Imprints

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  “It’s a botany class, and that interests him. He’ll be taking two over the summer. But you’re right. I never thought I’d see the day he went back to school.” Truth was, last year I’d been afraid he’d get bored and leave Portland, but since selling him the Herb Shoppe, I’d been less worried.

  “So, no progress between you two?” Tawnia asked.

  I shook my head.

  Tawnia leaned as far forward as the bulk of her stomach allowed. “So why don’t you push things along? You’ve always had guys eating out of your hand.”

  I snorted. “Yeah, right. I haven’t had a proper date in a year. Besides, Jake’s a friend. I don’t want to mess that up.”

  “A relationship doesn’t always mess up friendship.”

  “Always has before.”

  “Jake’s different. Like Bret.” Tawnia rose from the easy chair and poured herself another cup of tea. “What is this, anyway?”

  “Don’t worry. No caffeine or anything bad for the baby. It’s African honey bush tea. Highly recommended for pregnant women. I threw out any that might not be good for the baby, just in case.”

  She smiled. “Of course you did.” Her eyes watered as they seemed to do far too often these days, what with hormones raging in her changing body. “I love you. You know that, right?”

  “Yeah. I love you, too.”

  She hugged me, her swollen belly pressing into my stomach. For a moment, I could almost imagine what it was like to have a child inside me. When we separated, Tawnia sat down in front of her laptop. Only then did I notice the folders and loose sketches spilling out of her briefcase. One caught my attention.

  I drew it out. “What’s this? Did your art director do this?”

  Tawnia snorted. “No, I did. Just a picture that keeps popping into my mind. I think that’s part of why I was so distracted this morning.”

  My body felt suddenly chilled. I scooted myself onto my worktable, drawing my feet up, hugging my legs with my free arm as I studied the picture. It wasn’t an exact likeness, but there was no question that the sketch resembled the white-shirted Dar. “I saw this man less than an hour or two ago. He was down by the riverbank where they’re doing construction on the bridge. His group is the one connected to that girl’s disappearance.” I couldn’t control the shakiness of my voice.

  Tawnia turned to me, her mismatched eyes wide. “I thought you said that was no big deal.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “Then why did you try tracking them down?”

  “A coincidence. I just happened to run into them.” But I knew suddenly that it wasn’t a coincidence, not really. In one of Victoria’s imprints, the group had been down by the Willamette, except in the park on the other side of the river. I must have instinctively walked that way. “I couldn’t have known they were there.”

  “I couldn’t have drawn that man.”

  We stared at each other for a few moments. I saw worry in her eyes that echoed the feeling in my heart. Why had I gone to the riverbank today?

  “There’s an explanation,” I said. “The group sells homemade items. It’s been so cold and rainy lately—until this week. It’s natural they’d visit the city now. They probably have groups all over.”

  “Maybe I saw coverage about it on TV.” Tawnia was nodding, relief evident on her face.

  Strangely, I felt a stab of unreasonable disappointment. A part of me thought it would be nice if my twin had some strange ability, too, and drawing what someone else saw would certainly qualify as strange.

  “Well, I’m out of it now.” I set my cup firmly on the worktable. “It’s not as if I’m a private investigator or anything.”

  “Promise?”

  I smiled at her worry. “I won’t do anything dangerous.” I jumped off the table. “Now I’d better get out there and take care of a little business before we leave.”

  I emerged from the back room, feeling better for having seen my sister, but my mood was immediately destroyed by the steady gaze of the man who was waiting at my counter. He had curly blond hair, the kind that invites fingers, barely short enough to maintain a semblance of professionalism. His eyes were blue, his brows and lashes thick and blond like his hair. A spattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks lent him an air of boyishness, though there was no trace of that in his demeanor now. Not a customer, of that I was sure. Otherwise, Thera would be helping him. Instead, she stood near the windows, her small hazel eyes seeming to drill an angry hole in the back of his head.

  “May I help you?”

