Blank Slate

by Olivia Saxton

  Layla’s head was spinning. Her mother thought she was dead. “Isn’t she dead?”

  “Not as I know of. Matter of fact, the last I heard, your parents were still alive.”

  Layla’s mouth dropped open as she placed her hands on her stomach. She felt like she was going to pass out.

  “Do you want a cigarette?” she asked. “You look like you need it.”

  “I don’t smoke.”

  “You used to.”

  “What?”

  “Yep. You weren’t a heavy smoker. Just one here and there. Alec caught you with one once. You quit because of him – started chewing bubble gum when you had the urge for a cigarette.”

  The image of her chewing gum in the mirror flashed back in her mind. She shot up off the bench. “I . . . I.”

  “Sit back down,” she said with concern. “If you tumble over, I won’t be able to pick you up. I’m too old for that stuff.”

  Layla sat back down slowly.

  “Too bad we’re not in a bar. You could probably use a drink.”

  “Yes,” Layla breathed. Her insides were bubbling. All this couldn’t be true. It was ludicrous. Then she remembered something. “The man. The one I left Alec for. Who was he?”

  “His name was Carter Mitchell,” she answered as she held the cigarette between her fingers next to her face.

  Layla’s mouth dropped open as her eyes felt like they were going to pop out of her head. “No. No, that has to be wrong. You must be mistaken. If Carter had known me from before, he would have said.”

  “What? Have you’ve been in contact with him? Did he find you?”

  “I . . . I . . . have to go. Thanks for meeting with me,” Layla said as she stood. She started walking away.

  “Lana, wait! You need to stay away from him! He’s dangerous!”

  Layla started running.

  “Wait! Lana!” Martha yelled from a distance.

  Chapter 16

  Layla couldn’t get back to sleep. So she had woken Damien around six a.m. suggesting that they check out early and visit Universal Studios on their way out of town. He thought Keisha might like it, so he agreed, to her relief. She didn’t want to run into Martha Peterson again. What Martha had to tell her was unreal. There was no way it was true. Layla threw herself into enjoying Universal, trying to push back the shocking story from last night. It was ten p.m. when they finally got home.

  The next morning, Layla was still exhausted. She felt physically and emotionally drained. It was so obvious to Damien that he told her not to worry about fixing breakfast. He said he would fix him and Keisha cereal, and he would stay until Izabella got there. Layla went back to bed without protest.

  When she woke again, it was eleven a.m. She hadn’t slept that late since – she couldn’t remember when she had ever slept until eleven. After taking a quick shower, she headed to Keisha’s room. Izabella was getting her down for a nap.

  “Oh, it is her nap time, isn’t it?” Layla whispered. Half the day had gotten away from her.

  “Si,” she replied as she put a sheet over Keisha.

  They quietly left the room and went downstairs.

  “Wait, did she eat lunch?”

  “No, she was more tired than hungry, so I just put her upstairs.”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you feeling well? It’s not like you to sleep this late.”

  “Well, that unexpected trip took more out of me than I thought it would.”

  “Would you like to talk about it?”

  Layla thought for a moment. Izabella was the only person who knew she was trying to learn about her past. Perhaps the nanny could give a fresh perspective on what Martha Peterson had told her. She began telling Izabella about meeting the Petersons and then meeting with Martha alone to talk. The nanny listened with peaked and shocked interest.

  “You don’t believe her?” Izabella asked.

  “I don’t know. Perhaps she is talking about another woman.”

  “I can’t see any reason for her to make it up. What about the other name she called you? Lana? Did she say how you and Dr. Miles met?”

  “She didn’t know. Matter of fact, she said I needed to probe Damien more about what he told me back then about my parents. She claimed they were still alive, and I wasn’t adopted.”

  “Hmmm,” Izabella mused. “You should do research. My kids talk about Googling stuff all the time. You should Google your name, well, the name that woman called you. You should Google everyone’s names; Alec Peterson, Carter Michael.”

  “Mitchell,” Layla corrected.

  “Mitchell, and that Bruce guy.”

  “That’s a good idea. Let’s do it now.”

  They went into the den where Layla had an office desk and computer. She fired the computer up as Izabella carried a chair over to sit next to her.

  “Let’s do . . . your name first,” Izabella suggested.

  “Okay.” She typed the name into Google. The search returned thirty Facebook accounts, forty LinkedIn profiles, and various Twitter accounts. “Oh, we’ll have to narrow it down. Let’s try . . . Lana Murphy, Howard University, Washington, DC.”

  Nothing came up under the keywords.

  Layla exhaled. “I knew it. It is all nonsense.”

  “Let’s look up everyone else.”

  She typed Alec Peterson’s name along with the city, Tampa, Florida. A Facebook account came up for him. She clicked on the link. The profile picture was him all right. He had a half smile on his face. His stats said he was thirty-two, and he worked for the federal government. She read what she found to Izabella. She knew how to speak English, but reading it was two different things.

  “What else does it say?” Izabella asked.

  “He has a private account. I can’t see any more without us being friends on Facebook.”

  “Send him a request.”

