Someone's Watching

by Sharon Potts

  It was as though Brett hadn’t heard her. “I’m sorry,” she said, “But—”

  “Hang on a sec, would you?”

  She could hear someone talking to Brett in the background.

  “Shit, Robbie. Mike needs me. Turns out tonight’s not going to work after all. Maybe tomorrow?”

  “Sure,” Robbie said.

  “Later,” he said.

  She turned her phone to vibrate, put it back in her satchel, then stood up on the rocks and crossed over to Jeremy.

  He was balanced on a boulder, the wind whipping his hair around his face, arms crossed in front of him. The scar on the back of his hand was a year old, but still looked raw. Fortunately, the bullet hadn’t caused any permanent damage. “Brett Chandler?” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’d heard you were dating him.”

  “He’s a nice guy,” Robbie said, feeling the schism widening.

  A couple of large-breasted teenage girls in bikinis were hopping from rock to rock, giggling. “Hey, Jeremy,” one of them called out. “What’s good tonight?”

  “Townhouse.”

  “Cool,” she said. “See you there.”

  “Still partying?” Robbie said.

  “Sure. Why not?” Jeremy glanced at his watch. “Sorry to cut out on you, but I’ve got a client in twenty minutes.”

  “Oh. No problem. You should go.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “You could talk to Judy Lieber, you know. Maybe she can find out something about your sister.”

  “Right,” Robbie said. “That’s a good idea.”

  He started across the rocks back toward the beach. When he got to the path, his pace quickened to a jog, to a run. She watched him. Watched as he crossed onto the sand and raced along the surf, getting smaller and smaller and smaller.

  Chapter 4

  It was back. That feeling in the pit of her stomach like a clump of dried mud. When she was a kid, Robbie sometimes imagined it would sprout weeds that would grow out of her mouth and ears. Then everyone would know her secret. About how lonely and empty she was—with nothing inside her but hardened sludge. She remembered once standing alone in the brick courtyard in front of her apartment building throwing a rubber ball against the wall—ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine.

  Robbie left the pier and returned to her apartment feeling sorry for herself. Matilda was lying across Robbie’s laptop computer on the kitchen table, the photo of Kaitlin beneath her soft white fur. Robbie eased the picture out.

  Yes—Kaitlin looked a lot like Robbie had, but there were also differences in Kaitlin—a wider nose, longer chin. There was an openness in the blue eyes, a playfulness. One side of Kaitlin’s mouth was turned down ever so slightly and she looked like she was getting ready to wink at the photographer. Had she been flirting with him?

  The malaise evaporated. What the heck was Robbie doing? She wasn’t the needy type. She’d always taken care of herself, just like her mother had taught her to do. So why was she acting like a drama queen?

  This girl was her sister. Robbie needed to try to find her and make sure she was okay. It no longer matter what her father had and had not done, or whether Jeremy, or Brett, or anyone was going to help her.

  She lifted Matilda off the table. “Down you go, little girl.”

  The cat meowed as she landed on the floor.

  Robbie blew off the cat hair from her laptop, opened it, then logged onto Facebook. She searched for Kaitlin Brooks, but found no one who matched a high school senior living in Deland, Florida. The closest she came was a girl named Kate Brooks. Unfortunately, Kate didn’t allow people who weren’t her friends to view her profile and in lieu of a photo of herself had posted what looked like a tattoo of an arrowhead. Maybe it was Kaitlin, maybe not. Robbie thought about what message she should send her that wouldn’t be too alarming, but might still get a response.

  Are you Kaitlin Brooks from Deland? I think we have

  some friends in common. Please get back to me.

  Then she looked again at the photo of the smiling girl. “I’m going to find you, little sister. And when I do, I’m not letting you go.”

  When Robbie woke up the next morning, the first thing she did was check for a reply from Kate Brooks. Nothing. She got dressed, skipped coffee, and biked over to the police station on Washington Avenue. It was a modern, white building with a wide plaza out front, just down the street from the old City Hall. Robbie locked her bike to the stand, using just the bar, figuring with all the cops walking around, it wasn’t likely that someone would steal her bike.

