by Brent, Cora
From the look on Paige’s face, whatever Damian had to say about Taylor was not great. That didn’t matter. I glanced over at the booth where Damian and Sam were cuddled up together and sharing a calzone. Normally I wouldn’t have interrupted a scene like that even if Sam really had told Paige to send me over but now I urgently needed to have a conversation with Damian.
“I’m so sorry,” said Paige.
Sweet Paige, who was still worried that I’d somehow be angry with her.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, giving her a quick squeeze around the shoulders.
She brightened. “I left the rest of my chicken wings at the table for you.”
“You’re one of my favorite people in the world,” I said and meant it. Derek struck solid gold when Paige Morrissey fell for him.
“Kellan!” Sam hailed me with enthusiasm. “Sit down. I haven’t seen you in forever. This is Damian.”
I slid into the bench opposite the happy couple. Paige had indeed left half her chicken wings behind. I wouldn’t mind finishing them off.
“I wished I’d gotten a chance to say goodbye to Ric before she took off for Chicago.”
“Yeah, it was kind of a whirlwind summer. She’s good though. She called me yesterday to brag about how it’s only September and in the morning it’s chilly enough for a sweater. I said, honey, wait until January. You won’t be bragging about the weather anymore. And how’s our Thomas?”
“He’s Thomas. He’s perfect. He’s perpetually in training for the big leagues and he coaches little kids four days a week and he takes school seriously.”
She smiled. “I need to catch up with him one of this days.”
“Who’s Thomas?” Damian wanted to know.
“He’s Kel and Derek’s brother.” Sam patted her boyfriend’s hand. “I’m sure I’ve mentioned him. You guys would hit it off.”
Damian didn’t seem at all sure about his affection for Thomas.
I polished off another chicken wing. “So now that Ric’s left the state are you planning to keep your apartment at The Palms?”
Sam shifted, becoming shy and lowering her eyes, which was unlike her. “Yeah, I’ll be keeping the apartment.”
Damian filled in the blanks. “What she isn’t saying is that she acquired a new roommate.” He picked up Sam’s hand and kissed it.
“No kidding.” I wiped wing sauce off my mouth. “Congrats to you both.”
Sam was practically giddy. “Damian’s in the med program too. He’s going to specialize in orthopedics.” Her smile faded. “My folks don’t know about the living situation. They might hit the roof. They’re still a little old fashioned about some things.”
“I have complete confidence in my ability to win them over,” Damian said and then the two of them exchanged a very long, very sappy look before Sam leaned in for a soft kiss. While it was cute that they were in love and felt free to make out in front of me, there was still a subject that needed to be dealt with before my break ended.
“Paige mentioned that you know Taylor,” I said to Damian, getting right to the point.
With some reluctance he dragged his eyes away from his lovely girlfriend and then frowned. “If your Taylor is Taylor Briggs then yeah, I went to high school with her. At graduation she bragged all over the place about how her rich old man bought her a palace in Castle Court so when Paige mentioned the name Taylor and said she used to live there I thought it had to be her.”
I decided to operate on the assumption that the Taylor Briggs he spoke of was the girl I’d picked up off the floor of The Outpost. “You guys are friends?”
He found the question amusing for some reason. “Taylor ruled over the high end diva crowd and there weren’t many people they thought were worth their time. We didn’t have much in common.”
“I see,” I said. And I did see. He didn’t like Taylor much.
Damian’s expression changed. “Hey, I didn’t mean that to come out so harsh, especially if she’s your girl. I got no joy out of hearing about what happened to her. Seeing your father blow his brains out rather than face a prison sentence for fraud and embezzlement isn’t something I’d wish on anyone.”
The news knocked the wind out of me for a few seconds. It went without saying that a girl who was sleeping in her car faced no shortage of problems but this was a whole other layer of tragedy.
“That’s terrible.” Sam was distressed and regarding me with sympathy. “How’s she doing now?”
