The Lost Girl (A Mickey Keller Thriller Book 1)

by Alan Jacobson

  Amy and Loren started out near the pergola and made their way past a bicycle stand. They jogged clockwise around the large lake toward the aviary, passing a circle of Acro yogis.

  “Yoga,” Loren said. “You should try that.”

  Amy slowed and veered left. “Now?”

  Loren laughed but didn’t break her stride.

  Next to them, on a large, expansive lawn that abutted a main street about fifty yards away, a flock of geese stood grazing. People sat under mature oaks eating muffins and drinking coffee, taking in the sun, or reading books and Kindles.

  As they passed a couple of boys playing ball with their dog, Amy’s gaze caught a blonde girl with ponytails sitting with a woman in her early twenties. They were lounging on a blanket and eating sandwiches.

  The girl was strikingly beautiful, with light, clear aquamarine eyes. Amy found herself headed right for them. A few strides later, she was standing five feet away.

  “I—I’m sorry.” Amy laughed to mask her odd behavior. “Your daughter is just gorgeous.”

  The woman grinned. “Thank you—but she’s not my daughter. I’m the au pair.”

  She had a thick accent—German, Amy guessed—but she spoke nearly flawless English.

  “Those eyes,” Amy said. “They’re magnificent.”

  “Amy.”

  She turned to see Loren jogging over. “What happened? I was talking to you and all of a sudden realized I was blabbering to myself.”

  “Sorry. I, I just…” Amy could not pull her gaze from the girl. Her right eye twitched.

  “Beautiful day,” Loren blurted. She looked at Amy, then the child, then the au pair. “Sorry to, uh…sorry to bother you.” Loren took hold of Amy’s left elbow and tugged.

  Amy nodded good-bye and started jogging away, glancing over her shoulder as they got back on the path.

  “What was that?” Loren said.

  “She looks like Lindy. Did you see—”

  “A normal person glances over and keeps running. You don’t walk up to a stranger and stare.”

  The comment was like a wet towel slap across her face. “I’m not normal. We already know that.”

  “Not what I meant,” Loren said. “I’m only saying that you’re not…the acute pain hasn’t gone away completely. You’re still grappling with this.”

  Amy stole another peek over her shoulder. The blonde girl was tossing something—probably pieces of bread—into the lake for the ducks. Just like Amy used to do with Lindy. She felt a whimper of sadness in her chest. Lindy is dead.

  Amy turned back to Loren and said, “I can’t see that pain ever going away.”

  4

  The following Monday, Amy returned to work. It was as if nothing had happened. Ellen greeted her as she always did—on those rare occasions when Amy was on time—with a smile and a nod. Amy wanted to ask if her discussion with the contractor had spurred him to action…but realized it was better if she did not know. She did not want to get dragged back into it.

  That said, she had to admit that resuming her role as a lawyer, even if only for a few minutes, felt good. In control. Knowledgeable. Worth something. And it also scared the crap out of her.

  As she kneaded the dough, she glanced up at Ellen—but averted her eyes when Ellen looked in her direction.

  The morning skipped by, but other than some work-related banter with Bobby, she kept to herself. She wondered if Ellen had said anything to him about Amy’s past—or her previous career. If she had, Bobby did not mention it. Ex-husband or not, she did not know how close they remained.

  Amy removed her apron and hairnet, then grabbed her lunch bag from the staff refrigerator and walked down the block to Lake Merritt. She tried to get there a few times per week to clear her head and breathe some fresh air. It did not always make her feel better, but Loren and Zach insisted it would help her and, in theory, she knew it should. With nothing better to do during lunch, she stuck with the routine.

  As she padded along the path around the lake, she finished the sandwich, crumpled the empty paper sack into a ball—and realized she had walked in the opposite direction than usual. While in the past she preferred to vary her route, after the accident she found comfort in rote tasks and patterns. It required less effort, less thought.

  A few yards later, she realized why she had subconsciously started in this direction: she had gone to the location where she had seen the au pair. And the girl.

  Like yesterday, they were camped out on the grass on a colorful blanket, a wicker picnic basket set out between them.

  Amy tried to make her feet carry her past them, but she felt an overwhelming draw toward the girl. “Hi again.”

  The woman looked up and shielded her eyes from the glare of the bright sky.

  “Oh. Hi.” Her eyes made a quick assessment of Amy’s clothing. “You’re not running today.”

  Amy laughed. “No, I’m on lunch break. I work right up the street.”

  “I’m Giselle.”

  “Amy.” She set her knees on the edge of the blanket. “And you are?”

  Those crystal-clear eyes locked onto Amy’s. “Melissa,” she said, singing it and drawing out the sound of the s.

  “Melissa. Very pretty name. And you’ve got very pretty eyes. I bet lots of people tell you that.”

  Melissa grinned broadly and looked down, turning away and clasping her hands in front of her body.

  “So you guys like spending time at the lake.”

  “Melissa’s favorite place,” Giselle said, her accent permeating each word. “Well, second to Disneyland.”

  “You enjoy feeding the ducks?” Amy asked.

  Melissa nodded and looked away.

