by Sara Rosett
I stopped in the kitchen. Her class schedule was posted on the fridge. I checked the list for today’s classes. Only a seminar on political jargon and it ended thirty minutes ago.
Her phone rang. Maybe it was Summer returning my call. I hurried across her kitchen area to answer it before the answering machine came on.
“Miss Avery?”
I paused a fraction of a second. “Umm…no. Not Miss Avery. I’m Mrs. Avery. Ellie Avery. Who’s speaking, please?”
“Jason Brown, Metropolitan Police. I need to speak to Summer Avery.”
Great. Just great. “She’s not here. She’s—out.” I stopped myself from babbling anything else. What I’d told him was true.
“When will she be back? I have a few more questions for her.”
“I’m not sure. I can have her call you.”
“You do that.” The pace of his words, so brisk at the beginning of the call, had slowed down. “She’s in class?” His voice was louder. I could picture him pressing the phone closer to his jowly face as his interest sharpened. I had to get off the phone before I said something that would make things worse for Summer.
“No. She only had a seminar today and it’s already over,” I said and realized the phone was slipping in my sweaty palm.
“So where is she?”
I ramped up the speed of words. “She didn’t say. She stepped out a while ago.” Again, technically true. I poured confidence into my tone. “I’ll tell her you called. I’m sure she’ll be back soon.”
I certainly hoped so.
I heard someone calling Brown’s name and he muttered something under his breath before he said good-bye. I hung up the phone, wiped my hands down on my skort, and crossed the room. My qualms about snooping were rapidly diminishing. Police phone calls can really change your outlook.
I opened her closet door and saw several empty hangers. Maybe she needed to do laundry? I stepped in the petite bathroom and checked the hamper. A mound of clothes filled it to the top. So, yes, she needed to do laundry. Brilliant deduction.
I made the circuit back to the kitchen and checked her answering machine. No messages. I didn’t see her purse anywhere, which I took to be a good sign.
I plopped down on the futon couch. Really, I should have been relieved. Everything looked normal, no sign of a hasty exit or—I forced myself to think what had been lurking around the edge of my thoughts—a struggle. So she’d left, by all appearances, of her own choice. In fact, the apartment had the tidied-up atmosphere of a house when someone was gone on vacation.
I hopped up, crossed to the closet, and opened both doors wide. A large suitcase took up one corner, but when I looked at the floor, I noticed several blank spots in her shoe holder as well as another empty space on the closet floor. It was just about the right size for a tote bag or small suitcase.
I went back to the futon couch. Would she really have gone on a trip? With finals approaching and the photo shoot for Emma’s room one day away? I didn’t think so and, as far as I knew, she didn’t have a boyfriend. She’d never mentioned anyone, so that didn’t seem to be a possible explanation either.
I opened her laptop and hit a key to bring it out of hibernation. I felt a bit uncomfortable poking around in her things, but my worry about her pushed me to keep looking around.
Her e-mail was open. The most recent messages were from other students about a group project. I opened her sent mail. The recent e-mails were to the office about press releases. No help there.
I leaned back against the couch and let my gaze roam around the orderly apartment. Nothing out of place except for the pile of junk mail beside her laptop. And a mug. I hadn’t noticed it earlier. A tea bag string dangled over the edge. Chamomile.
I leaned forward and slowly pulled the mail toward me. I’d seen that grocery store flyer with the pink steak before. There are probably thousands of these advertisements all over town. But when I checked the address on the flyer it wasn’t Summer’s address. It was Robinwood Road.
An Everything In Its Place Tip for an Organized Trip
Don’t forget these essentials
Tickets or e-confirmation numbers, maps, and guidebooks.
Picture ID.
Cash—make sure you have some small bills to tip shuttle drivers.
Cell phone charger.
Prescription medications in containers with pharmacy label.
Food for pets, leash, and shot records.
Camera.
