Fragile Facade (Blind Barriers Trilogy Book 1)

by Sophie Davis

  Slowly, those strong hands turned me around, only breaking contact with the fabric of my shirt for a moment. I was eye-level with his chest, which was a ringing endorsement for high school athletics.

  “Blake,” he said, smiling down at me.

  “Lark,” I replied. “Thank you. That could have been extremely embarrassing.”

  He laughed, the sound deep and rich and wonderful as it rumbled in his chest. “Nah. Nothing a beautiful girl does is embarrassing.”

  I felt the heat flood my cheeks. People at school, my father, random strangers told me I was Beautiful all the time. I believed them because my mother would have drained our bank accounts dry if I wasn’t. But when Blake said it, unlike when others did, I genuinely felt beautiful, despite my hair that was damp with perspiration and my makeup-free face.

  Since I was so used to people telling me how amazing I looked, I had a catalog of witty quips ready. But staring into Blake’s mesmerizingly green eyes, all I said was, “Thank you.”

  “Are you finished with your run? Would you maybe want to grab coffee? There’s this great place not far from here. Downtown Downs? Have you heard of it?”

  I had plans to meet Annie and Cam for a bottomless mimosa brunch followed by retail therapy – Cam’s latest relationship had ended in flames while we were out the night before. Yet, suddenly, my friend’s broken heart didn’t seem so Important.

  “Sounds great,” I told Blake.

  He, too, had been out for a morning run, and wore black track pants with Rathbourne Academy printed down the side. His short-sleeved shirt was made by Under Armour, and I wondered if the company had any idea what a walking endorsement for their clothes he made. Around his hips, he’d tied a track jacket that matched the pants.

  We made small talk as we walked. Blake told me that he played for Rathbourne’s soccer team and, since they didn’t have Saturday practice this week, he’d come to the park for a little exercise. I told him that I’d been desperate to get away from my parents for an hour, which was why I’d come To the park. He insisted I take the jacket from his waist when he noticed me shivering from the cold. I told him that, clearly, chivalry wasn’t dead.

  Twenty minutes later, we arrived at Downtown Downs, the cutest coffee shop I’d ever seen. We spent the day sipping lattes, eating Decadent desserts that my mother would never have approved of, and sharing our life histories.

  And that was how I met my soul mate.

  I often fell asleep reading Lark’s journal, even the more interesting passages. But confusion kept me awake tonight, and I reread the entry three times. Baffled, I flipped back through the earlier entries to find the one about the Met Ball. I was relieved to find that it still existed. For a minute there, I’d thought maybe I was losing it and had invented the story about them meeting at the charity benefit.

  Why would Lark have written two extremely different versions of how they met? I mean, why would she even bother making one up? Which one was true? Did it really matter?

  Some of Lark’s journal entries were long and rambling, and I often wondered whether she was a little nuts. The ones about Blake were the exception, always coherent and thoughtful. And so was this one. It just didn’t make sense that she’d have written it at all. The entry had an April date, which also didn’t make sense. According to the first line she’d written, the theoretical encounter had occurred in the fall. Why would she have waited six months to write it? Was it a clue? A clue for what? And, if so, what part of it was I supposed to pick up on? The date, again?

  “You sure are making me work for this, Lark,” I grumbled.

  Sleep refused to come after that. My brain was buzzing with all the possibilities of interpreting the journal entry. The numbers on my cell glowed 3:02 a.m. when I finally gave up on the pretense of sleep. I debated knocking on Asher’s door, but decided it would be rather rude to wake him. We didn’t both have to sleep deprived just because I couldn’t find the Sandman. Instead, I decided to go to the one place where I might actually find some answers: Lark’s apartment.

  Even if she hadn’t ever spent a night there prior to her disappearance, she’d been there at least a couple of times. No matter how careful she was, maybe there was something she’d overlooked. Though I’d been to the apartment, I’d never actually looked around. It just felt so intrusive. But maybe I could find something that would give me a better hint at Lark’s whereabouts than the clues she’d intentionally left behind. Besides, Lark had already left clues in a number of obscure places. It only made sense that she’d have put a couple in obvious places, too.