Briggs. Briggs. Briggs.
The name stabbed at me and I tried to figure out why. “She doesn’t talk about her family much.”
That was the truth. The only mention Taylor had made of her family came with a shudder and a preference to drop to subject.
Richard Briggs.
It was a local story and since it was relevant to the financial industry we studied it in class. He was the ringleader of a fraud ring that set up shell companies and bilked investors out of millions. He would have been clobbered with a lengthy prison term. If he hadn’t committed suicide in his posh mansion first.
“I should get back to work,” I said, clearing up the mess from the chicken wings. “You want me to take your plates?”
“Sure, I think we’re about ready to go.” Sam was looking at me with some curiosity but we were only casual friends and she wasn’t really sure if there was something bugging me or not.
“I hope I see you guys around soon,” I said.
“We’d like that,” Sam replied. “Don’t be a stranger, Kel.”
“Never.” I was eager to get away and spend a few minutes with an internet search engine. “Nice meeting you, Damian.”
“Nice meeting you too,” Damian said and now he that he’d sized me up and judged that Sam had no romantic interest in me he was smiling.
“Be sure to tell Thomas I said hello,” Samantha added.
“Will do.”
I stopped in the kitchen to drop off the dishes, and intended to pop into the men’s room for a minute to take care of a quick research project but my plans were intercepted by a sudden influx of customers. I had to wait until the activity eased up and then I positioned myself in a way that kept me half hidden by the dessert display to disguise my phone use. Dominic was lenient as bosses went but he became justifiably angry when employees stood around with their faces in a screen.
There were dozens of articles on the crimes of Richard Briggs. I skimmed over them swiftly because I was already familiar with the basics of his sins and because they were not the reason for my interest.
“Businessman Indicted for Fraud and Money Laundering Kills Self At Home.”
The paragraphs were short and ghastly. While Briggs was released on bond and awaiting his trial he shot himself in the head. An act witnessed by his youngest daughter.
There were a few images of the funeral. Taylor’s face was half hidden by oversized sunglasses and her hair was the same shade of blonde it had been when we met. I checked the dates and noted that Taylor’s father had killed himself not long after our reckless hookup. Judging by the timeline, her family life must have already been careening downhill that night. Yet she’d given no hint that she was thinking about anything except getting naked and getting off.
I enlarged the funeral photo where she was flanked by grim-faced people, all of them dressed in black. Her mouth was set in a straight line and her arms were crossed. Even though the people surrounding her were presumably family she still looked all alone.
Leaving the funeral photos behind, I checked out the headlines again and followed the chain of events. Richard Briggs’s arrest. Richard Briggs’s upcoming trial. Richard Briggs’s death. And then came a headline that made me pause.
“Briggs Stolen Fortune Untraceable. Surviving Family Questioned.”
The piece was short and light on details. Before his arrest Briggs had apparently cashed out part of his ill gotten gains and stashed it all somewhere. It was assumed that at least one member of the Briggs family had infor
mation on where the fortune was located. Brigg’s wife had died five years earlier. He had no siblings. He did have three children but all claimed to be innocent of any knowledge about their father’s stolen money.
This was all interesting but Taylor was the one I wanted to know more about. She must have scrubbed her social media accounts because I couldn’t find any that were tied to her. An understandable move. People could be real fuckers. I found one photo of her. It had been taken in younger, blonder days. Her flawless smile was full of confidence and the pose suggested this must have been a yearbook photo, a suspicion confirmed by the caption.
Taylor Renae Briggs. Senior. Fashion Club. Homecoming Court.
“She’s pretty.” Paige had crept up behind me to look over my shoulder.
“Yes, she is,” I agreed and went to put the phone in my pocket but Paige grabbed it.
She squinted at the picture. “I think she looks familiar. She works at Closet Exchange, doesn’t she? Her hair is darker now.”
“The what?”
