Alfonse poked his head into the garage. “Victor!”
“Qué?” a voice called out.
“¡Vete aquí! Ahora!”
Another patron entered the waiting area; an old caucasian man with ghostly white hair and pale skin, visible blue veins on his hands and neck.
“Como esta, cabrón!” The man greeted Alfonse, clearly not his native tongue. Alfonse didn’t return the greeting.
“Your car is ready,” Alfonse said flatly, not taking his eyes off Jack. The old man leaned on the counter and looked Jack over.
“Ha, I told you if ya keep ripping people off you’d get busted. He uses gray market brake pads and tells you they’re factory.”
“Shut up,” Alfonse said.
“You gonna run him in, copper?” the old man said, snickering.
Jack leaned in to Alfonse. “Have Victor meet me out front.”
Jack stood outside in the cold. All the other storefronts were either auto repair or body work. A tiny boombox played merengue across the street at a car wash.
Victor pushed open the door and came out with his shoulders back and chest out. Upon seeing the serious look on Jack’s face, he relaxed his muscles and put away the bravado.
“Victor?”
“Whatchu want?”
Jack flashed his badge, wasting no time with small talk. “Detective Jack Ridge, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“What about?”
“Carmen Muniz.”
Victor blinked, confused. He looked at the ground and nodded a few times. Jack could read a person from their first reaction to confrontation. Victor’s body language said he wasn’t hiding guilt. It was regret. Sorrow. No doubt he’d read the papers.
“You two knew each other.”
“Yeah, a little.”
“You were boyfriend and girlfriend.”
“No. I wanted that. She didn’t.”
“She didn’t want to be your boyfriend?”
“No — she wasn’t… we only dated a few weeks. She was a little loco.”
“How so?”
“Had a relationship with God. You know?”
“What do you remember about the night she disappeared?”
“I figure she just took off. Mother had a loose wire. Shit. Just fucked up.”
“Were you with her the night she disappeared?”
Victor got defensive. “No. I broke it off a few weeks before.”
“Why?”
“Long time ago, man. Had no patience back then.”
“I don’t understand,” Jack said. Victor put his hands in his back pockets and twisted in place, trying to put it into words.
“…She was a delicate flower.”
“How do you mean?”
Victor rolled his eyes. “An appetizer, no fun. A…prude?”
“Okay.”
Another worker poked his head out of the garage. “Victor, what weight?”
“10 w 30.”
“He’s got 40 in there now.”
“That’s wrong. Too thick.”
“What?”
“Gimme a minute!”
Jack held up his fingers signaling two minutes. The man mumbled something under his breath and went back inside.
“What else do you remember?”
“She used to paint… so beautiful. Damn, some fucked up shit, man.”
“Yeah, fucked up. Where did she like to go, hang out? Do you remember?”
“Nowhere. School and back. I remember…she won some contest once, they hung her picture in the gallery at the Rec Center downtown. Dragged me there once.”
“Can you tell me where it is?”
“Hamilton, next to the Library.”
“Thank you Victor, I won’t hold you up any longer.” Jack turned to leave.
“Am I a suspect?” Victor called out to him. Jack looked him up and down.
“Of course you are.”
CHAPTER 45
Teresa Mason’s apartment was on the third floor of a six story apartment building. There were five other tenants on her floor. She checked her reflection in the bathroom mirror, pulling her hair back to swap her cheap everyday earrings for gold ones — a gift from her mother at Christmas. She’d never worn them before.
She checked her watch, Randall would be there any minute. She swished and spit her mouthwash, rubbing the static of her dress a few times, trying to straighten it out. No good, just made it worse.
The doorbell rang. “Shit.” She shut off the bathroom light and went to the front door, checking her reflection as she passed the hallway mirror. She pulled at her dress, trying to flatten it one last time, wanting to make a good first impression. Okay, ready or not. She moved to the door, her feet throbbing already in her high heel shoes.
When she opened it, she saw nothing but flowers.
“Teresa?”
She craned her neck to see his face through the bouquet as he barged into her living room. “Randall?” The voice wasn’t familiar.
He extended his hand and revealed himself. Her expression turned to horror. He anticipated that, violently shoving the flowers into her face as he slammed the door closed, deftly covering her mouth as she attempted to scream. He smashed her atop the head with a closed fist.
The last thought that pulsed through her brain as she fell unconscious was how could I have been so stupid?
CHAPTER 46
Jack stalked through the halls of The Lansing Metropolitan Recreation Center, which was filled with inner city kids playing basketball in the gym and working with computers in the library, staying out of trouble. He approached a receptionist perched behind a tall gray counter, she was typing away at a computer.
Jack tapped on the counter with his fingernail to rouse her attention. She was engrossed in her work and didn’t respond. He cleared his throat.
“Can I help you?” the receptionist asked, continuing to type at blazing speed.
“The art gallery, where is it?”
She spoke without taking her eyes off her screen. “You go down that corridor,” pointing in the direction Jack had just come from. A woman stepped around Jack and handed the receptionist a cup of coffee.
“No sugar?” Still locked on the screen.
“In it,” the woman said, moving past Jack and down the hallway.
The receptionist reached for her coffee and finally looked at Jack, curious why he was still standing there. “You go down the corridor, turn right, just up the stairs.”
“Thank you.” Jack turned and doubled back the way he came. He saw the mistake he made and wondered how he’d missed the bright green sign pointing the direction towards the Gallery. He shook his head and climbed the metal staircase.
The gallery was very simplistic, just a single corridor with a white divider down the middle. The partition created two long hallways of artwork on either side. Every few feet, there was a space in the partition that you could pass through to go from one side to the other. No one else there seemed to have an appreciation for fine art, so the area was very calm and quiet.
Jack admired each framed painting, searching. They were all good, but seemed pedestrian compared to Rebecca’s work. Or Carmen’s. He knew, if it was still there, it would stand out like a gold brick atop a pile of coal.
He didn’t even bother to check the names, confident he would know it when he saw it. Finishing one full aisle of art, he turned around to come back up the other side. The third picture in caught his attention.
On second glance it nearly floored him.
It was a painting of a little girl holding her mother’s hand. The little girl was wearing a bright yellow dress.
She was the spitting image of Rebecca.
Jack’s eyes went wide, his lips curled into a tight seam. “It’s not possible,” he said softly. But neither was the diary. He reached out and touched the painting with his fingertip. He slid it down to the inscription on the bottom. C.M.