Sharp Absence (Sharp Investigations Book 1)

by Kate Anders

  The paper has every book listed, followed by how much it’s worth and how much the condition of my books is going to net me.

  “If you are okay with all the prices, just sign at the bottom and then I’ll cash you out,” he explains.

  I look at the bottom total: $232.74. Not even close to what I was hoping for, but at this point, I’ll take it. I scribble my signature as quickly as possible and then slide it over the counter.

  “Are you the only one who works the buyback counter?” I ask, hoping he stays forthcoming. If almost every withdrawing student comes through here, maybe Clara did too. If she did, as much as it would hurt that she up and left without telling me, at least it would mean she was probably okay wherever she is.

  “Yep, just me. Well, me and the manager. I’m the only full-timer and he’s not exactly trusting when it comes to large sums of cash.”

  “Of course.” I laugh a little. “A friend of mine was going to return some books a few days ago, you might have run into her, her name’s Clara.”

  “Clara? Huh, let me think. There was a girl who came in earlier this week, but I’m terrible with names, not sure if it was your friend,” he says and he starts ringing everything up in the computer.

  “Are you good with faces, ’cause I’m sure I have a picture in my phone,” I say with a smile.

  “I never forget a face.” His flirty smile tells me this is going to be a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.

  “Oh yeah?” A little harmless flirting never hurt anybody. It only takes a second to grab my phone out of my back pocket before opening the Photos app. A few simple swipes later and I’m staring at a picture of Clara and me. It’s a selfie we took in our living room on the couch. Right after the breakup with Collin. Clara was on a mission to distract me and we had so many ice cream sundae movie nights that we each gained five pounds. She has her arms wrapped around my shoulders as I take the picture, and it’s a moment in time that I would give anything to go back to.

  The ache in my chest gets stronger, and it takes a moment before I’m ready to show Clara to the guy, but I pull it together and turn the phone toward him. “This is her,” I tell him.

  “Well, I certainly recognize one of these faces,” he says with a wink. “But I don’t recognize the other girl. Haven’t seen her in here before, or at least not any time recently.”

  My heart sinks. I want so bad at this point for her to just have ghosted me. I take a deep breath and try to act as normal as I can. “That’s alright, I figured I would ask.”

  “Well, here’s your cash back, you have forty-eight hours to change your mind and buy back the books at the same price you got cash back for, if not, price goes back up to list. Make sure you have your receipt or the owner won’t let us honor the policy, even if I do recognize your face.” He gives me a friendly smile, that thankfully isn’t creepy. I don’t have it in me to deal with creepy right now.

  “Thanks a lot.”

  Well, I guess it’s a good thing I now have most of the money I need to pay for Will’s services, I’m even more convinced that Clara didn’t take off on her own now.

  Back at Anderson and Associates, even though there are no associates, I get ready to make my case to Will. A quick glance around the parking lot and I see the same truck in the parking lot that was there the last time I came to pay him a visit. It’s light outside this time though so I can make it out better. Of course he drives a truck, and basically the most common one on the road, a Ford F-150. He seems like the kind of guy who would prefer a truck. It’s something that probably suits him in town as well as out in the country, and I’m sure it fits in in most neighborhoods.

  I don’t know a lot about being a private investigator but I’m assuming he probably needs a vehicle he can sit in for long periods and be comfortable while also not alerting neighbors that some random guy is outside watching.

  I look a little closer at it when I get out of the car. I realize then that it’s one of the nicer models of F-150, not that I really know the difference, but I can tell that this one looks like it has all the bells and whistles. The thing I find the most amusing, though, is that the truck is pristine. It’s probably the nicest looking trust I’ve seen outside of a car dealership. I bet he washes and waxes the truck on the weekends. And when I peer inside the window, I can tell there isn’t one speck of trash inside and the leather on the interior is gleaming. I bet it smells like new car too.

  When I was in his office, it was anything but pristine. There were papers scattered all over the place, his computer looked like it had seen better days, and he had stacks of boxes piled up in corners all over the place. I can’t really reconcile a guy who keeps his office looking like an episode of hoarders and a guy who clearly spends way more time than is necessary taking care of his truck. Oh god, I hope he’s not one of those guys that is obsessed with his truck.

  “You’re back.” I hear called out to me as I have my face pressed against the window. I can feel my cheeks start to heat up and I know when I turn around to look at him, there is no way I am going to be able to hide the blush from him. I don’t even bother trying.

  “Yep, I’m back.” I spin to face him straight on. He looks the same as the last time. Same boots, same dark-fade jeans, even the same black compression workout T-shirt. I wonder if he’s cold. I would be freezing if I was outside in a T-shirt right now.

  “You pull the money together that quick?” he says with an air of surprise in his tone.

  “Yeah, about that…” I start.

  “Hmph, yeah, that’s what I thought.” He turns around and walks back into his office.

  “Hey, wait,” I call after him, rushing to follow him. I’m just about to start explaining everything when I trip over one of the boxes right by the front door. “Fuck!” I mutter as I lurch forward, knowing full well I’m about to become good friends with the floor.

