by E. J. Larson
“I hope so, too.” She hugged Amber to her and cuddled her. “I promise we'll have a slobber day tomorrow with Netflix and popcorn.”
Amber nodded in satisfaction and stalked up to the bar. The Pink Elephant was a bar with pink walls and the same colored velvet upholstery where many clubbers met before partying. It was in the middle of Fairfield Park's nightlife district. Word had gotten out that despite its quirky decor of old-fashioned umbrella lamps and dark wood, it served excellent cocktails at fair prices. But maybe it wasn't like that at all, and the Pink Elephant was so popular precisely because it was different.
Olivia kept her eyes peeled for familiar faces. There had to be a place for her somewhere. All the tables were already taken, but there were still a few empty chairs here and there. They reached the light marble counter. With adept touches, two young bartenders mixed drinks and instructed a waitress to collect. Olivia had worked here herself for a while while studying and still loved the place.
But she also knew how stuffy it got after midnight. A small fire escape led to the inner courtyard, to which the emergency exit door was usually open once the place was as crowded as it was now. Guests crowded in front of this exit because it was the best place to take a breath.
“Hey Livie, haven't seen you around in ages?” Derek, one of the two regular bartenders, greeted her. “How's the psychology?”
“I've changed professions. I only use psychology as a means to an end now,” she explained with a wink. They hadn't actually seen each other in a long time. Olivia liked to, but rarely went to the bar. While she'd put all her energy into the blog, she'd barely gone out. One of the new perks of being an employee was all the free time. Her work hours were relatively clear, leaving her room to go out and see friends.
“Can you make my friend Amber and I the drink of the night?”
“Sure, I'll do it,” he returned as he strained the reddish contents of his shaker into a martini glass. He placed the glass on a pink tray with two other cocktails and whispered to the already waiting waitress.
Olivia gave Amber an encouraging smile. She too looked around for a table and seemed disappointed that there was simply nothing available.
“Let's go over there,” Olivia suggested, pointing her finger at a high table where two young men were talking intently. They were about her age. One of them had a gentle face framed by short blond hair. The second was a darker type, but he stood facing away from them.
“Do you know them?” her friend asked cautiously.
“No, but at least there's room.” Olivia marched forward determinedly. She was batting her long eyelashes because she knew most men wouldn't deny a girl a wish if she just looked at them hopefully enough. “Would you share your table with us?”
The blond gave her a quick glance, nodded and continued his conversation without paying any special attention to either of them. That was exactly what she had secretly hoped for. She had deliberately looked around for a table where they wouldn't have to fear any come-ons. They were both single, but they didn't go out to meet men, just to have fun.
Silently triumphant, she presented Amber with her prize in the form of half the bar table. Her friend smirked shaking her head, understanding her without words. Ever since Amber had moved to Fairfield with her family at the age of 13, they had been best friends. Olivia had immediately taken to the heart of the new girl in class, who blurted out her opinions without any shyness.
“You now with your flawless doll face again,” she returned.
“Do we have a table or don't we?” Olivia wanted to know from her with raised brows.
“We got one!”
Amber nodded in satisfaction and waved at the waitress who was looking searchingly around the room. She balanced two glasses on her tray and immediately stopped towards them.
“I'm paying for both,” Olivia explained as she pulled out her wallet. “We're having our first round of drinks to my new job today.”
The waitress gave her the change and disappeared again.
“How do you like it now?” Amber asked. “Can you make an assessment yet? Do you want to stay?”
“It's okay,” she returned thoughtfully.
The job was her switch. She had to decide over the next few weeks and months whether she would push her self-employment with all her might or preferred a salaried job. She would only be able to go one of these two ways, because blogging required her full commitment if she wanted to succeed with it.
“I miss that immediate subscriber experience, the direct feedback. Chronicle readers are less reactive than those on my blog. How many of them are really interested in fashion, I can't even tell with the print copy. On the website, I do see how many views my content gets, but it's just not the same.”
“And how are your colleagues?” Amber sipped her drink and wrinkled her nose. “Uh, strong.”
“Yeah, but yummy,” Olivia agreed, also taking a cautious sip. “The fellows are pretty reserved. I can understand that. It's weird for them that I took Delia's place without anyone knowing what happened to her. Somehow it feels like she's still there. It's her desk. It's her colleagues. It's her job. I'm kind of a foreign body.”
“That sounds bad. Do you really want to work there?”
Olivia had asked herself that question several times, but she hadn't come to an answer yet. She felt uncomfortable - and at the same time privileged, because she had gotten this chance at all. But she missed her blog and the freedom that came with it.
“I've decided to give myself and my colleagues time. They need to get used to the fact that I'm not Delia, and I need to settle into my new role before I can judge whether or not I belong there.”
“That sounds way too wise for your age,” Amber found herself laughing. She knew her friend would choose self-reliance every time, but unlike her, Olivia had no financial safety net to save her from disaster if she failed.