  “I’m looking for Autumn Rain.” He spat the words, as though they tasted bitter.

  “I’m Autumn.” I kept my face expressionless. Every indication told me I wasn’t going to like what he had to say.

  “Your employee wouldn’t tell you I was here.” His mouth formed a thin line of disapproval, and his lean body, nicely clad in a pair of snug jeans and a casual blazer over a T-shirt, exuded an air of impatience that somehow didn’t detract from his considerable looks. Still, I didn’t like him.

  Apparently Thera felt the same way, because ordinarily she was anxious to have me waiting on attractive men who didn’t wear wedding rings.

  “I was busy,” I said. “But I can help you now. What do you need?”

  “I’m Ethan McConnell. I’m a private investigator looking into the disappearance of Victoria Fullmer.”

  I sighed internally, trying to keep the reaction from my face. “I’m glad someone’s helping the Fullmers, but I fail to see why you’re here. I told them everything I saw, and I notified them about the people at the riverbank. I don’t know anything more.”

  His blue eyes narrowed. “You’re a fraud, and you’re playing on the fears of desperate people. I’ve come to tell you that if you don’t back off, I’m going to see you in jail.”

  Chapter 4

  I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. He was so serious and stern but at the same time so wrong that there really wasn’t anything else to do. It was either laugh or cry. “Go ahead,” I invited, letting loose another giggle. I lifted my hands out toward him. “Take me to jail.” I dropped the levity. “Oh, wait, you’re not a policeman, and you can’t do that. If you’re quite finished with your threats, you can leave now, or I’ll be the one calling the police.”

  He blinked, and I knew I’d surprised him. That wasn’t a new reaction; from my youth I’d grown accustomed to people thinking I was odd. In fact, I liked being that way, and to have startled this particularly annoying man pleased me more than it should have.

  “Autumn, what do you think about using a realistic cartoon figure to sell underwear?” Tawnia called from the back room. “I know it’s popular these day to see men prancing practically naked on TV, but it seems a little effeminate to me, no matter how many muscles they—” The words broke off as she came into view, her face paling as she caught sight of Ethan. She glanced down at her paper and then back up again. When it slipped between her fingers and floated to the ground, she didn’t bother to pick it up. “Who’s this?” Despite her pallor, her voice was remarkably steady.

  “He’s someone who is just leaving,” I said, giving Ethan a pointed stare.

  Ethan looked from Tawnia to me, obviously using his great private detective skills to deduce that we were sisters. Not a rocket scientist by any means.

  “I’m here to discourage Miss Rain from inflicting any more damage upon my clients,” he said.

  “I’m not inflicting anything upon anyone!” I shot back, my anger getting the best of me. I was never as calm and collected as my sister, even at the best of times. “They came to me, remember? For my part, I’d rather not know anything about their missing daughter. I knew I shouldn’t have agreed to help them. I knew it! If Victoria hated her father enough to throw her brush at him, I should have known he’d send someone to scare me into staying out of the case.”

  “I thought you were out of it,” Tawnia said, at the same instant Ethan said, “He made Victoria angry?”

&nb
sp; “I’m not in anything,” I told my sister. To Ethan I added, “It was months ago. At least nine.”

  “So she confided in you,” he said.

  “I never met her! I just experienced the imprint on her hairbrush. And on this.” I pulled the necklace box from my pocket. “But since you’re working for the Fullmers now, maybe you can return it. There really is nothing more I can tell them.”

  One side of Ethan’s mouth flicked upward in disgust. “You expect me to believe you can read something from this necklace?”

  “Of course,” Tawnia said. “She does it all the time.”

  “Then maybe she can tell me what this says.” He held out something small on his hand. A ring, a tiny one meant for an infant, with minuscule gold circles interlocking across the top.

  Tawnia frowned. “It has to be the right object. It has to be something important to the—”

  “Right. I thought as much.” Ethan began to withdraw his hand. “And this obviously isn’t the right kind of object.”