  I pulled on a pair of navy shorts and a navy- and white-striped polo. Even in the middle of the night, the heat and humidity were stifling. I tucked my laptop and wallet into my messenger bag, along with the keys to Lark’s apartment and her journal. I spared my appearance a brief glance in the bathroom mirror. My bloodshot eyes and their surrounding dark circles broadcast that I’d yet to sleep. The shorter layers of my shoulder-length bob were sticking out, giving me the tousled, spent-the-day-at-the-beach look that so many hair product companies tried to bottle. I hastily pulled my hair back into a sleek ponytail, fastening the shorter pieces with a clip to keep them from falling free.

  I decided to take my car instead of walking around D.C. in the middle of the night. Driving the mile to The Pines, I found rockstar parking directly across from the glass building. For once, Darrell was not on duty. His nighttime counterpart was a sleepy-looking security guard with a shaved head and a fastidiously groomed beard. I was prepared to launch into my cover story about being Lark’s cousin/friend, but the guard couldn’t be bothered. He must be used to random girls showing up in the middle of the night. Great, he thought I was somebody’s booty call. Tapping the visitor’s log, he muttered, “Name, date, and time, miss.”

  I smiled and hurriedly scrawled a barely legible signature along with today’s date and “3:43 a.m.”

  The Pines was eerily quiet, which I actually preferred. The last thing I wanted, or needed, was to run into Deirdre or some other nosy neighbor in the wee hours of the morning.

  Frigid air conditioning welcomed me into Lark’s apartment, and I wondered whether utilities were included in the rent. Lark hadn’t left me blank checks for the electric company. I flipped the light switch in the small foyer, then placed my messenger bag on the kitchen counter.

  “Where to start?” I mumbled aloud to break the silence.

  It was too quiet in Lark’s apartment, and I found myself jumping at every creak and groan. I’d liked the quiet earlier, but now it felt ominous. Shaking off my unease, I headed down the short hallway that presumably led to the bedroom and bathroom. Thus far, I’d only seen the kitchen and living room.

  There were three rooms off the hallway. One was a moderately-sized bathroom done in smoky-gray marble. Lark had hung a white shower curtain with large red roses. The vibrant flowers lent a much-needed pop of color to the otherwise monotone bathroom. The space wasn’t overly large. I’d kind of expected more from The Pines, though this was worlds nicer than the bathroom I had in my current apartment.

  I did a quick check of the medicine cabinet above the sink and found it empty. The shower appeared unused. The transparent liner still smelled like fresh plastic, and there was a faint layer of dust in the tub. Even the roll of toilet paper placed on the dispenser was untouched.

  “Okay, moving on,” I said.

  Because the complete lack of noise was still getting to me, I left a trail of lights on in my wake. The bright white illumination gave me a small degree of comfort as I set about snooping into Lark’s secret life.

  The next door I opened led to what appeared to be a small guest bedroom. A daybed was against one wall, covered in a white brocade quilt and decorative pillows. The closet was small, barely large enough for one week’s worth of clothing. Nothing hung on the bar. The walls, too, were bare. There weren’t even any scuff marks on the white paint from moving the bed into the room.

  Another dead e
nd. I sighed.

  Finally, at the end of the hallway, I found the master suite. The door was closed, which is probably why I’d never ventured into it before. At the time, I took that as Lark wanting her privacy, even if she knew someone would be coming into the apartment. But now that she was actively engaging me to follow her clues…it was time. I held my breath, slightly scared when the picture of a dead body flashed into my mind when I grasped the doorknob.

  Nice, Raven. Perfect timing for considering that, I chastised myself. The odor of a dead body would’ve been apparent the first time I entered the apartment. I hoped. That’s how it always seemed on Criminal Minds.

