The Lost

by Vicki Pettersson

  Tomas answers quickly, working to deflect her anger before it’s even risen. “A girl came by early this morning. She called the cops.”

  The woman curses in her native tongue, not caring that Tomas—American all the way back to his pasty, backwoods, pig-fucking grandfather—can’t understand. How, after she’s worked for a year getting everything in place, could something go wrong now?

  “Why didn’t you stop her?” she asks, switching back to English.

  “She looked like . . . somebody.”

  “Somebody we know?”

  There is a soft rustle on the other line, and she realizes Tomas is shaking his head as if she can see him. Idiot. Though she does have an ability to see things no one else can. She is blessed this way. It’s why she is who she is.

  “No,” Tomas finally says. “Someone who would be missed.”

  “Who is she?”

  “I’ve never seen her before. She’s . . . different. Healthy. Has some money, too.”

  Hearing another telling rustle, she can picture, with her talented mind, Tomas peering out the window of the small tract home, darting a quick glance at the street now littered with cops and flashing lights and this woman who’s called danger down upon them all. She can also feel his eagerness to leave—he needs to flee, with his record—but she hasn’t given him permission to do so.

  And she won’t. Not yet.

  “She’s outside now,” he says, scrambling for the information she wants. Anything so she will let him go. “She’s smoking and leaning against a fancy car.”

  “What kind of car?”

  “Not sure. Some vintage number with a soft top. Nothing ever meant to crawl the streets of this neighborhood.”

  “Is she Law?”

  “I don’t think so,” he answers. “She’s too . . . girly to be a cop. She looks like some sort of, I don’t know. Pinup girl.”

  “I don’t care how attractive you find her,” the woman snaps. “I want to know if she’s dangerous.”

  More rustling. “She’s Anglo, like me. Dark hair, loose curls. Slim. No, doesn’t look a bit martial.”

  Neither do I, the woman thinks, gazing out her own window at the gray, empty street. “But she is motivated?”

  “She broke a window and went inside by herself.”

  By herself. What good is it to have a watchdog with no bite? Maybe she should show Tomas what teeth really look like. “And you just let her?” she snaps.

  “She was after something.” No bite. Just a whine.

  The woman sighs, and closes her eyes. There is nothing to be done with a man like this. Nothing but use him for his brawn, and eventually turn his greed against him. She remains silent for a long while, pondering just how to do that, knowing he’ll wait for as long as she wants.

  “Follow her,” she finally says, opening her eyes.

  “But the cops—”

  She stops him there. “I want to know what she knows.”

  This time he knows better than to argue. “Done.”

  “Tomas.” The silence following his name is loaded. She knows he’s spoken to some of the other men, her countrymen. She also knows—they’d told her—that in their language she is sometimes called “mother” and “bride.” But to Tomas, she is the least motherly or maidenly woman he’s ever meet, and that’s how she keeps him tied to her, close, on a leash. “We’re too near to our goal to allow some random stranger to trip us up.”

  “I know what to do.” And that’s why she keeps him at all.

  “Make sure she doesn’t see you,” she says in parting, and waits for the answer that should have come. Of course. I’m not stupid. Nobody ever sees me.

  Instead he says nothing. She curses silently, knowing then he’s already been seen, but she doesn’t call him on it. Instead she hangs up, letting him believe he’s won a little something with the deceit. She will allow him to follow this newfound trouble, and get the answers she needs first. It will allow her to remain hidden. Smoke and shadows, after all, are where she thrives.

  She will take care of Tomas—who knows too much, yet does too little—after that. And the strung-out kid in the abandoned house that this useless man was supposed to be watching?

  He’ll be considered lucky in comparison to Tomas’s coming fate.