  “I can’t. I don’t have a Facebook account, and I don’t think he would respond anyway since he practically ran from me when we first met.” Layla cleared her query and then entered Bruce Styles’s name along with the city and state.

  A Facebook profile popped up for him. Layla clicked the link, and she had to choose from three different profiles. She identified his profile picture immediately and clicked on it. Layla read Bruce’s stats out loud. “He works for the government, he was born in Texas, and now lives in Florida. His hobbies are lifting weights, watching football, and hanging out with his friends. He attended Howard University and graduated with a bachelor’s degree.”

  Layla couldn’t see his posts, but she could click on the loads of pictures he had uploaded. The first photo were of him in swim trunks with two girls in bikinis on both sides of him. A volleyball net was in the background. The next picture was of him and two guys with the same dark hair he had. She gasped when she clicked for the next one. It was of him and Alec at what looked like a racetrack in the background. Layla continued to flip through a few more of them. Alec was in two more pictures. “I may as well move on. None of these pictures are helpful.”

  She returned to Google and typed in Carter Mitchell’s name and the city he was from. Her eyebrows went up when several articles came up for him. Layla clicked on the first one. It was only two months old. “Carter Mitchell was taken in for questioning about a body that had been found in a Brooklyn alley. This hasn’t been Mitchell’s first scrape with the law, but he was released due to lack of evidence.”

  “Whoa,” Izabella said.

  “It could have been a misunderstanding,” Layla remarked. She hoped anyway. She went back to the search results and clicked on the second link. This article was almost four years old. “Carter Mitchell, Hugo Mitchell, Ebony Mitchell, and Sly Holtz were brought in for questioning about a possible drug connection to Mexican drug lords.”

  “This is getting interesting.”

  Layla nodded and sent the article to her printer. She kept going with the Google research. By the time she was through, she had found out that Carter and his associates
had gotten out of the drug trafficking accusations because of lost evidence and the disappearance of the informant. Carter didn’t have a social media account. He was a sponsor of a community center in the Bronx.

  “So what now?”

  “I’m playing with the idea of calling Howard University about Lana Murphy.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Izabella said.

  “I’m going to have to tell a fib, I think,” Layla said slowly. “I can’t see them giving information on a former student to just anybody.” She googled the university’s registrar’s office phone number. She pulled out her cell and dialed.

  “Howard University’s Office of the Registrar,” the woman answered.

  “Yes, my name is . . . Sarah Duncan. I’m the director of HEAP. We’re located in Tampa, Florida. I’m calling to do a background check on a candidate for an open position,” Layla said.

  “All right. Do you just need to confirm that your candidate attended our school?”

  “Yes, but I have other questions.”

  “Well, let’s start with the candidate’s name and see if he or she attended the university.”

  “Lana Murphy.”

  “Do you know the years she attended?”

  Layla quickly counted back in her head. “About thirteen – fourteen years ago.”

  “Hold one moment, please,” she said.

  “She’s checking,” Layla mouthed to Izabella.

  “Yes, we did have a student named Lana Renee Murphy, but she didn’t get a degree or certification.”

  “Thank you for confirming that. Can you tell me what classes she took or what her major was?”

  “Her major was accounting. She attended for three years.”

  “Do you know why she dropped out?’

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell me about the candidate that would be helpful in our evaluation?”

  “Not without written consent from the former student.”

  “All right, thank you very much.”

  “Thank you. Have a good day.” The woman hung up.

  “Well?”

  “Well, Lana really did go to Howard and her major was accounting. That’s all I could find out.”

  “A little more than what you had.”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe you can call the hall of records or something. Oh, I know. Call a Pin Eye.”

  “A what?”

  “Pin Eye. My son told me that America has these detectives who are not necessarily the police, but they can investigate things for regular citizens who are not reporting a crime.”

  Layla’s eyebrows furrowed. “Do you mean a PI? Private investigator?”

  “Si, si.”

  “That’s something to consider.”

  “Izzy! Mommy!” Keisha called from upstairs.

  “Someone is up from her nap,” Izabella said.

  “I’ll get her,” Layla said.

  Chapter 17

  It was a quiet Tuesday morning until Lacey called. She was frantic that there were two break-ins three streets down from Sunset Boulevard.

  “I don’t care what Corey says. He has to leave overnight for business all the time, and I’m usually here alone. I’m getting a gun and getting instruction on how to use it.”

  “I know you’re concerned, but this is one of the best areas in Tampa. Surely, they were isolated incidents. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was someone that the victims knew,” Layla stated.

  “I’m not taking any chances. We got a lot of expensive things in here. Plus, I’m too cute to be a victim. I want you to come with me.”

  “Lacey, I got to finish the laundry.”

  “You got a maid now.”

  “I know, but I like doing my own laundry.”

  “Surely, that can be postponed for another day or so. Please,” she enunciated like a child.

  Layla rolled her eyes. Sometimes she wondered why she put up with Lacey. She could be pretty demanding. Then she remembered it was because Lacey was the only woman in the neighborhood who would hang out with her at first. And Lacey was fun to hang out with most of the time. “All right, give me one hour.”

  “Great,” she said with smugness in her voice and hung up.