Chapter Seventeen
I quickly flipped through the stack of envelopes cradled in the middle of the folded flyer. A few were addressed to “Occupant,” but several listed J. Dominguez or Jorge Dominguez as the recipient. Three credit card offers, postcards advertising teeth whitening and cheap tires, and an empty envelope with a jagged tear down the end, which was addressed to J. Dominguez. The printed return address was STAND in North Dawkins, Georgia. What was STAND? The postmark was from the same city. I turned the envelope over in my hands, chewed on my lower lip for a minute. I had no doubt that Summer had opened it. Did she find something inside that led her to call Tony and tell him she wouldn’t be in the next day? Had she gone back to Jorge’s apartment? But then why wouldn’t she take her car? It didn’t make sense.
After I found her phone book, I called the hotel and asked if there were any messages for me. Maybe she didn’t have my cell phone number? The front desk clerk came back on the line after only a few seconds. “No, ma’am. No messages.”
I sighed and hung up the phone. I paced around the tiny space. What to do? What to do? Even though I felt something was definitely wrong, calling the police was out. At least for a few more hours. Summer hadn’t been missing for a whole day. I didn’t even know for sure she was missing. Maybe she’d just taken off. Mitch could catalogue the times when Summer hadn’t done what was expected of her, but she was a grown-up. If she wanted to disappear for a while she could. No law against that.
I just couldn’t shake my apprehensive feeling, so I wasn’t going to go back to the hotel and worry. I picked up the stack of mail, found an extra key to her car in a drawer in her kitchen, and locked her apartment on my way out. There was a map of D.C. in her glove compartment. I looked up Robinwood Drive.
I’d lost track of the number of times I’d had to backtrack after I missed my turns. I’m a great navigator. Reading maps is a snap for me. It’s just hard to read a map and drive at the same time. Add D.C. traffic to the equation and I had tons of U-turns and annoyed drivers in my wake. But I did finally find the apartment complex. It looked even scruffier in the thin sunlight that struggled to break through the gray clouds. I found a parking space on the far side of the street in front of another apartment complex. I jogged across the street and knocked on Mrs. Matthews’s door. I couldn’t think of anywhere else Summer could have gone, so I figured I’d go back to the last place I knew she’d been.
A young woman dressed in a short-sleeved denim shirt with the words Gas ’n Go embroidered on the left shoulder opened the door, already speaking. “Mama, how many times have I done told you, you don’t have to ring the bell. Just use your key—” She ran out of words when she saw me and moved to close the door, but a toddler, his tummy showing between the hem of his shirt and his diaper, came motoring toward the open door. She quickly swept him up on her hip, pulled the shirt down, and wiped a peanut butter smear from the corner of his mouth, all reflexive mom moves. It made me miss Livvy, but I realized the woman was about to close the door, so I focused on her.
I dredged her name up from my memory. “You must be Danielle. I talked to your mother last night. My sister-in-law and I came by. We were asking about your next-door neighbor.”
The boy grinned at me around his thumb, which he’d stuck in his mouth. Danielle’s attitude wasn’t as friendly as her son’s. “Yeah. Mama mentioned you. I didn’t know him,” she said shortly. “Only saw him a couple times. He kept to hisself and didn’t bother me none.” She closed the door a couple more inches.
/> “Wait. I’m looking for my sister-in-law. I dug my billfold out of my purse and flipped through the plastic sleeve of photos. I had to flip through all of them. “Sorry. Most of these are of my daughter,” I said as I kept turning until I got to the last one, a family shot of Mitch’s parents and his two sisters. I pointed to Summer, her red hair tumbling over her shoulder.
“Cute little girl.” Danielle had thawed a bit as she pointed to the facing picture of Livvy with angel wings. It was taken back when she still had rolls of baby fat. “Your little angel?”
“Yes, except she’s rarely this angelic.”
Danielle smiled. “They never are, except when they’re sleeping.” She shifted the boy higher on her hip. “No. No one’s been by today.”
“What about last night?”
“No. Not after I got home around eleven.”