  “Use your words,” Giselle said. “Do not be shy.”

  Melissa swung her gaze back toward Amy. “Yes. I like feeding the ducks. They eat my bread. But I like bread, too. So I don’t really want to give it to them. Giselle says I can’t give them peanut butter.”

  Amy laughed. “Peanut butter may be kind of difficult for them to swallow.”

  “I like ice cream too. And the ice cream man comes three times.” She held up three fingers.

  “Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,” Giselle explained. She cupped a hand and shielded her mouth from Melissa. “Weekends too,” she mouthed, then winked.

  Amy stifled a smile. “So, Melissa, what’s your favorite flavor?”

  “Strawberry.”

  “Strawberry? Really?”

  Melissa animatedly nodded her head up and down.

  “Mine too. I used to pick strawberries when I was your age.”

  “Pick strawberries?” Melissa scrunched her nose.

  “Yes, they grow on little plants.” She pulled out her iPhone and found a picture that supported her claim.

  “I want to pick strawberries too.”

  “Maybe Giselle can plant some with you. In a pot at your house.” She turned to Giselle and shrugged.

  “We can try. I am not good with plants. I mostly kill them. What is it you Americans say? Green thumb?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have a brown one.”

  They both chuckled.

  Amy bent forward to engage with Melissa. “So you said you like bread. What’s your favorite kind?”

  Melissa shrugged.

  Amy tilted her head. “How about pumpernickel?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s brown bread. Kind of sweet. It’s delicious. Would you like to taste it?”

  Melissa nodded.

  “Well you know what? I work in a bakery. I make bread all day long. Would you like me to bring you the absolute bestest pumpernickel in Oakland?”

  Melissa looked at Giselle.

  “That would be fine. But I do not think we should feed it to the ducks.”

 
“We’ve always got some day-old loaves that don’t sell. I’ll bring one of them too. You can give that to the ducks.” Amy caught the time on Giselle’s watch and jumped up. “Whoops. Gotta get back to work. Will you be here tomorrow?”

  Giselle canted her head toward the gray sky. “Unless the weather’s bad, we’re here every day for lunch.”

  “Great,” Amy said as she backed away. “See you tomorrow. With some delicious brown bread.” She gave Melissa a wink and headed off down the path.

  5

  “You okay?”

  Amy turned to face Bobby, her hands still moving, massaging the dough. “Huh? I’m fine. Why?”

  “You’re working about twice normal speed. And you’re singing.”

  “What? I’m not singing, Bobby.”

  “Humming. Whatever. You never hum. You’re always…you know.”

  Amy’s hands stilled. “I’m always what?”

  Bobby looked at her a long moment, then turned his attention to the oven on his left. “Nothing. Forget it.”

  Amy tossed the dough onto the counter and rubbed the flour from her hands as she advanced on Bobby. “No, it’s not nothing. What did you mean?”

  He shrugged. “Well…like there’s a black cloud hanging over you.” He pulled open the oven door. “You’re kind of, I dunno, depressed.”

  Amy frowned. “There’s more to it than that.” She headed back to her workstation. “And I wasn’t humming.”

  “That song from Something Rotten.”

  Amy had to fight to keep herself from smiling.

  “Yeah, I see that grin. I’m right, aren’t I?”

  “Yes.”

  Bobby laughed boisterously. “So…what, did you meet someone?”

  I did, but it’s not what you’re thinking. “No.”

  “But something happened at lunch. You were real quiet this morning, you leave for a half hour and you’re humming Broadway tunes.”

  Amy punched her fist into the mound—one of the things she enjoyed about her job. Controlled aggression. “Whatever.”

  “Yeah,” Bobby said with another laugh. “Whatever. But whoever it is, I’m happy for you. Even if I wanted it to be me. I’m happy for you.”

  “I didn’t meet a guy.”

  “Hmm. Then I still got a chance.”

  “You know, Bobby, that’s true. You do. Just like winning the lottery.”

  6

  “Did you say two billion dollars?”

  Angelo Lira chuckled lightly and flashed a left-sided grin. “Don’t give me that crap, Brandon. You knew this was possible.”

  Dr. Brandon Ellis, CEO and founder of LifeScreen Genetics, absolutely knew it was possible. Lira had sat down with him four years ago and planted that seed in his mind over a steak dinner at the tony Boulevard restaurant in San Francisco. Seed is right—as in seed money Lira and his AIL Venture Capital partners poured into Ellis’s company, buying out the initial “angel” investors for a fifty percent profit. Then AIL stepped in and dropped two million for equipment, then another three for staffing and expanded lab space and computers, and finally another four million to facilitate the development of branding and marketing.

  Now the seed had sprouted and grown into a promising plant that would bear fruit for many years to come. That is, once the IPO, or initial public offering, launched.

  The short and stout Ellis had been an exceptional student in medical school but never showed any business acumen. However, that didn’t matter when he joined a successful practice because all aspects of what happened outside the treatment room were handled by his office staff and then the large health care organization that purchased the medical group.

  The field of reproductive medicine was burgeoning—but it lacked something. For him. The creative spirit he had enjoyed as a boy, and then a teen, was stripped from him during the rigorous rote memorization of medical school, then the rules governing proper standards of care, insurance codes, management procedures, and malpractice guidelines.