“Girls, where are you going tonight?” A hand reached out briskly to Olivia's hip. She jerked her head around and glared at the blond guy who had seemed so wonderfully disinterested a moment ago. No sooner had his mate disappeared than he'd shoved himself way too close to her and was getting pushy. Olivia snorted angrily.
“Hands off, we're not friends and we won't be like that,” she warned the blond. Even if he had been absolutely her type visually, such behavior would have immediately disqualified him as a potential partner.
“Don't be so coy, sweetheart,” he urged further. “You wanted my company, didn't you?”
“Hey, honey,” came a second voice from behind her that sounded vaguely familiar. “Sorry I'm late. I didn't get off work sooner.”
Another hand pulled her away from the uncouth blond, straight into the arms of another man. Irritated, she looked up and recognized the guy as the buddy of her colleague Milo they were out with the other day.
“It's okay. We already got ourselves something to drink,” she played along with the game she hoped was to her rescue. She leaned into his embrace and watched out of the corner of her eye as the other guy cleared the field, defeated.
“Do you want me to escort the guy outside?” he whispered close to her ear.
“No, that's okay. Thanks for your help.” Relieved, she pulled away from her rescuer. “I'm a little embarrassed now, but what's your name again?”
“I'm Jasper, but don't be embarrassed. You're Olivia, right?” he typed more uncertainly than he probably was.
“Yeah, right. Do you rescue women from pushy guys often?” She tried to cover her embarrassment and defuse the situation at the same time. Jasper was still suspiciously close to her. Although he hadn't seemed interested in her last weekend, she still wanted to make it clear how she categorized his intervention.
“Anytime,” he declared chivalrously, and proceeded to make a mini bow. She believed every word he said, though he laughed as he did so. Cute dimples deepened in his face. No doubt he had success with women with that look and his outgoing nature and didn't need to use chivalry as a
means to an end. It just came out of him because he thought it was the right thing to do. That impressed Olivia more than anything.
“You're Amber, aren't you?” he turned his attention to her friend now. The fact that he'd remembered her name, too, she found almost more remarkable. Most men didn't pay Amber any attention at all - almost as if she wasn't in the room. This time, she would remember his name. She was sure of that.
Amber nodded and sheepishly took a sip from her glass.
“Where did you leave Milo today?” Olivia asked, trying to turn the subject to her colleague who had been having such a good time with Amber the last time they met.
“He already had something else in mind,” Jasper returned, raising an eyebrow meaningfully. “Mind you, I believe it had something to do with sport, or I'm sure he would have taken me. He knows he's not doing me any favors by taking me to the pitchfork throw.”
“What are you interested in?” now Amber wanted to know too.
“Anything but sports. You're most likely to get my attention with design themes." Jasper divided his attention evenly between the two of them. “I liked your shirt from the other day, for example.”
“I'm interested in fashion, so that's close,” Olivia caught his attention again.
“I know you mentioned something like that the other day,” Jasper returned with a grin.
“Oh crap, I must have totally talked you into it,” she realized, already embarrassed again. “I'm sorry. Thanks for saving me anyway.”
“Don't mention it. I'll leave you guys to it.” He pointed to a mixed group standing a few feet away. “My people are waiting for me back there. You guys have a good night. If you guys ever need rescuing - Milo has my number.”
Just as surprisingly as he had appeared, he had disappeared.
21. Tyler
THE SHORT WORK week was coming to an end. Word had spread rapidly that he was part of Sergeant Winder's team of informers. By the end of his second day, he had earned nothing but icy silence from the entire police department, while there was eager whispering behind held hands.
When, after climbing more than twenty floors, he had carried the papers up to the office and buried his head in them, Will had reappeared. Both of them had systematically rifled through the papers.
First they looked through the summary of the investigation. These fit into a thin binder. The detailed material would have been enough to keep them busy for another week, so they had thought of a different approach. They would still devote Friday to the paper and begin the next week to go over all the steps again that were found in the notes. They would talk to the family and friends of the missing person, and like their predecessors, they would visit the apartment and the office.
After only a few hours, it had been clear to both Will and him that Detective Parker's colleagues had not put much effort into their work. The first time they noticed this fact was when Will found out with a few mouse clicks that Delia Gupta was in possession of a car. A German limousine to be precise. This should have been noticed. However, there was nothing about this car in the records. Maybe they hadn't written it down - but he thought it more likely that they hadn't looked for it at all.
There was no mention of a car in the summary, which meant they hadn't investigated it either. This was a lead they were determined to follow up on. If their car had also disappeared, the scenario of a voluntary disappearance became much more realistic. But if the car was parked outside the victim's front door or office, that scenario became a side note among the many possibilities.
Tyler was reluctant to treat this case as a homicide. He wanted the best possible outcome for each of his cases and would rather be able to save someone than recover a body.
The heavy boxes contained several minutes of conversations with contacts and possible witnesses, lists of things found in the victim's home or office. Stacks of research material and useless magazines containing articles with notes from the victim. Call lists with dozens of interlocutors, only a few of whom had been identified so far, and more were in the files.