  Before I have a chance to fall on my face, I see black boots enter my vision and feel hands wrap around my arms, stopping my descent. My eyes travel from his sleek black leather boots up to his face.

  I didn’t get a good look at him last time, or at least not up close like this. He has light-brown eyes, like a smooth caramel color. He shaved since last time and given that he smells like leather and not cigar smoke, he’s clearly changed since then too. He must just have a standard uniform, or severely limited wardrobe options.

  “Thanks,” I whisper, still looking up at him.

  It takes a few seconds before he lets go of my arms, like he was making sure I was steady on my feet before he released me.

  “You should really pay more attention,” he scolds.

  “Seriously? Have you looked around this place? It will be a miracle if all your clients don’t start a visit with a trip to the ER,” I snap back. Crap, I’m supposed to be sweetening him up, not pissing him off. I rib him a little with my elbow so hopefully he will think I’m just teasing.

  “What can I say, organizing isn’t my strong suit.” He moves toward his desk. “So if you don’t have the money, what brings you here today?”

  “I have most of the money.”

  He scoffs as soon as the words leave my mouth.

  “I’m serious. Two thousand seven hundred and thirty-four dollars. And some change if you are interested.”

  His eyebrow raises, and he gets an amused expression on his face.

  “I was hoping maybe we could make an arrangement or something.”

  “The only arrangement I’m interested in is cash. Cold hard cash,” he tells me as he crosses one leg over the other and leans back against the front of his desk.

  “I know. I know. It’s just time sensitive, you know? I can sell some other stuff, and get you the money as soon as I can, I just thought maybe if I gave you most of it, you would be willing to start work a little early.”

  Will stands up and looks me over. “You sold stuff?”

  “Yeah, my textbooks.” I try to make it sound like it’s no big deal, I need him
to agree to this plan, not harp over the details.

  “Your textbooks. I thought you were in your senior year, aren’t you going to need those?” he asks, an element of concern creeping into his tone.

  “This is more important. Besides, you can find a lot of stuff on the internet these days, so I can probably do without them. It’s fine. Anyway, I was hoping we could figure something out in the meantime. I was going over everything last night and I think I found something, but I need help with it.” I can tell I sound like I’m rambling.

  “Why don’t you sit down and tell me what you found out and then we can figure out the whole money thing in a minute?” He moves to sit in one of the chairs in front of his desk, and after a couple of passing seconds, I take the chair next to him.

  It only takes a few minutes to explain about the email and hand him the copy that I was carrying in my messenger bag. Then I tell him all about how Clara was obsessive about the cloud but how she hadn’t signed into the university cloud in months.

  “So, what do you think? The cloud’s important, right? It has to be.” If he thinks the cloud is important, then we might finally have an avenue of investigation to go down.

  “It might not be, but yeah, it’s something I would want to check out, especially if she is as obsessive as she is about saving to it.” There’s a pause before he continues. “Have you been to class this week?” he asks.

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “It’s not important to me right now, this is what is important. Will you help? I know I don’t have the full amount right now, but I thought maybe you could start looking into the cloud thing and I could take that time to come up with the extra money. I have no idea how to even start with finding out where she stores her information, so I figured you might be able to—”

  “Hey,” he interrupts. “Slow down. School is important, you’ve gotten this far, do you really think that Clara would want you just to throw everything away?”

  I get to my feet in two seconds flat. “Of course she would! She would do the same thing for me! What, you want me just to sit in class and talk about Macbeth and pretend I don’t go home to an empty apartment every night? Well, that’s not going to happen. So either you help me, or I do it on my own, but either way, class is the last thing on my mind.” I run out of steam toward the end and slowly collapse back into the chair and hang my head. Some of the strands from my hair have come out from my messy bun and are now hanging in front of my eyes. Slowly I lift my head back up and look over at Will. “I’m sorry, I just—”

  “I know. It’s okay.” Will reaches over to me and slowly moves the hair out of my face and tucks it behind my ear. “I get it.”

  I release the breath I didn’t know I was holding.

  “Do you think we can figure something out about the money? Maybe I could help out around here until then.” I gesture around the office. “I swear I’m really good at organizing, and I could really help out with getting everything organized around here. And then I could even be around if you had any questions about Clara. You never know what might end up being helpful, right?” I can’t keep the hope out of my voice.

  Will just sits there in his chair, looking at me. Like he’s trying to size me up and make a decision about what he’s going to do.

  Finally, he nods at me. “I know someone who can help with the cloud thing. I’m okay at the tech thing but nowhere near an expert. I can make a call.”

  My heart skips a beat in my chest. “Is that a yes? That’s a yes, right?”

  “We’ll see how it goes. But yeah, it’s a yes.”

  I can’t contain the excitement coursing through me in that moment, I dart forward and wrap my arms around Will even though the arm of my chair is pushing painfully into my stomach. The discomfort is totally worth it. Will, ever so awkwardly, pats my arms a few times.

  “Thank you. Thank you so much. You will never know how much this means to me,” I murmur in his ear and I keep hugging him.