  Despite the monotony, he took to the material and became an excellent diagnostician because of his ability to see the big picture and think outside the box. He became adept at solving the puzzles of tough cases.

  But the part of his brain that thrived on creativity was atrophying. Although he was aware of what was happening, he did not know how to arrest it.

  He tried sculpting for an hour or two on the weekends, but as the demands of practice grew, he had less time to himself. After meeting Christine—a fellow reproductive physician he had shared lunch with at a medical conference—their relationship fast-tracked to cohabitation and then engagement within nine months. His isolated recreational hours shriveled to nothing.

  The tipping point arrived on an unassuming spring morning. Ellis was asked to consult on a dispiriting case that gripped him like scar tissue around a nerve causing unrelenting pain: a child born with a horrible genetic disease that was incurable. It would shorten the boy’s lifespan to single digits.

  After that young patient left his office, Ellis took a walk in the brisk air, wondering why his profession had not devised an effective method of genetically screening fertilized ova before the embryo could develop into a mistake of nature that caused endless pain to all involved—including the physician who presided over the initial spark of life and burgeoning pregnancy.

  While researchers had developed preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD, and preimplantation genetic screening, or PGS, these tests could detect only a limited number of conditions. The technology that would later form the basis behind LifeScreen went a magnitude further—at substantially lower cost—and without the need for invitro fertilization.

  The concept of fertility doctors being able to select certain desirable characteristics and reject “bad” ones was not new. But it was fraught with moral and ethical questions. Although Ellis could not deny this, he was able to see beyond the criticisms, media sound bites, and naysayers. The image of that young child remained fresh in his mind.

  It was one of those times in life where something moves you to action, the type of thing that changes your viewpoint, the way you look at things—at everything, really—and forces you to put all the controversial issues aside and find a solution. To think outside the box.

  As he walked, the cool breeze invigorating his face, an idea began to form. He stopped and stood there for minutes—ten, thirty, he did not know—working out the broad strokes of what could be done. It was pie-in-the-sky stuff, a wish list of what if scenarios that could not be solved in one night.

  It took two.

  However, having an idea of how to do something and seeing it to fruition were different things. He understood that intellectually, but as he dove deeper into the details of his plan, it became more apparent. What he needed to do would take time and money—neither of which he had.

  None of that mattered at first. He continued seeing his patients but was distracted. Sleep was fitful and he would awaken in the middle of the night with ideas. He started keeping a notebook on his nightstand and jotting down his thoughts in the dark so as not to disturb Christine.

  Each morning he would run his ideas by her and together they would refine them. Christine’s business sense was a great deal more acute than his, and her aggressive, competitive nature drove him to think harder.

  As the weeks passed, he realized he had reached the point where he had to make one of those life-altering decisions. He quit his medical practice and began attempting to cobble together the monetary resources he would need to make his idea become reality.

  John Hutchinson, his longtime childhood friend and medical school roommate, connected him with Angelo Lira, a friend of his in Silicon Valley—a wealthy man who now had a nephew because of Hutchinson’s expertise in helping his sister get pregnant. Lira owed Hutchinson, he told Ellis.

  “Will that get me an investor?”
Ellis asked.

  Hutchinson chortled, a hearty belly laugh. “No. These venture capital types are tough negotiators. But it’ll get you a sit-down dinner with him. Pitch him your idea. Face to face. He bites, then you’ll have an investor.”

  “Maybe Christine should go.”

  Hutchinson screwed his mouth into a frown. “Yeah, maybe not. This kind of meeting requires tact. A softer approach. If you get what I’m saying.”

  Ellis laughed—and then Hutchinson joined in. The adjectives gentle, sensitive, or subtle would never be used to describe Christine.

  Ellis did as suggested and set up a dinner with the entrepreneur—alone.

  When Ellis landed in San Francisco, a place he had never visited, the allure of the city hit him. The weather was brisk and the green hills picturesque. The streets were full of life, a cauldron of couture and culture, diversity of race and gender, a spectrum of wealth and poverty: stately Victorian mansions a block away from homeless encampments on the sidewalks.

  When Ellis walked into Boulevard, the maître d’ escorted him to a table in the back. The restaurant was noisy and candlelit, and the artfully presented food on the oblong plates that he passed looked both delicious and expensive.

  Angelo Lira stood as Ellis approached. The two men shook hands and sat simultaneously. “Welcome to our wonderful city.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Lira. I blocked off a day to sightsee tomorrow.”

  “On your own?”

  Ellis smiled. “I have a map in my pocket and Google on my phone.”

  “Nonsense. My driver will take you around. Born and raised here.”

  Ellis unfurled his napkin. “Not necessary.”

  “Of course it isn’t. But I insist.”

  “Okay.” Ellis pursed his lips. “Thanks.”

  “So John tells me you need an angel investor.”

  “Actually, I don’t know what I need. Well, that’s not true. I need capital to purchase equipment, lease space, hire a couple of research assistants.” He explained a little more as the waiter brought a bottle of sparkling water.