  The morning light poured into the open lobby area of the station through large windows. Two teenage girls in very short dresses appeared to be sleeping, one sprawled out on a concrete bench, the other on the floor, her head resting on a backpack, bare feet blacksoled. Platform heels lay in a pile beside her. Robbie doubled back. The girl on the bench had long black hair.

  Robbie got closer, examining the sleeping girl’s features for something familiar. How young she looked, even under smudged makeup. The girl’s eyes opened—brown and red-rimmed. She sat up and gave Robbie a tentative smile.

  “I’m sorry,” Robbie said. “I thought you were someone else.”

  The girl put her head back down on the bench and closed her eyes.

  Robbie went to the check-in window, glancing back at the two girls, wondering what kind of mess they’d gotten themselves into. Thinking about Kaitlin.

  “Can I help you?” asked a heavyset police officer. He looked down at Robbie over a counter covered with paperwork.

  “I’d like to see Detective Judy Lieber. My name’s Robbie Ivy.”

  “Is she expecting you?”

  “No, but she knows me.” Robbie wondered what the detective would make of her reappearance. It had been a year since they’d seen each other. A year since the double murder of a couple of ordinary people on a quiet residential island in Miami Beach. One of the victims had been Robbie’s mentor. The mentor who had been Jeremy’s mother. But Jeremy had also lost his father that night.

  Robbie often wondered, would the killer have been caught as quickly if Jeremy hadn’t pursued his parents’ murderer? She didn’t think so. And much like Jeremy, it wasn’t in Robbie’s nature to leave things to other people.

  The officer was talking to someone on the phone. It occurred to Robbie that Lieber might not be in. But no matter. If she wasn’t, Robbie would speak to someone else. She had made up her mind. She wasn’t leaving here until she was sure something was being done to find her sister.

  A balding uniformed cop carrying a clipboard crossed the lobby to the two sleeping girls. The girls sat up and stretched. Robbie heard the cop say something about safe space and calling their parents.

  The door to the elevator opened and Detective Lieber emerged. Robbie felt a mixture of pleasure and sadness as she took in the slim middle-aged woman with graying shoulder-length brown hair, deep-set brown eyes, and a furrow in her brow. Lieber wore a poorly fitting pantsuit and black sneaker-like shoes, not very different from how she dressed a year ago.

  “Robbie,” Lieber said, clasping Robbie’s hand in her own. “It’s so good to see you. I’ve often thought about you and Jeremy. How are you? How’s Jeremy doing?”

  “Everything’s good,” Robbie said, hearing a quiver in her voice. She hadn’t considered that the detective was bound up with memories Robbie would have preferred keeping buried. “Mostly good.”

  “I don’t think I would have recognized you on the street.” Lieber took a step back. “You’ve let your hair grow. It suits you, but you look younger—especially with the feathered earrings and jeans. Quite a change from the serious businesswoman.”

  “I’ve changed on the inside, too.”

  “I imagine you have.” Lieber’s own face and demeanor were much the same as Robbie remembered—light wrinkles around her eyes, sun-spotted skin, a tautness in her movements that suggested she could spring into action at the least provo
cation.

  “Are you in a hurry?” Lieber asked. “Or do you have time for breakfast?”

  “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

  “Sure, but I’m starving. Let’s run across the street to the diner. I want to hear what you’ve been up to.”

  As they waited for the light at the corner of heavily trafficked Washington Avenue, Robbie told Lieber about her job as a bartender at The Garage and her jewelry-making hobby. They crossed the street and detoured around construction, passing a tattoo parlor, a tanning salon, a souvenir store selling T-shirts. The air smelled like decaying garbage. A large crowd of tourists pushed past them, separating Robbie from Lieber. And for an instant, Robbie was back in Boston’s Faneuil Hall, her mother’s hand slipping out of hers, the crowd swallowing her up.

  “Mommy,” Robbie almost called out, but the moment passed and Lieber was again beside her.