  Before I could give myself anymore macabre ideas, I hurriedly swung the door open. I stayed rooted just outside the doorway in case someone pounced. Of course, no one did. Inside was only a perfectly ordinary, perfectly empty, room. In contrast to the bathroom and the guest bedroom, it was huge, and more in line with what I would expect in a luxury penthouse apartment. Lark’s bed was a California King, the pale blue down comforter neatly arranged beneath enough throw pillows to fill my car’s backseat. Unlike the daybed in the guest room, I got the impression that this bed had been slept in at some point. I couldn’t put my finger on how I knew this to be true, but I did. I felt certain of it.

  The room smelled faintly of perfume that I could only describe as expensive. The walls were still white and held neither framed photos, nor the expensive prints that I might have expected. Lark struck me as the type who, given the option of decorating her own space, would surround herself with reminders of those she loved. I’d thought I would find pictures of her and Blake, or of her and her friends. Still, the master bedroom felt as though someone had spent time there.

  A sleek glass-topped desk with a large flat screen monitor caught my attention. Besides the computer display and an empty laptop docking station, only a thin layer of dust sat on the transparent surface. I sat in Lark’s leather desk chair, absently noting how insanely comfortable it was, and began opening the desk’s drawers. There were two short, squat drawers on each side and one long, narrow one at the top center. I started with the ones that looked like filing cabinets.

  The first drawer that I opened contained a ream of plain white printer paper and a box of equally boring envelopes. I took a minute to flip through both to make sure they were all blank and nothing was stuck in between. They were, and there wasn’t. Next, I found a drawer full of office supplies. Binder clips, gel pens, markers, pencils, post-it notes, highlighters, and pretty much the rest of Staples’ stock was in there. You name it, Lark Kingsley had it. The supplies all looked brand new. I wondered if she’d had a purpose in mind when she purchased them.

  Finally, I struck gold – sort of – when I found a manila file folder. The folder was unlabeled, and inside was one slip of yellow carbon copy paper that had “Custom Order Receipt” at the top. It was a handwritten work order for something called Linus Systems. Under the “Item(s)” and “Description(s)” column headings, there were two lines filled in. The first item listed was a “Customized 3000XPS.” My eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when I noticed the price. Ten thousand dollars. What on earth had Lark paid that much money for?

  The second line read “Installation” and had a high, yet much more manageable, price attached. At the bottom of the receipt, the words “PAID IN FULL” had been written in all caps. Beneath that, someone had scrawled, cash. She’d been careful to leave as little of a trail as possible, I realized. Using cash eliminates the majority of the paperwork.

  I stared at the receipt, reading it again from top to bottom for any clues. Lark had been extremely careful to this point. Did that mean she wanted someone to find this? There was no note attached, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a purposeful clue, right? Everything was a clue, I decided. At least I was going to treat everything like it was a clue.

  I left the receipt sitting on the top of the desk and resumed searching. There was nothing else noteworthy in the drawers, so I moved on to the closet. And wow, was it a closet. A big selling point for me with Kim’s apartment had been the size of the one there, and all of its built-in shelving. That closet was Rhode Island to Lark’s Texas-sized one. Literally, you could fit my entire bedroom and the closet into just Lark’s closet. And unlike me, she had more than enough clothing to fill the space.

  Everything was neatly categorized, with jeans, slacks, and skirts – all arranged according to season – on the left side of the walk-in. Tops organized by sleeve-length, from tank to long, were on the right side, with sweaters stacked on the shelf above. The back wall held dresses hanging on the bars, as well as more coats than I’d owned in all of my life. Racks of shoes lined the bottom half of the closet the entire way around, organized by occasion and season. I spun around in the middle of the closet, letting myself temporarily forget my mission and the missing heiress. This closet was like a slice of heaven.

  I ran my hands over the soft fabrics, pretending for a brief moment that this was my closet and these were my clothes. That was when I noticed something truly strange. Nearly everything still had tags attached. It was as if Lark hadn’t shipped her Manhattan wardrobe down here, but had simply purchased an entirely new one instead.