“Okay. Thanks.” I stepped back and waved to the little boy as he said “bye-bye.” We must have barely missed Danielle last night. If Summer had returned to this apartment, it would have been after Danielle got home. I walked up the sidewalk, sprinted across the street, feeling a little light-headed.
I realized I was absolutely starving as I slammed the door and put the key in the ignition. I’d been so focused on where Summer might be that I’d forgotten to eat, which shows how unnerved I was since I hardly ever miss meals. I wished I hadn’t passed up Tony’s offer of a sandwich earlier. It was past one o’clock and I hadn’t had anything to eat since my bagel in the hotel lobby. I didn’t even have any Hershey’s Kisses, but that was probably a good thing. For once, I needed something a bit more substantial than chocolate. Well, I could always eat chocolate, but it would probably be better to eat an energy bar first, then chocolate so I didn’t send my insulin levels out of whack. I pulled an energy bar out of my purse and devoured it.
I was crumbling the wrapper when a black car pulled into one of the parallel slots a few cars ahead of me. A man with a compact body emerged from the low-slung driver’s seat. I squinted and leaned over the steering wheel for a better view.
Yes, it was Tony. He was wearing the same Washington Redskins T-shirt complete with pink paint smears, but more than that, I recognized the way he moved, quick and decisive, as he jogged across the street and up the same sidewalk to Jorge’s apartment. He didn’t knock. He flipped open the mailbox and paused. His movements up to that point had been automatic, but his smooth flow halted. He carefully looked around the porch area, checked the mailbox again, then checked Danielle’s mailbox. He flipped through her envelopes, then replaced them. As he returned to his car, he made a call on his cell phone.
He probably wouldn’t have noticed me since he was distracted, juggling his phone and his keys, but I couldn’t help sliding down in the seat and ducking my head when he did a quick check up and down the block before gliding away from the curb in the black car.
I shoved the energy bar wrapper in my bag and pulled into traffic behind him. What was Tony doing at Jorge’s apartment? And why was he so interested in Jorge’s mail?
I still hadn’t figured out answers to those questions thirty minutes later when Tony pulled into a parking slot near the long reflecting pool between the World War II Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial. I may not be that great at navigating in D.C. traffic alone, but I discovered that keeping up with someone else was a breeze. The masses of cars actually made it easier to follow him, and he didn’t seem to notice or care that one particular RAV4 hung with him as he drove toward the center of D.C.
I needed to park. Fast. Tony was busy opening the trunk of his car as I drove past him. In my rearview mirror, I saw him slam the trunk and jog away, a football tucked in the crook of his arm. I was toast. He’d disappear into the swarm of tourists before I could find a place to park.
There was no way I could keep him in sight. Instead I focused on the cars, but I didn’t see anyone leaving. Finally, I saw a sign for a parking garage. I parked and raced back outside. Even the overcast day seemed bright after the dark interior of the parking garage.
I walked back to his car and scanned the people dotting the grassy area around the reflecting pool. There were just too many people. He could be almost to the Washington Monument by now. No use running around looking for him. I wiped my hand across my forehead, which was damp from my almost jog from the parking garage and the mounting humidity of the day. I shook my head. I was hot, tired, and still hungry. I found a street vendor and bought a pretzel, an apple, and a Diet Coke. I walked back to the grass around the reflecting pool and sat down under a tree. Tony had to come back to his car sometime.
I ate my impromptu picnic and watched a group of young people playing soccer. I tossed the wrappers and apple core in the trash and returned to the tree. A few shriveled pink petals were caught in the crevices of the roots, the only evidence that the cherry trees had bloomed a short time ago. I leaned my head back against the tree and tried to sort out how Tony could know Jorge. Maybe Summer introduced them? Another thing to add to my already lengthy list of questions for Summer.
My phone trilled and I grabbed it.
“Hey, sorry I didn’t call earlier. We didn’t get out of class until just a few minutes ago.”