  Layla hung up the phone and went back into the laundry room. She was going to finish sorting a pile of clothes. As usual, she checked Damien’s pants pockets. After searching five pairs of his pants, she found three dollars and four cents in change and a set of keys.

  The keys were two different sets. Two looked like lock keys, and the other two looked like keys to a jewelry box. The key chain was a miniature eight ball.

  “Hmm, I’ve never seen these before.” Layla put the keys and the change in her pocket. Then she jogged upstairs to change clothes to meet Lacey.

  An hour and twenty minutes later, Layla and Lacey were walking into Tampa Guns and Range. The place was huge. As soon as they walked in, Layla saw guns everywhere — rifles, sniper rifles, shot guns, handguns, AKs, and scopes. The place also had bulletproof vests, sunglasses, crossbows, backpacks, and knives.

  “Can I help you ladies?” the man behind the glass casing at the end of the room asked. He had a buzz cut, and he was stout in stature.

  “Yes,” Lacey said as she walked to him.

  Layla followed.

  “I’m looking to buy a small handgun for protection,” Lacey said. “My husband is out of town a lot on business, and there have been break-ins a few streets down from us.”

  “Well, you’ve come to the right place. Are you a beginner?”

  “Yes.”

  “My name is Lou.”

  “I’m Lacey, and this is my friend, Layla.”

  “Nice to meet you. Will you be needing a gun, too, Layla?”

  “No,” she answered quickly. This place made her feel strange – like she was out of place there. Then she felt like she was starting to fade away into the background.

  “I don’t want anything big. Something small, light,” Lacey stated.

  “Something that you can carry in your purse if need be?” Lou asked.

  “Yes,” Lacey answered.

  “I got just the thing,” Lou said. He walked a few inches to the side, bent over, and unlocked the case. He opened the door and pulled out a small black-and-silver handgun. Then he closed the case and walked back to them. “This is a Taurus compact pistol seven-thirty-eight. It’s lighter than our frame revolvers,” he explained and handed it to Lacey. “It’s on sale for two hundred and five dollars.”

  She palmed it, weighing the small yet powerful weapon in her hand. “It might be too compact.”

  “It’ll get the job done without knocking you backwards, I assure you,” Lou said. “But I can show you something a little bigger if you want.”

  “Can I . . . take it for a test drive or something?” Lacey asked.

  “The range is downstairs. I can load it up and show you how to use it, if you want,” Lou said.

  “Yes, please do,” Lacey said.

  Layla looked down in the case in front of them. “I want to see that chrome Python and the bronze Glock,” she heard herself say.

  What the hell? It was like she wasn’t in control. She heard herself ask to see guns — that she actually knew the names of. But how?

  “Sure,” Lou said and bent down to get the merchandise.

  Lacey stared at her like she had never seen her before.

  He set the two guns on the counter.

  Layla picked them up. The python was a good weight and probably packed a hell of punch when fired. The Glock was lighter, and it held more bullets. She was mesmerized by the power of them, by how they made her feel.

  “Since I’m taking your friend down to the range, you want to test them out?” Lou asked.

  “Let’s do it,” she heard herself say.

  Damn it. Why can’t I stop?

  Lou called a guy to cover the front so he could accompany them downstairs to the firing range. Within
minutes, they donned earmuffs and started walking down the firing line. Three guys were reloading as they walked.

  They stopped in an open booth that was separated by glass from the other booths.

  “Line is hot,” a man said over the speaker.

  The shooters recommenced with their target practice.

  Lou showed them how to check the barrel and load the Taurus pistol. “Always check the barrel of your gun and the chamber. I don’t care if you know that it doesn’t have anything in it. Check it anyway. Understood?”

  Layla and Lacey nodded.

  “She’s hot for ya, Lacey,” he said as he handed her the pistol. “Now, what do you do first?”

  “Check the chamber and the barrel,” she answered seriously.

  “Good. Do it.”

  She fumbled a bit, but she did it.

  “Now, face out and take your stance, shoulder-width apart,” he instructed.

  She did.

  “Now, a target is already out there. Just aim and pull the trigger gently – don’t jerk it,” he said.

  The noise from the gun startled her.

  “I told you. Just because it’s small doesn’t mean that it won’t get the job done.”

  Then she pulled the trigger again. If anything, she got used to the sound, but she only hit the target three times.

  Lou pressed a button under the counter. The target sheet started moving toward them. “Let’s check your first go.”

  The mechanism stopped. Three holes were around the dark-shaped male target.

  “Damn,” Lacey said with disappointment.

  “It was your first time,” Lou stated. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. I’ve been with beginners who didn’t hit the paper at all on their first round. At least you hit it three times.” He took the paper down. Then he opened the drawer underneath the counter and loaded a fresh target. Layla noticed that the targets weren’t just of male figures. There were targets of deer and bull’s eyes.

  Lacey shrugged.

  “Let’s let Layla have a turn,” Lou suggested. “Which one you want to start with?” He pressed the button again. The target moved away from them.

  “The Glock,” she heard herself answer. But, underneath, she was screaming. She didn’t want this. It’s like she was on autopilot.