  I tamped down the flare of resentment that was provoked by this discovery. I had to remind myself that we were from different worlds. People like Lark Kingsley – people who could afford to drop ten thousand dollars on something and buy cashier’s checks for a year’s worth of rent – were the same people who discarded garments every three months. Though, from what I’d read, Lark had seemed almost irked by this practice. So I was pretty sure that wasn’t why she’d purchased all of these clothes.

  The tags were from places I shopped: Gap, Abercrombie, Old Navy, American Eagle, The Limited, and, on the pricier end, J. Crew. I knew from reading Lark’s journal that she didn’t frequent those stores; she dressed like everyone else in her world, in only big-name designers. So, what was the deal? Was this her attempt at blending in? Was this wardrobe another clue?

  I retrieved a small pad of paper and a pen from Lark’s desk and started making an inventory of the items I found in her apartment. After I finished searching I could examine the list and look for patterns.

  Reluctantly I left the new clothes behind. The obvious place to start my list was the one place I had yet to enter – the second bathroom, attached to the master suite. The tile was the same smoky gray marble as the other bathroom. There were both a walk-in shower and a large soaking tub. The latter was complete with jets and steps that you had to climb to get in. The sight of it made me want to strip down and take advantage of life’s small luxuries. Lark had at least added a few personal touches here. A light blue bath mat and matching fuzzy toilet seat cover provided a hint of color. Scented candles in the shade of blue she obviously loved so much were arranged on one corner of the tub. I imagined the scent was something innocuous, like sea breeze or ocean spray. Whatever it was called, the visual effect was soothing.

  This medicine cabinet held a toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, tweezers, and an eyelash curler, of all things. I shuddered when I touched the cool metal of the torture device. The one time I’d used one, for senior prom, I’d torn out what seemed like half of my lashes.

  Fatigue was finally starting to catch up with me, but I wanted to finish this initial search of the apartment before returning home. There were a dresser, a lingerie chest, and a nightstand that I still needed to go through in the bedroom. Then I wanted to do a quick search of the kitchen cabinets and drawers. Maybe Linus Systems wasn’t the only place Lark had hired to do some custom work.

  The dresser held pajamas and workout clothes, all with the tags still on them. Her undergarment collection was the same. At this point, I had no problem rifling through her clothes to look for clues. It wasn’t an invasion of her privacy, since she’d basically asked me to do just that. Well, she’d asked me to help her, and I took that as an open invitation to invade her privacy. But unde
rwear was where I drew the line. Even though the unmentionables were clearly new, touching them felt wrong and icky. I did, however, make sure that no notes or boxes or false bottoms were hidden in the lingerie chest.

  It was in her nightstand that I found the next interesting item: a copy of The Great Gatsby. I let out an audible gasp when I first saw the well-worn book. Our mutual love of the classic novel shouldn’t have come as that big of a surprise. After all, I’d read in her journal all about a 1920s-inspired theme party that Lark had – maybe – attended. Gatsby was also required reading for most high schools. Still, I found it odd that both of us kept the same book next to our respective beds.

  The other telling item I found in the nightstand was an iPod. A girl’s musical preferences can often give you a lot of insight into her life and mental state. Beneath the iPod was another book of sorts, though not in the traditional sense. This one made me groan audibly. It wasn’t a great work of classic literature, a New York Times Bestseller, or even the latest girly “it” novel. No, it was a thick volume, made of the same materials as those you’d find with word searches or crossword puzzles. Except, this was a collection of Sudoku puzzles. I hated Sudoku.

  I rubbed my eyes and fought the urge to close them. A pounding headache was developing at the base of my skull. I hadn’t seen any Tylenol in Lark’s medicine cabinet, and I hadn’t thought to bring any with me. The drive back to my place would only take about ten minutes, and that included the time it would take to find parking. Yet, I was suddenly so tired that even ten minutes sounded like a lifetime.

  I’ll just rest here, I thought. Lark clearly won’t be using it tonight. And she said to step into her life, or whatever. This could just be part of it for tonight. No harm done.

  I stretched out on her bed, grabbed her iPod, selected “Shuffle,” and hit “Play.” Sleep finally took me under, as Green Day sang about the “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.”