I was so focused on Summer and expecting her to call me that it took me a minute to process what Mitch had said. “Oh. That’s fine,” I finally managed.
Mitch. Shoot. What was I going to tell him? I didn’t want to tell him Summer had disappeared. He’d be quick to tell me I’d been wrong about her settling down. But she was his sister. I probably should tell him. I felt a little queasy and it had nothing to do with being pregnant. There was so much I needed to tell Mitch. Where to begin?
“How did the thing at the Archers’ go this morning?” he asked.
Okay. I’d start with this morning. I filled him in on the room debacle and how the other wives came to my rescue. I wound up with the news about Summer’s no-show.
“So, how long has she been gone?” he asked. I’d expected tension or even a bit of smugness, but his tone was casual.
“Since last night.”
“So about fourteen, fifteen hours?”
I counted in my head. “Yeah, that’s about right.”
“Well, I wouldn’t start to worry until it’s been at least twenty-four. Maybe thirty-six.”
“Really? Even with the police questioning her about Jorge’s death?”
“Yeah. Really. Look, I hate to cut this short, but I’ve got to get back to the session. Try not to worry. She’s just being…Summer. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you that Colonel Johns invited us to a dinner tonight.”
“Us? Tonight?”
“The class.” Colonel Johns was their FROT instructor.
“A dinner? Like a dinner party? That’s kind of short notice, isn’t it? How formal is it? Tonight?” I mentally ran through the clothes I’d brought in my suitcase, a futile exercise, really, since I knew there wasn’t a cocktail dress back at the hotel.
“Whoa, there. Too many questions. Yes, I’m sure it’s tonight. And they told us about it a few days ago, but I’d forgotten until now.”
I figured as much. “Mitch—”
Mitch continued. “And don’t worry. It’s casual.”
“Casual. Cocktail dress casual or business casual? All I have with me are shorts, sleeveless shirts, and a couple of pairs of capris. And some jeans. I don’t think it will be that casual.”
“Well, take Abby and go shopping for something.”
“Mitch, do you know how hard it is to find a flattering cocktail dress? Much less a maternity cocktail dress?”
“Believe me, I’m thankful I don’t know, but I think I’m going to hear more about it anyway.” I could hear the smile in his voice and it made me smile, too.
“You think I’m making too big a deal of it, huh?”
“A bit.”
“Okay. Well, I’ll figure out something.”
“You always do. Look, I’ve got to go. Don’t worry about the dress or Summer.
Everything will work out.”
“Sure. Right. Hey, find out what Mrs. Johns is wearing to this party.”
“How am I supposed to do that? She’s not here. I’ve never met her.”
“I don’t know. You’re a clever guy. Think of some ingenious way to get the info, like maybe the truth? Tell Colonel Johns that you forgot to tell your wife about the party until this afternoon and she’s in a panic about what to wear.”
“All right, I’ll see what I can do.”
I put my phone away, still a bit frustrated. That “don’t worry, be happy” attitude summed up Mitch’s take on life. Everything would work out. Yeah, it would, because I’d make it work out. I looked up through the latticework of the tree’s green leaves and took a deep breath. Maybe I was overreacting about clothes. And maybe Summer was fine and would show up or call me and she’d be amazed that I’d worried so much.
I stood up, stretched, and shook the kinks out of my legs. I’d pulled out my map of downtown D.C. and was checking landmarks and street signs, planning a route to get back to Summer’s house, when I saw Tony at the end of the reflecting pool with another man, who looked so much like him he could have been Tony’s brother.
An Everything In Its Place Tip for an Organized Trip
Tips for business travel
Make sure you have codes and passwords to remotely access your work phone system and computer while you’re on the road.
Find out what the dress code is at your destination. No need to pack a suit if business casual is the rule, but do include at least one jacket or blazer since air-conditioned meeting rooms can be quite cool no matter what the weather is outside.
Don’t trust essential business items to checked baggage. Carry with you any papers, notes, or other materials that you’ll need. Or send these items ahead via a delivery service with tracking.