  He was wrong. The ring had a definite imprint, a pronounced one whose teasing images danced just out of sight. I willed myself to let him take it away. I didn’t want to see those images. I didn’t care if he thought I was a fraud.

  That was a lie. I did care. I wanted to shove my ability into his self-satisfied grin and see him grovel in abject apology. Let him go, I told myself, even as I reached for the ring. Scarcely was the hard little circle between my fingers when a scene blazed to life.

  A woman smiled down into the face of an infant, the love in her heart so large she didn’t know if she could contain it. No words, just an emotion that grew and filled every part of me, satisfying all the longings I’d ever had for a child. No, all the longings she’d ever had. The emotions were so inclusive and wonderful that it was a struggle to keep myself separate from them. They almost blotted out the sad fact that the baby’s father wouldn’t be there to see his child grow. The cancer had come unexpectedly, but now she/we had this last gift. A part of him forever.

  Another scene followed on the heels of this one. A man in a white coat, holding out the ring. “I’m so sorry. She didn’t make it.” Agony pierced my/her soul, equal to the joy we’d once experienced. A wish for oblivion, for a way to escape the horrible, mind-numbing pain. Stumbling from the suddenly tilting room. Her brother’s serious face floating toward us. “Marcie,” he said, but that was all we heard. Welcome blackness.

  I gasped and dropped the ring onto the counter.

  “Autumn, are you okay?” My sister’s voice.

  I nodded, but tears blurred my vision as I met Ethan’s gaze. He was suddenly still, the mocking grin vanished. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  I turned to go, but his hand shot out to grasp my shoulder, though the counter was still between us. “What did you see?”

  A bitter half-laugh escaped me. “I can’t help you. Now let me go.” I wrenched myself from his hold.

  “You’re a fake, a fraud! An actress who preys upon the sorrows of others.”

  I whirled. “Just because your niece is dead doesn’t mean you have the right to take your anger out on me. I can’t help your sister! I’m sorry Marcie’s husband died. I know it’s not fair. My mother also died of cancer, and my father died in the bridge bombing here last year, so I know what you’re going through. The baby—” I broke off. With the imprint came the knowledge that the eight-week-old baby had died a year ago due to a birth defect in her heart, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it aloud. “I’m sorry.”

  Ethan stared at me, his disbelief and anger slowly becoming amazement. Acceptance. I felt no satisfaction at my triumph; it came with too much attached. “Please, don’t go,” he said.

  I hesitated in my flight but stood glaring at him with my arms folded, my fury threatening to burst forth and flatten us both.

  “Look, I don’t know how you know all that, but I’m willing to wait and see.”

  “Don’t do me any favors,” I retorted. This guy was something else. “Just go do your job. Those people should be back at the river tomorrow. Go talk to them.”

  “I have. Many times.” He leaned forward over the counter, staring at me intently, as though by doing so he could force my cooperation. The pleading expression of his eyes and the underlining of freckles splattered over his nose and cheeks made an appeal I felt helpless to ignore. I wondered if his blond curls were really as thick as they looked.

  “They won’t talk to me,” he continued. “And when I followed them to their factory in Rome, it’s really just a front. They have a small warehouse where people—mostly young kids—are baking muffins and breads to take to the cities. They also sell a lot of handmade items there, but the warehouse is too small for everything to be made on site. The faces seem to be different every time I go, though they claim they are regular employees. Only a few of the kids I’ve seen match those in the cities hawking the muffins and crafts, so I know there are more of them. I think there has to be a separate place where they actually live and raise grain and make their crafts.”

  “What do the police say?” I asked.

  “I’ve gone to the local authorities, but their hands are tied unless there’s evidence of a crime. All the kids seem to be over eighteen, or they have a parent with them.”

  “Back up a minute.” Tawnia sat on the stool and leaned her elbows on the counter. “How can you be tracking these people? I had the impression you were new to this case.”

  She was right. The Fullmers hadn’t yet hired a private investigator when I’d talked to them that morning, though they’d talked to a few over the phone. Leave it to my sister to keep her head. This guy was hiding something.

