, the flirts. I was really here. I was not in Southern California, but in the far north, far away from it all.
In a blink of an eye. I could, it seemed, go just about anywhere, including the moon. I had a thought. Talos, could I someday return home with you?
Not yet, Sam. You would need a visual image to hold onto. You need to see clearly where you will “land” as you put it.
But you could help me to see? I asked.
Yes, Sam. Someday.
I nodded, pleased, thrilled. That I was now high upon a forgotten crag in the dead of night, surrounded by wind and snow and the distant howl of something forlorn and forgotten, was exhilarating. I didn’t belong up here. I shouldn’t have been up here. But here I was. A mother of two. A private investigator, a sister, a daughter. Sitting high atop a frozen piece of rock at the far north of nowhere. Out of sight, out of mind. Alone and happy.
I didn’t want to think. I didn’t want to feel. I didn’t want to worry. I just wanted to exist. I just wanted to be.
And so I sat on the rocky overhang, my great talons clinging to the rock edge, even as snow and ice began to form around them.
Ice wasn’t much of a match for the great beast I had become. Neither were these extreme conditions. The beast laughed at arctic blasts of frozen air. At least, I think it did. I know I did.
Now, I tucked my wings in tight and sat high upon the world, looking down into swirling mists and billowing gusts.
And I was happy.
Chapter Twenty-five
The wonders of the Internet.
I was deemed an asset by Detective Sharp’s bosses and he was given the green light to email me two weeks’ worth of surveillance video in heavily encrypted, password-protected files.
A busy homicide detective didn’t have time to go through two weeks’ worth of surveillance tape. Hell, even a week’s worth of surveillance tape, fast-forwarded, is still three or four days of mind-numbing work. Luckily, my mind didn’t get numb, and my back didn’t hurt, and I could sit still for hours on end without peeing or eating or drinking.
Of course, the good detective with the pointed nose and chin didn’t know that.
Still, I was the best candidate for the job, and I threw myself into it as soon as I plugged in the various passwords, and opened the files.
They were separated into days, and they had been provided by Starbucks’s own security team, their loss-prevention department. Coffee was serious business, after all.
Of course, this “loss” didn’t look good on Starbucks either. I knew they had been cooperative in helping the police, but there was only so much a company could do. Or anyone could do.
Hopefully, I could do a little more.
I got to it, settling in for the night.
* * *
The next day, I had made the kids mac n’ cheese for dinner. Again. One of my four or five go-to dinners. Tonight would be Anthony’s second boxing lesson with Jacky, and it had been all the boy could talk about on the drive to school, when I picked them up, and all through dinner. He had even completely forgotten to torment his sister, which was surely a sign of the impending apocalypse.
It was also a Monday night, which meant, of course, The Voice. Tammy ate up the bromance between Adam and Blake. And since Usher reminded me a bit of Russell, my most recent of flames, I tended to be an Usher fan. And a Shakira fan. Just loved her and her accent. With that said, there was no way in hell we were prying Tammy away from that TV. At least, not tonight. Or tomorrow, which were The Voice results. Damn Adam and his delicious smile. And Blake with those ah, shucks dimples.
Anyway, I had an hour to kill before heading out to Jacky’s gym, and I killed it the best way I knew how, by plopping down in front of my computer screen and working my way through the rest of that first day of surveillance, the day Lucy Gleason had gone missing.
I was in my office, with the door closed, but I could still hear Anthony in his room, working on his footwork, breathing through his nose. He was probably quickly mastering all that Jacky had already taught him. I was prepared to watch Jacky’s mind get blown tonight.
On the screen before me, the video played and customer after customer came and went. Cars came and went. Starbucks, from all appearances, appeared to be a rather profitable establishment.
As I scanned the many faces in fast-forward, Archibald Maximus’s words suddenly came to me again:
“Your son’s reaction to the medallion was unexpected.”
“And you suspect...something else might be involved?”
“In a word, yes.”
These words had been bothering me ever since they were first uttered by the ageless Librarian. What the devil did he mean? Who the hell might also be involved with my son?
I considered Jacky. My son and Jacky clearly had a bond that went beyond time, but I didn’t think that was who—or what—the Librarian had been referring to.
I pushed the worry out of my mind as best as I could and went back to the video. Time slipped past, almost as fast as the people on the screen in front of me, who were depositing their hard-earned money into the bank of Starbucks in exchange for slightly burnt coffee and that Starbucks experience.
I had the video going at two times the speed, not so slow as to be real-time, but not so fast as to miss anything suspicious. Yesterday, I had started the video where I had left off with Detective Sharp. Now, it was getting past closing time, and the steady flow of customers dwindled, and then finally stopped. A few minutes later, I watched all the lights turn out. A few of the workers talked in a small huddle in the parking lot, no doubt talking about the strange day in which the lady disappeared and the cops came. And then they were gone and Starbucks was finally, mercifully dark.
“Okay, Mom, time to go!”
Only my son could sneak up on me. How he had managed to open the door without me hearing it, I didn’t know. I squeaked and jumped and he grinned from the open office door.
“You have to quit doing that, Anthony.”
“Doing what?” he asked, not so innocently.
“Sneaking up on me.”
“But I thought you were a vampire with bat ears!” he laughed, and from down the hallway, I heard Tammy laugh, too. Great, now I was the butt of their joke.
“Just knock next time, okay?”