Putting out an APB on the car after almost two months was not very promising, but not doing it at all was stupid. So they had entered the data into the system and were now searching for the car. If it was still somewhere in Fairfield or the surrounding area, they would find it. Maybe by Monday they would have the answer to that first question.
Tyler dropped onto the still unfamiliar bed and sighed in exhaustion. His eyes fell on the cover of the book lying on a moving box he had converted into a makeshift nightstand. Charles Remsberg's textbook had suffered a few scratches when it had almost crossed the footpath in front of the house by itself last weekend. It was lucky to land in the pretty girl's delicate hands. How much he envied the book for that, he hadn't realized at that moment.
In the days that followed, she had crossed his mind again and again. Since she knew Remsberg, he hoped that she was also a policewoman and that he would see her again sometime. No one would willingly read a book about surviving as a cop on the streets. Especially not such a beauty as she. It wasn't written in a particularly entertaining way, but only served the purpose of helping readers survive that job as well.
With his feet, he kicked off his shoes and they thumped to the floor. Tyler pulled the pillow over his head to block out the remaining light of the day.
“Ty, get up,” Simon called in his piercing voice through the open door.
He tossed the pillow aside and stretched his neck to look at his roommate.
“Up you go. You're coming tonight,” he instructed Tyler uncompromisingly. “The girls are waiting for us.”
“Can I still take a shower?” he asked humbly. Simon had tried to get him to go out several times that week. He'd tried sports, offered him a tour of the city, and tried to drag him to dinner. But Tyler didn't have the wherewithal for such activities, nor was he someone who liked to go out regularly. He preferred to be at home and surround himself with close friends. But he didn't have any of those in Fairfield yet - in fact, he didn't have any of those anymore.
That night he would make an exception. Maybe Simon was right and it was time to get to know some of the city's nightlife. Who knew if he wouldn't run into his Remsberg elf in the process?
“Yeah, but don't dawdle,” Simon returned with a grin.
Tyler nodded and ducked into the bathroom with a pile of fresh clothes. The actual shower only took a few minutes, but he didn't mind shaving and styling his hair as well. His beard growth was sparse and looked downright ridiculous on his boyish face. While other men his age could grow an audacious three-day beard, Tyler's face grew only a few stubbles in the most impossible places. In the end they bore no resemblance to a real beard. After one last scrutinizing look, he sprayed on a blast of a sporty tart scent and winked at his reflection.
“Very good,” Simon praised despite his tardiness. “Are you ready to go?”
His roommate wore cognac-colored leather shoes and a matching jacket over dark blue cloth pants with a blue and white pinstripe shirt. Simon was one of those guys on whom both suit and sweatpants looked abnormally perfect. He himself slipped into his favorite black sneakers and threw on a light jacket as well.
Determined, Simon marched down the stairs in front of him and pushed open the modern front door of the apartment building. Tyler scurried after him, trying to keep up.
“Where are we going?”
Simon had taken the path towards the city centre, which surprised him little, but he still wanted to elicit a little more information from him before they set off.
“We're meeting some girlfriends of mine at an oriental restaurant and later moving on to a club.”
Oriental? That promised to be interesting. Even if he couldn't quite imagine what kind of food awaited him there, he at least expected something exotic, accompanied by tea and sweet pastries.
“Sounds great,” Tyler returned with satisfaction. “I'm sorry I've been so detached the last few days, by the way. I'm not really like
that. At least, I don't want to be like that.”
The new Tyler wanted to go out and make friends. He was happy to leave the old hermit behind in Detroit. After all, a new life was exactly what he needed. Simon was nice. They could be friends.
“Didn't your start go the way you would have liked?” Simon asked, as if he had a seventh sense for detecting the sore spots of his interlocutors within seconds. Tyler expelled air through his nose and shook his head.
“Nah, I really didn't. I was expecting something completely different than what I ended up getting. What I'll make of it I don't know yet, but I'm really sorry I dragged my bad mood home with me.”
“It's okay. I have bad days too sometimes,” Simon returned. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his cloth pants and slowed his pace. “Hopefully you'll be understanding of that then.”
Tyler nodded. He thought he understood exactly what Simon meant.
“In the hospital, sometimes I see things that really get to me, and I can't always get everything off my chest there. Maybe that's part of the reason I go out so much. It helps me forget about it all for a while.”
22. Quinn
STRETCHED OUT ON her bed, she propped her head in her palms. On the display of the laptop, which stood unfolded at the headboard, her best friend gazed back at her. Kate was the person she could tell just about anything to. Jonah and his friends had done their best to welcome Quinn, but for some issues she needed her irreplaceable childhood friend.
“I really don't know how I'm going to stand this,” she lamented, exhausted, after recapping her first week at her new job and in her new city in great detail.
A clatter sounded from the kitchen. Jonah had his wildly diverse project team of misfits as guests again. Quinn had stopped by to say hello before their video date. It was a shame she didn't have more to talk to them about, but these meetings were mostly work meetings where they tinkered with their study project. In the process, she was just getting in the way.
