I Wish You Missed Me Read online

  THREE

  That night, every memory Kit had tried to bury returned. Although she had left radio to help find missing people, she was far from ready and, in spite of her defiant words to John Paul, had no idea where to start. She dozed fitfully, unable to surrender completely to sleep and whatever dreams accompanied it.

  The next morning, she drove to the shelter to help Virgie, who was on breakfast detail. Not that Virgie needed help, but Kit had sponsored her for the program and Saturdays at the center were busy. Besides, she needed to distract herself until she came up with a plan. The kitchen, located in the back of the building that had once been a medical clinic, smelled like cinnamon and bacon. Wearing a white smock over her jeans, her hair in a bun that was covered by a sparkly net, Virgie stood at the sink, rinsing plates and shoving them into a dishwasher that had seen better days. When she heard Kit, she jerked around.

  ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I thought you might need some help.’

  ‘You must be reading minds now.’ Virgie slid a dripping plate into her hands as if handing off a football. ‘A bunch of kids just got here. I need to get out there and feed them. You got this?’

  ‘I do,’ Kit said. ‘You go feed the kids.’

  She knew how to move through dirty dishes and desperate young people. The time flew, and once everyone was as settled as they would be in this well-meaning yet tenuous place, Kit picked up a large trash can from the back of the building and rolled it out into the alley.

  Across the road, the weathered bricks of a Korean restaurant caught her eye. Kit breathed in the scent of sweet-spicy barbecue and realized she hadn’t eaten all morning. Among the usual graffiti, obscenities and names of those who had passed through, someone had written I wish you missed me, in something that looked like a type font.

  The stark statement cut into Kit. She tried to imagine the person who had labored to create art from that painful wish, and she wondered if the ‘you’ were a parent, a lover or someone else who mattered.

  ‘What’s keeping you so long?’

  Kit turned to face Virgie, still wearing her smock but with the expression of someone in charge.

  ‘Taking out the trash.’

  ‘Looks like you’re doing more than that.’ Virgie put her hands on her hips and immediately seemed taller.

  ‘Just taking in the local graffiti,’ Kit said. ‘Isn’t that note sad?’

  ‘Everything out here’s sad. Including you.’ Virgie motioned toward the alley. ‘You came out here to get away from something, didn’t you? Same thing you was trying to get away from inside.’

  From the first time they met when Virgie was homeless and Kit was pretending to be, their connection had never failed them. Kit couldn’t lie to her now.

  ‘It’s my friend, Farley.’

  Virgie sighed and shook her head. ‘What’s that fool up to that’s worrying you so much?’

  ‘He’s gone,’ Kit said. ‘Missing.’

  ‘I thought you said he was at the beach.’

  ‘That’s what he told me but he didn’t show up at his destination. I’m the last one who heard from him, and that was yesterday.’

  ‘Then you ought to be looking for him instead of hanging around here,’ Virgie said. ‘Ain’t that what you do? Go find missing people?’

  ‘Not exactly. I mean, sort of. I just don’t know where to start.’

  Virgie yanked the trash can effortlessly. ‘What’d you find in his house?’

  ‘I can’t get in his house,’ Kit said. ‘He moved last year and I don’t have a key.’

  ‘Since when do you need a key?’ She tilted her head and gazed at Kit. ‘You know what I mean?’

  Then she realized what Virgie was offering. ‘Absolutely not. You’re finally getting your life on track.’

  ‘Haven’t lost my touch, though,’ Virgie said in a flat voice. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘I said no. He lives in a gated community with a complex security system.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be my first.’ Virgie motioned toward the door. ‘Come on. We don’t have time to talk about it.’

  Kit wanted to follow her inside, to the car and to Farley’s. If she really could figure out his complicated security system, Kit would risk anything to try it – except Virgie’s future.

  ‘What if someone sees us?’ she said. ‘You might get arrested.’

  ‘Just say Farley gave you a key and I’ll go on about how it was my fault you lost it.’ She opened the door and motioned for Kit to pass through. ‘That’s another thing I’m good at. Lying.’

  ‘You have other strengths – better ones.’ Kit reached for the garbage can but Virgie shrugged and started pulling it inside.

  ‘You want to find your friend or not?’ she asked, and Kit had no answer.

  They arrived at Farley’s complex late that afternoon and drove in behind another car before the gate could swing shut. Virgie looked around at the small, simple homes with their lawns barely wider than a sidewalk and said, ‘This will be easy.’

  ‘It’s not,’ Kit said. ‘Farley and I got locked out when he was moving and he had to call a locksmith.’

  ‘Should have called me.’

  Kit glanced over at her and couldn’t tell if she were joking.

  ‘I probably shouldn’t have agreed to let you do this,’ she said.