  When I finally release him, he looks me dead in the eye and with a haunted look on his face says, “Yes, I do, I know exactly how much it means.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “THE DISTRICT SLEEPS ALONE TONIGHT” BY POSTAL SERVICE

  Knock knock knock knock

  I startled awake, not having realized that I had actually fallen asleep on the couch. My fingers went to wipe my eyes to clear away the sleep fog that had me feeling dazed and confused. Clearly, I had fallen into a deep sleep because my eyes were so full of sleep that they felt plastered shut. My legs were propped up on the armrest of the sofa. Great, I fell asleep on the couch again. More abuse and cricks my body didn’t need. I’m going to be just a ball of sore muscles if this continues much longer.

  Knock knock knock knock

  This time, I recognize what is happening. Four rapid knocks delivered one right after the other. Looking over to the cable box under the television, I see that it is after midnight. Who the hell is at my apartment after midnight? Even Collin never showed up this late when we were together, and Clara never had guests over this late.

  “Clara,” I whispered.

  My body filled with excitement, maybe it’s her! Reality set in after I got off the couch, but before I made it to the door. It wouldn’t be Clara, she would be yelling at me through the door, telling me to open up already. Nervous apprehension fills my body as I start to approach the door. I know I am looking at the door like it is a monster that is going to jump out at me at any second.

  I take a deep breath to steel myself before finally calling out, “Who is it?”

  One word follows. “King.”

  King? I racked my brain. Do I know a King? No, I don’t think so. I’ve met and talked to so many people in the past week but I couldn’t remember a single one of them introducing themselves as King.

  “Do you know what time it is?” I call out, still not comfortable opening the door.

  “William sent me,” the voice replies.

  William.

  Oh. Will.

  Will sent someone?

  It takes only a second for me to unlock the door and swing it open. I don’t know what I am expecting to find on the other side, but whatever I’m expecting is not what I find.

  She is tiny, like one of those elfin pixies described in fantasy novels. She looks like she is maybe five foot two, and if she is more than a hundred pounds soaking wet, I would be shocked. The most striking thing about her, though, is her hair. Bright blue. Like neon blue. I didn’t know you could get hair that neon color. I’ve seen tons of girls on campus with blue hair, it’s one of our university colors, so of course people dye their hair blue, but not this. I am pretty sure that if I dig up a black light, her hair would glow under it.

  Despite it being the middle of winter, and I’m sure cold as shit outside in the middle of the night, she is dressed in a black miniskirt and a pair of tights with some sort of skull design all over them. I have no idea how her legs haven’t turned into icicles by now. At least she is wearing a long-sleeve shirt, but it isn’t heavyweight, just one of those long-sleeve red plaid shirts that you see in pictures from the ’90s. Where in the world would Will even meet someone like this?

  “Will sent you?” Skepticism filled my voice.

  “Yeah. You going to let me in?” She kind of shoos me out of the way, I have no idea why I move, but I do, and she moves through the door and into the apartment without a single step of hesitation.

  “Uh, can I help you with something?” I don’t know if I am still just too tired to function or what, but this tiny little pixie woman is commandeering my apartment without so much as a fight from me.

  “You got any grape soda?” Her voice isn’t soft and tiny like she is, it’s more firm and matter of fact. I’m just standing by the door watching as she sets a bag on the couch in the living room and pulls out a laptop before moving over to where the television is located.

  “Grape soda
?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nope, sorry, don’t keep any grape soda in the house.”

  She shrugs, and then completely ignores my presence as she starts pulling my router out and inspecting it.

  “So, you’re the computer expert?” I ask slowly, still watching her as she pulls her laptop toward her and sits cross-legged on the floor before resting her laptop on her knees.

  “You could call me that.”

  “Ooookay.”

  I slowly creep into my living room, like I’m trying not to spook the girl, who’s now furiously typing on her laptop. I move to sit on the couch.

  It takes a while before it dawns on me that this is my house. I’m actually paying Will, so doesn’t that, by proxy, mean that she’s like a subcontractor? I should be able to ask some questions, right?

  “So, can you tell me what exactly you are doing?” I finally find my voice and ask.

  “What you asked.” Her voice betrays no emotion, just the same tone throughout, short and sweet, no room to argue.

  “What I asked?”

  A heavy sigh escapes her, and I finally hear some kind of emotion coming from her, annoyance. “The cloud.”

  “Okay.” That makes sense, of course, man, I must still be exhausted. “So you can do that with the router?”

  “Yeah.” She goes back to ignoring me.

  “How?” I ask, still prodding for more information.

  “History.”

  Oh my god, does this girl not know how to have a conversation? Or at least talk in full and complete sentences?

  “Like web history?”

  Her nod is almost indistinguishable.

  “I didn’t know you could pull web history from a router.”

  She turns her head slowly and looks at me like I have two heads. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah,” I say slowly.

  She raises her eyebrows and mouths wow.

  “I thought you needed someone’s computer to look at the history,” I explain to her, trying to sound like I’m not a moron, which clearly, she thinks I am.