  Chapter Five

  The Sierra Vista Rehab Center was located on a busy intersection only one block from an affluent residential enclave that included a country club and guarded gates . . . not quite what Grif had expected. Other than the nurses’ station and the white-tiled halls, the interior wasn’t what he expected, either, and skewed toward homey rather than institutional, or at least like an exclusive private school. As Grif and Kit followed a nurse to the head administrator’s office, he wondered how many of his preconceived notions were taken from the cinema, black-and-white flickers where wild-eyed patients were wheeled from room to room by stoic attendants, their straitjackets crisp, gazes empty, mouths slack.

  He saw no such examples now, though they hadn’t been allowed into the patients’ ward, and were instead being led to the administrator’s offices, presumably for last-minute instructions on how to interact with the patients in general, or at least with Mary Margaret. It wasn’t until they were seated across from Ms. Lucinda Howard, with a wide, glossy desk looming between them, and her certificates and diplomas splayed across the wall behind her, that he realized something was wrong.

  “How did you say you knew Ms. DiMartino again?”

  Kit and Grif looked at each other. They hadn’t, though Ms. Howard had their visitor’s request form squared in front of her. They’d submitted it five weeks before, but had obviously left out the part about Grif’s having known Mary Margaret fifty years earlier.

  “We’re old friends of the family,” Grif said instead. “Mary Margaret’s nephew, Ray DiMartino, told us where to find her.”

  Ms. Howard dismissed the familial bond with a sniff. “You understand this is highly unusual. It’s rare that people outside of immediate family are allowed to interact with the patients. At least while they’re under direct care.”

  “Mary Margaret doesn’t live here full-time then?” Kit posed it as a question, but she, too, already knew the answer. She was just reminding Ms. Howard that they could, and would, eventually talk to the woman. Within these walls, however, the outcome of that meeting could be observed and controlled.

  “No,” Ms. Howard answered, with a tight smile. “Mary Margaret is a high-functioning patient. She had great results with our psychosocial rehabilitation program and had been living independently for over twenty months before this latest . . . incident. Your paperwork indicates you’re already aware of this, which raises the question: why?”

  “Why what?” asked Grif.

  “Why disturb her with questions about her past? You’re aware of her history. Yet you’re not doctors, so you can’t deal with the feelings and possible fallout that raising these issues outside of therapy might cause. Is there any particularly good reason that you might disturb the mental health of an individual who is already teetering on the brink of yet another breakdown?”

  “We certainly don’t want to cause Ms. DiMartino any distress,” Kit said, leaning forward. “But we’re looking for someone who disappeared a long time ago, and she might be able to help us locate their whereabouts.”

  Ms. Howard’s lips tightened like a string, and she glanced back down at the paperwork, but the top sheet gave explicit familial permission for their visit. Mary Margaret had been consulted, and accepted the appointment when Kit called the facility five days earlier, so no matter what Ms. Howard’s reservations were, there was little she could do about it now.

  “Very well,” she said, standing so that Kit could see straight up her narrow nose. “I’ll see that she’s ready. You’ll be visiting in the atrium, our common area. There will be nurses there to assist you, and her, if needed.”

  And she strode from the room, spine ramrod-straight, without a backward glance.
r />   “Was that a warning?” Grif muttered, when she’d gone.

  “Do we look that threatening?” Kit replied, glancing down. Grif didn’t bother looking at himself—he’d been stuck in the same clothing for more than fifty years—but since they were waiting anyway, he took the opportunity to give his partner a good once-over. They’d stopped at home after leaving the abandoned tract house, and she was now wearing a navy Japanese kimono dress that wrapped tightly across her chest and flared into an A-line skirt trimmed in red. Her bag and hoop earrings, both bamboo, matched the wedges on her feet, and the crimson flower behind her ear contrasted boldly with her onyx hair, currently tucked into a black snood pinned behind her bumper bangs.

  She’s like living, breathing origami, Grif thought, studying her from toe to head. She took a new delicate shape every day.

  “Well?” Kit said, when his gaze finally reached her eyes.

  One corner of Grif’s mouth lifted. “I’m not scared.”