“It’s a second hand clothing store over on Ash. Sometimes they have cool vintage dresses so I stop by every now and then.” A light bulb went off in Paige’s head. “Oh, this is her! This is your Taylor.”
I stole my phone back and pocketed it. Just in time too because Dominic emerged from the kitchen. I’d hate for him to see that I was abusing his good will by violating one of his cardinal rules.
But Dominic said nothing about phones. He just wanted to take a look around and see what the customer situation was since we were inching toward closing time.
“Dom, how did Melanie’s ultrasound go?” Paige asked him as he assessed the dining room. “I haven’t talked to her since last week.”
Dominic’s usually serious expression brightened, as it always did whenever he discussed his wife. “All is well. Esposito daughter number three is due in December.”
“Congratulations,” I said. Dominic was still smiling when he returned to the kitchen.
“Hey,” I said to Paige. “Can you ring up an order for me before the kitchen closes?”
“Sure. What’ll you have?”
“Give me a large cheese pizza and an order of garlic knots.”
She nodded and expertly punched the keys. “Bringing some dinner home to Thomas?”
Thomas wouldn’t touch a pizza right now, not when he was dedicated to this super food diet that he was positive would help with his pitching speed. “Yeah, I’m bringing dinner home to Thomas.”
Half an hour later I saw my brother’s girlfriend safely to her car in the dark parking lot of Esposito’s before heading over to my own hunk of junk and setting the food on the passenger seat.
This had become my new secret pastime, cruising around aimlessly in search of a dented Hyundai sedan. Even Thomas had no idea that I’d been prowling around in the dark like some kind of night stalker. I’d mostly stuck to Taylor’s last known locations along Mill Avenue and the parking lots beside the lake. There was a possibility she’d been telling the truth about a friend with a condo and a spare couch but she wasn’t a natural liar. She’d squirmed and tossed her hair and averted her eyes and so I doubted the story.
More than one piece of the Taylor mystery had clicked into place tonight. After discovering the location of Closet Exchange I swung by there just in case she was around. The lights were off and the only car in the parking lot was decorated with painted yellow flowers and resembled the Scooby Doo van.
For the next hour I toured the neighborhoods surrounding the university while the uneaten food continued to hang out beside me in the passenger seat. I wasn’t surprised that once again there was no sign of Taylor’s car anywhere so finally I took a spot in the same lot where she’d parked the night of The Outpost fiasco. I rolled down the windows and waited around until after eleven, when most of the other cars were long gone and there was only the peaceful silence of a calm weeknight.
When I was sure that this mission was another failure to be added to the archives of Taylor Stalking, I picked up the food and took a walk. After twenty minutes of wandering I found what I was looking for. Curled up in the shadows behind a row of benches was a person. He didn’t move a muscle when I came close and I thought he might be sleeping. I said some polite words and held out the food to let him know I’d come in peace in case he was used to being chased off or abused. A hesitant hand emerged and accepted the box of pizza and a soft voice that had to belong to a young man said the words, “Thank you.”
I left him alone to eat in peace and headed back to my car, making plans in my head along the way. Now that I had a solid lead on where to find Taylor in the daylight I’d be showing up there tomorrow.
A thought crossed my mind, the same thought that had surfaced at least a dozen times over the past week.
Maybe I had no right to chase after a girl who wanted to keep to herself.
And yet I couldn’t get her out of my head. I couldn’t stop worrying about whether she was safe.
As I drove through the entrance of The Palms and navigated the vast maze of sprawling two story apartment buildings, I remembered the guy in the shadows and hoped he’d enjoyed the pizza. I probably would never even have noticed him if I’d just been casually walking by.
I would never have noticed him at all.
The idea bothered me.
Chapter Seven
Taylor
The girl assumed I was like her and it was a true that in a parallel dimension we might be friends.
“My closet was like literally overflowing,” she confided. “Something had to go after I splurged on the new Tommy Hilfiger line. I bought six pairs of those dark denim high waisted skinny jeans. Pretty slick, don’t you think?”