  “So,” Lieber said, “the last I heard, you and Jeremy drove off to see America. Took his dad’s old red Corvair. I kept worrying about the car breaking down and you two being stranded.”

  “It broke down once or twice. Jeremy fixed it.”

  “Did he now?” Lieber grinned. Robbie always sensed Lieber had a soft spot for Jeremy.

  They climbed the four steps up to the entrance of the 11th Street Diner, a railroad car converted into a restaurant. Lieber held open the door and they stepped inside. With its red leatherette booths, counter service, and covered platters of cakes and pies, it reminded Robbie of a diner not far from the building where Robbie and her mom had lived. Sometimes when her mom was too tired from the chemo treatments to cook, they’d go there for dinner. Her mom would order soup, but hardly touch it.

  “There’s a booth.” Lieber waved to a waitress and grabbed a couple of menus.

  The table was near a window. Outside, a homeless woman with a shopping cart was going through last night’s trash. Someone with long dark hair walked by. Robbie strained to see her.

  “Three egg whites scrambled with Swiss cheese,” Lieber said to the waitress. “Wheat toast and coffee. What are you having, Robbie?”

  The dark-haired person stopped to give the homeless woman something. Robbie could see her face—a grown woman. Not Kaitlin. Was Robbie going to imagine her sister everywhere?

  “Robbie?” Lieber said.

  “I’m sorry.” Robbie relaxed against the benchseat. “I’ll have coffee and a toasted multigrain bagel, please.”

  The waitress left with the menus.

  “So bartending for now,” Lieber said. “Quite a change from being a CPA.”

  “I don’t miss it.”

  “I had the impression you were very good at it.”

  “Oh, I liked the numbers and puzzles, but I’m glad to be away from the obsession with power and money.”

  The waitress put two mugs of coffee and a small pitcher of cream on the table.

  “Tell me about Jeremy,” Lieber said, bringing the mug to her lips and blowing on the black coffee. “What’s he up to?”

  “He’s doing fine. He has an apartment at the SOBE Grande.”

  “Nice place.”

  Robbie added cream and sugar to her coffee. “Well, his parents left him and his sister a little money.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Not that he’s goofing off or anything like that,” Robbie said, wondering why she felt the need to justify. “Jeremy works hard. He’s a personal trainer at a couple of gyms.”

  “No corporate world for him, either.”

  “Anything but. He’s enjoying South Beach.”

  “Well, that’s good. He had to grow up too quickly when his parents died. I’m glad he’s taking some time for himself.”

  The waitress put their orders down on paper placemats, covering the map of Florida and picture of an alligator.

  “Thanks so much.” Lieber tasted her eggs, then reached for the salt and pepper and sprinkled them freely.

  “May I ask you something on a professional level?” Robbie asked.

  Lieber looked up from her food.

  “Do you handle the missing person cases?”

  “Some of them.”

  “I wanted to ask you about one in particular.”

  Lieber’s brown eyes were alert.

  “My father came to see me yesterday.” Robbie glanced away from Lieber’s gaze. She didn’t like withholding things from the detective, but now wasn’t the time to get into the family history. “He told me my younger sister and her friend were in Miami Beach on spring break. They’re missing.”

  “I know,” Lieber said.

  “You know?”

  “I happened to be on duty yesterday morning and I spoke with your father. He told me about Kaitlin and her friend, Joanne. He also said he had an older daughter here in town who went by the name Robbie Ivy. I figured that’s why you came to see me.”

  Why had Lieber waited until now to mention this? “So you told him you knew me?”

  “I didn’t feel that would be appropriate, not knowing your relationship with him. I did ask if it was possible that Kaitlin was staying with you and he was very definite that she wasn’t. I thought his certainty a bit odd.”

  Robbie looked down at her untouched bagel. It was burned at the edge.

  “Had you seen your sister before she and her friend disappeared?” Lieber asked.

  “No. I had no idea she was in Miami.”

  “Did she call you?”

  “No.”