  “Okay, it’s true I’m new to the case,” Ethan admitted. “Originally the Fullmers were talking to a PI friend of mine about it, but when they called to hire him after talking to you this morning, he referred them to me instead.”

  “Why?” I’d gathered enough wits to ask that.

  “Because of the cult connection.” He paused slightly before adding, “And my sister.”

  “Your sister? You’re tracking this case because of your sister?”

  He nodded. “The month after Marcie lost her child, she met these Harmony Farm people. She spent hours talking with them. She was vulnerable, you know. I didn’t do enough to stop it because I wanted her to have some relief, and she wasn’t talking to me much. I even laughed the first time I saw her wearing that T-shirt. Then one day she was gone.” His face hardened into the same tough mask he’d worn earlier. “Her clothes and furniture were missing, and her bank accounts had been emptied, including fifty thousand dollars’ worth of life insurance. I tracked the clothing and furniture. Most had been sold to secondhand stores. No trace of the money. So I took a year’s sabbatical from my job and started searching for her. I have to know she’s okay.”

  “Then you’re not really a private eye.” Tawnia smirked at him, and a faint blush tinged his cheeks.

  “I am now. I also teach math at Willamette University. I’ll have to go back in the fall, but until then I’m going to do anything I can to find her.”

  A math professor turned private eye? That didn’t sound promising at all. Didn’t most investigators have experience on the police force or something?

  Tawnia tilted her head, as if trying for a better view. “You don’t look like a math teacher.” I knew what she meant; there was something more rugged about him. Exciting, vital, alive. Who knew math could be so exciting?

  To my surprise he sighed. “That seems a lifetime ago.” He caught my eyes again. “I’d like to show you a few other things my sister left, if you don’t mind. Just to confirm what I think I already know about where she went. I feel I’ve gone as far as I can without more drastic measures. Maybe you can discover something new.”

  “I doubt it will help. Anything she left behind wouldn’t have any information about her current location.”

  He nodded. “It’s still worth a try—if you don’t mind.”
<
br />   I did mind because I was feeling shaky from the agony Marcie had imprinted on the baby ring. Yet how could I refuse his need? Instinctively, my hand found the little poetry book that Jake and I had left on the counter after our session with the Fullmers. The positive imprints from my parents’ wedding steadied me, easing the horror of the little ring.

  The tiny piece of gold still sat on my counter, but no one would ever be able to convince me to pick it up again. I pondered, though, the positive emotion of holding that little child in my arms. The joy, the intense completeness. The bad imprint had been worse than horrifying, but the good had been equally wonderful. The two opposites contrasted, yet in the end each made the other possible. The agony of losing the child intrinsically carried the joy of having her to new heights, if only through understanding the possibility of losing something that was greatly loved.

  I knew some of that myself, of course. Losing Winter and Summer, who had lovingly raised me all those years, and afterward finding Tawnia, who was every bit a part of me as if we’d grown up together. Yet none of these people depended on me for all their needs, and I couldn’t begin to understand what that would be like, though a tiny part of me suddenly and desperately wanted to. My sister would know very soon what it was like.

  Shaking my head, I drew myself back to the conversation. It was only Tawnia’s pregnancy that had me thinking this way. Or maybe Jake’s smile. The feeling certainly had nothing to do with this math-teacher-turned-private eye.

  “Okay, then. We’ll expect you around seven,” Tawnia was saying.

  Ethan nodded. “Thank you. I’ll be there.” He swept up the ring from the counter and sauntered out the door.

  “What just happened?” I asked.

  “He’s coming to dinner.”

  “What? Are you crazy?”

  Tawnia shrugged. “He’s cute. Did you see those freckles? And the poor guy needs fattening up. He’s got muscles, but he’s far too thin.”

  “Tawnia, I’m not going out with him.” He hadn’t even noticed my eyes.

  “It’s not anything like that. Weren’t you listening?”