I was out of the loop these days when it came to pricey fashion trends but I could pretend. “Totally love them.”
She smiled and applied a layer of dark pink lip gloss while I added up the pile of scarcely worn clothes she’d dumped out of a shopping bag onto the counter. After nine months on the job, Cynda trusted me to price the merchandise accurately. I’d proven that I knew my way around labels and could spot the items that would be snapped up by shoppers.
“We can give you eighty cash or a hundred in store credit for the lot.”
“Eighty cash?” The girl tapped unhappy nails on her purple glitter phone case and made a face. “Damn, that’s rough. There’s got to be, like, nine hundred dollars worth of stuff here.”
“The thrift market’s a little different,” I told her as gently as I could.
“All right.” She sighed theatrically. “I’ll take the eighty cash. There’s no reason to hold onto this old crap, is there? What looked totally cute last year is now ridiculous.”
I laughed with her. Once upon a time when I was the owner of a high limit credit card that would be paid off without requiring me to work a single hour, I could have matched her priciest wardrobe and then some. However, I no longer had my credit card and I’d sold anything that would fetch more than a few dollars in the secondhand market.
But I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself. Nope. Getting all agitated should be reserved for worse things than a failure to acquire dark denim Tommy Hilfiger high waisted jeans.
For example, a call from my nut bag of a sister would be a far better reason to wring my hands and pace back and forth in a bathroom stall while seized with panic cramps.
Kind of like I’d done first thing this morning.
“You keep playing cat and mouse, sweetie, and I’ve give the boys the green light to find the answers.”
Sierra wasn’t quite stupid enough to be explicit. I understood her meaning anyway and even though I was unsure if she intended to do anything violent, it was never a pleasant thing to hear your sister imply she’d turn her grim reaper of a husband and his hobgoblin brother loose.
But I wasn’t playing cat and mouse. I wasn’t playing anything. I didn’t have what they wanted. I didn’t know how to make them believe otherwise.
“Ar
e you okay?” The lip gloss had been reapplied once more and the girl’s black curls bobbed as she tilted her head, dark eyes regarding me with vague worry. “For a second there you looked like you were going to be sick.”
“No.” I forced a smile to confirm all was well and that I was definitely not thinking about things like sociopathic relatives. “I just panicked for a moment because I thought I left the iron on at home.”
The excuse sounded even dumber out loud. The girl didn’t mind. She twisted the cap back onto her lip gloss and held out a hand to accept the four twenties I counted out.
“Thanks,” she said and casually tossed the cash into her Louis Vuitton handbag. “Off to treat myself to a Brazilian now.”
“Have fun,” I told her, which was a strange thing to say to a girl who was about to get her nether parts tortured, but she appreciated the thought enough to give me a friendly smile on her way out.
There were a few customers milling around in the racks but no one was approaching the checkout counter so I had time to sort through the clothes. Lots of Abercrombie. Some more Tommy Hilfiger. Everything was in great shape and probably wouldn’t last in the racks more than a day or two.
A whiff of peppermint mixed with orange reached my nose. Cynda had emerged from her meditation room.
“Taylor Briggs,” sang her twinkling voice, smashing the syllables together as if they comprised one rather masculine sounding word: Taylorbriggs.
“Are you feeling better?” I asked her as she joined me behind the counter.
This morning Cynda been afflicted with one of her stress headaches so she hid beneath a crimson floppy hat and retreated to her meditation room (a windowless pantry-sized office) to diffuse essential oils.
“Oh yes,” she chirped, now sans hat and looking happily bright eyed. Her hair was a muted orange that was slowly transitioning to white and she was so naturally thin that when I first met her I assumed she was ill. I didn’t know her exact age but she often liked to wax poetic about the superiority of life in the 1970s. She also adored creating latch hook puppy art and felt certain that bell bottom slacks were destined for a comeback.