  Lieber opened her mouth as though she wanted to ask something else, but instead picked up her coffee and took a sip.

  How peculiar this must all seem to Lieber. Robbie had come to ask the detective about her sister, and yet this sister hadn’t bothered to call or let Robbie know she was in town.

  “Your father’s very worried, naturally,” Lieber said. “He doesn’t believe the two girls would go off by themselves.”

  “But you think they may have?”

  “I spoke with the other girls who came to South Beach with Kaitlin and Joanne. They said your sister and her friend had been acting strangely.”

  “Strangely how?”

  “Keeping to themselves. Like they had some secret. In fact, Kaitlin had hinted to the others that she and Joanne might disappear for a day or two and to please not worry or call their parents.”

  “A day or two,” Robbie said. “When was the last time anyone saw them?”

  “Friday morning.”

  “Today’s Monday. That’s three days.”

  “True. But we’ve looked for the car they drove down in from Deland and we haven’t been able to find it. Which isn’t to say it’s not here on Miami Beach. There are lots of places it can be, but it does reinforce the possibility they drove somewhere else for a few days.”

  “So you think they took off for their own private vacation and turned off their cell phones?”

  “That’s the most likely explanation. I imagine your sister and her friend will reappear any time now, completely oblivious to the anguish they’ve caused their parents.”

  “But what if they’re still here?”

  Lieber took out two sheets of paper from her shoulder bag and handed them to Robbie. “Missing” bulletins. Kaitlin (Kate) Brooks, the top one read.

  Kate. So the Kate Brooks that Robbie had left a message for on Facebook was very likely her sister.

  The photo of Kate was the same graduation picture Robbie’s father had given her, and there was a description—five foot four, a hundred twenty pounds, and the circumstances of her disappearance.

  “She resembles you,” Lieber said.

  “Yes.”

  The other flyer had a picture of Joanne Sparks. She was five feet, ninety-five pounds, had light hair and a young face with a nose that she hadn’t quite grown into.

  “I’m not optimistic the flyers will do anything,” Lieber said. “Like I told your father, my best guess is Kaitlin and Joanne went off by themselves for a few days. But who knows?” She sipped
her coffee. “If they’re runaways, I doubt anyone would recognize them from the flyers. They’ll blend in, dressing and acting like the girls who frequent the clubs. They’d bear almost no resemblance to the photos their parents have given us.”

  “You’re assuming if they’re still in South Beach they’re runaways?”

  “I’m just saying it’s a possibility.”

  “Have you checked their hotel room? Did they take all their stuff with them?”

  Lieber’s lips tugged upward like she was containing a smile. “Still the investigator, are you?”

  “I just want to find her.”

  “I understand.” Lieber put her coffee down. “I got to the girls’ hotel before your father and the other parents had a chance to pack up and check out.”

  “The friends are gone?”

  “Yeah. Your father apparently called all the parents and they drove down and herded their own daughters out of here. But I spoke with the kids before they left town, and I checked the room Kate and Joanne were sharing. Their makeup and toothbrushes were missing, and according to their friends, some of their clothes, as well.”

  “So they were planning on coming back.”

  “Probably. Which is why I’m not alarmed.” Lieber looked at Robbie with a slight frown. “Is there something you know about your sister that you’re not telling me?”

  “Not a thing.” Robbie pushed her plate away. “I don’t know a thing about her.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  There was a picture of Cinderella’s castle next to the alligator on the placemat. Robbie and her mom and dad once went to Disney World when Robbie was little.

  “My father left me and my mom when I was seven. I hadn’t heard from him since, until yesterday. I didn’t even know I had a sister.”

  “Ah, I see.” Lieber nodded.

  “I must find her.”

  “But unless Kaitlin and her friend want to be found, there’s very little the police can do.”

  “Then this is it? You’re done?”

  The detective gave Robbie a reproving look.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound off like that. It’s just—this has affected me an awful lot.” Robbie leaned back in the booth. How terribly alone she felt without her mom, without a close friend, without Jeremy.