  Kit snorted, but sobered quickly as Ms. Howard reentered the room. She’d been gone less than two minutes, and though Kit and Grif automatically stood, she returned to her position behind the desk, and took a seat.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, folding her hands, not looking apologetic at all, “but Ms. DiMartino seems to have had a change of heart. She no longer wishes to see you. In fact, her preference is to have no visitors at all for the remainder of her stay.”

  Meaning, Grif thought, don’t have her nephew call and try to convince her otherwise. The speed of Ms. Howard’s return indicated she certainly hadn’t tried.

  “Did she say why?” Kit asked, hands clasped.

  “She doesn’t need a reason,” Ms. Howard said, lifting her chin. “Here at Sierra Vista, we teach our patients ‘no’ is a complete sentence.”

  “Of course,” Kit said quickly, though her voice was tighter now. She tried clearing it. “It’s just that we’re . . . disappointed. We were hoping she could help.”

  “Ms. DiMartino’s first priority is to help herself. Frankly,” said Ms. Howard, looking pointedly at Grif, “I was surprised she agreed to see you in the first place.”

  Maybe he should have given himself a good once-over, Grif thought, frowning. “Why’s that?”

  “She’s not that fond of men, Mr. Shaw. She doesn’t trust them, will never abide being alone in their company, and certainly doesn’t consider them friends.”

  “Strange,” Grif muttered. “She wasn’t like that when I knew her.”

  “Excuse me?” Ms. Howard said, eyes narrowing sharply.

  “Nothing,” Kit said quickly, and Grif shifted uncomfortably. Looking all of thirty-three years old, same as when he’d died, he certainly couldn’t explain to Ms. Howard that he’d known the now sixty-two-year-old woman when she was only twelve. “We’re just surprised her nephew didn’t say as much.”

  Ms. Howard shrugged. That wasn’t her problem. “I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do.”

  “Well, thank you for your time,” Kit said warmly, though Grif just stood and left.

  “Why do you bother being polite to such people,” he said when Kit finally caught up to him halfway down the sterile hallway. He gave the double door leading outside a violent push. “You can’t sweeten up vinegar.”

  “Because it’s not about the war, darling. It’s about the win.”

  Grif stopped dead and looked at her.

  Kit stared back. “That means being surly doesn’t help our cause.”

  “And being polite does?” he said, resuming his stride, though his anger had deflated and his shoulders slumped.

  “Of course. Ms. Howard said Mary Margaret doesn’t like men. That’s you, not me. So being polite keeps the dialogue open. She’ll be out from under Ms. Howard’s eye and thumb in just a few days. I’ll try again then.”

  “I don’t know, Kit,” Grif said, reaching the passenger’s side of the car. “Maybe we should let her be. I have no idea what happened to her in the last fifty years, but some people got a reason not to remember the past. Plus, seeing me, like this . . .”

  He gestured down the length of his body, indicating all of it—the suit, the shoes, the face that hadn’t aged a day in half a century.

  Kit paused, the car door half-open. “Honey, she’s locked up in a mental-health facility, and drugged up to her eyeballs. And that’s when she’s not trying to drown her memories in a bottle. You really think she’s forgotten anything? Take it from someone who’s been there. Mary Margaret’s past is chasing her down.”

  Kit began to climb in, but Grif held his hand up over the roof of the car. “Back up. What do you mean you’ve been there?” He pointed back at the sterile building. “You mean . . . there?”

  Squinting up into the sun, she sighed. “Not Sierra Vista, but yes. One like it.”

  “But you’re . . .” Grif couldn’t help it. He made a face like he’d just swallowed a bitter pill. “Cheery.”

  Kit barked out a dry, humorless laugh. “Yes, and I had to make a conscious decision, and do a lot of work, to get that way. Starting when I was seventeen.”

  “After your father was killed.”

  Kit just nodded as she climbed in the car. Grif was slower, but only because he was putting it all together.

  “That’s when the rockabilly thing started, too, right?” he said, once he’d pulled his door shut, angling his body toward hers.

  “Yes,” she murmured, and Grif knew the memories were bad, because she didn’t chide him for calling her lifestyle a “thing.”

  “Locked up, drugged up . . . shut up.” Though the car was silent, her hands were propped stiffly on the glossy wood of the steering wheel as if it was holding her in place. She finally looked over at him. “That’s not how I wanted to live, you know? So being cheery, as you call it, being rockabilly, and being a damned good reporter is my way of keeping the dialogue open.”

  “With whom?” he asked.

  She blinked at him, then said, “With the world.”

  Grif simply reached out and placed his palm against her cheek.

  The transformation was instant. Her hands fell to her lap, an enormous smile bloomed on her face, and a blush sent color rushing to her cheeks. He’d never met anyone who laid her emotions bare more easily than Kit. It made him want to cover her up, mostly, though lately it had started making him feel naked. So, for them both, he drew her close, held her tight, and rested his lips atop hers. He kept her there until they both were steady again.

  “Don’t worry,” Kit said, glancing back to the building where Mary Margaret was hiding. “If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s getting people to talk.”

  As if on cue, her phone rang. Checking it, Kit smiled, then flashed him the number. Detective Dennis Carlisle’s photo flashed with it. “See?” she said cheerily, before answering it.

  Grif just shook his head. Looks like they were headed to the dead house. Maybe, he mused, her communication powers extend to the deceased.

  Then again, that was Grif’s beat.

  The coroner’s office was housed in a building that was better-looking than most of its last-minute guests, though not by much. The brick face had clearly been laid decades earlier, though it’d been painted over so many times it looked like it was shedding its skin in the Vegas sunlight. The doors were steel, and the security guard inside had eyes of the same material. They didn’t warm even when Kit gifted him with her brightest smile.

  However, he did let them pass. “Second door on the left,” he said, without emotion, and Kit mentally thanked Dennis for coming through yet again as they made their way down the peeling linoleum hall.

  “Look,” she told Grif, who was back to being annoyed with her after leaving the Sierra Vista facility. “What does it hurt to ask a couple of questions?”

  “Depends on who you’re questioning,” he muttered.

  Kit knew he was just worried for her safety, but his tone made her want to hiss. “I seriously doubt the coroner will whack me for wanting to k
now what happened to some street kid in an abandoned home. But I’m so glad you’ve got my back. Just in case.”

  Grif grunted, still annoyed, but held open the door to a small anterior room with the most uninspired desk she’d ever seen. A buzzer sounded behind the door opposite them, in what was likely the autopsy room. It opened a moment later, and in backed a man with fierce red hair, both too long and too short to be of any purported style. They’d obviously caught him in the middle of his work, because he was wearing scrubs, gloves, and a paper mask that cut deep indents into his flushed cheeks. His blue eyes stood out brightly against his skin, making him look wild.

  “Sorry. My assistant went for coffee.” The words were wry, and Kit sympathized. Budget cuts all around. The paper was experiencing them, too.

  “You the coroner?” Grif asked.

  “Medical examiner.” The man stripped off a glove, held out a hand. “Dr. Charles Ott.”

  Grif shoved his hands in his pockets. Kit merely brightened her smile.

  Ott laughed. “They’re fresh. I’m just back from lunch.”

  Kit couldn’t imagine downing a burger and then coming back to this job, but maybe that was what kept Ott so skinny. If the budget at the paper got cut too much, she might consider a career change. The autopsy room could be her key to being as svelte as Dita Von Teese.

  “I’m Kit Craig,” she said, finally taking the hand, “and this is Griffin Shaw. I believe Detective Carlisle told you we were coming?”

  “He did, but you should know that I prefer to work alone. Don’t like newshounds or detectives looking over my shoulder, you know?” He said it with a wink, but the words were clear enough. Don’t question my work.

  “Of course,” Kit said.

  The mask widened as the coroner smiled. It didn’t make him look any less crazed. “But then I got a load of the deceased and thought a little tit-for-tat might be in order.” He didn’t wait for them to agree. “I’d love to know where the hell this kid learned to make krokodil.” He pronounced it like “crocodile.”