  ‘It’s your only chance.’ Virgie sat straight in her seat. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

  At that moment, Kit didn’t know anything except how worried she was. She pulled up in front of the wrought-iron entry gate. Behind it, Farley’s townhouse seemed to have shrunk. A small rose bush in front shriveled from lack of water. Drought seemed to be choking the life out of the city. Virgie jumped from the car and went to work with a toolkit that she had picked up as they left the shelter.

  Kit stood in front of her and hoped no neighbor appeared. Then she heard a click and, when she turned, she stood before an open gate.

  Virgie grinned. ‘Told you so,’ she said. ‘Next, the door.’

  As Virgie worked on the front door, Kit pulled a hose around to the rose bush by the garage door. Farley had planted it himself, and to deny it right then would make her feel even more hopeless. Standing in front of the garage door, Kit remembered how she and Farley had lifted it from the bottom the time they had been locked out. She walked over, slid her hands under it and pulled. The door was too heavy. She groaned and tried again.

  ‘Hold on,’ Virgie called out. In moments, she had the other side of the door, and together they lifted it segment by segment.

  They walked into the garage and the first thing Kit saw was Farley’s surfboard in its usual place on the left wall. Beneath it on a wooden shelf were his wet suit, change mat and black poncho towel.

  ‘He really didn’t go surfing,’ Kit said. Seeing this proof hit her the way it hadn’t before. Fighting panic, she reached for the door to the house and turned it. ‘Locked,’ she told Virgie.

  ‘Not for long, but first I got to disable the alarm.’ Virgie opened the gray box next to the door. ‘Hell, it ain’t even set.’ Then she crouched before the door. ‘These are the easiest.’ It opened as she spoke and they stepped into Farley’s laundry room.

  As Kit walked past the stacked towels on the dryer and the neatly arranged bottles on the shelf, she marveled at what Virgie had accomplished in minutes – something that would have been impossible for her.

  ‘We need to get you some kind of training,’ she said. ‘You’re gifted.’

  ‘Don’t start trying to rehabilitate me.’ She scowled at Kit and headed into the house as if she had been there many times.

  ‘How old are you anyway?’ Kit asked, and Virgie lifted her hand as if stopping the words.

  ‘Kit, I mean it. You talking like this is a deal breaker. Come on. Where’s the kitchen?’

  ‘Left.’ Kit realized that Virgie had tight boundaries and that she had better not cross them if she wanted to help this young woman, not
to mention find Farley.

  The kitchen and its stainless-steel appliances were immaculate. The round glass table by Farley’s patio door gleamed like a mirror that had just been polished.

  The front doorbell chimed and Kit’s stomach sank. Virgie slammed her body against the kitchen wall and pointed to the patio windows. ‘Stay against the wall,’ she whispered. ‘Follow me.’ She inched toward the hall that led to Farley’s bedroom just as the doorbell rang again.

  ‘Let’s go out the back,’ Kit said. ‘We can sneak through the patio door.’

  ‘Not if someone’s coming around there. I said follow me. It’s safer this way.’

  Kit pressed her back against the wall and followed Virgie. Maybe it was just the mail carrier or one of Farley’s neighbors. Still, she had no way to explain what she was doing inside. Finally they rushed into the bedroom. Virgie closed the door quietly and turned the lock. Kit sank onto the bed and exhaled.

  Virgie put her finger to her lips but Kit was too frightened to speak anyway. As moments passed and the doorbell remained silent, she calmed down and got up from the bed.

  ‘Might as well look around while we’re here,’ Virgie said.

  ‘Right, but then we’re leaving. We took too big a chance.’

  Virgie shoved open the sliding closet door. ‘Can you tell if anything is missing?’

  Kit walked over to the rows of shirts arranged by color, most of them blues and greens. ‘Other than the day Farley moved, I’ve never been in his bedroom,’ she said.

  ‘Whatever,’ Virgie replied without turning her head.

  ‘I wouldn’t lie to you. I have no idea where he keeps things.’ Then she looked down at the flip-flops and tennis shoes. ‘Wait a minute.’

  ‘What?’ Virgie shoved the door back the rest of the way and Kit crouched so that she could see the entire length of the closet.

  ‘His hiking boots,’ she said. ‘They aren’t here.’

  ‘Is there another bedroom?’

  Kit nodded. ‘He uses it as an office. And he’s too organized to put his clothes in there.’

  ‘Let’s check it out,’ Virgie said.

  They had pushed it too far already. Kit looked at the bed with its reversible black-and-white comforter that matched the color-block night table. On the table was a large plastic bag that, unlike most of Farley’s life, had not been categorized and labeled. Kit grabbed it then reached inside. Some kind of price tag that must have been clipped to the clothing fell onto the bed.

  ‘You see.’ Virgie grinned. ‘I told you it was worth the risk.’ She grabbed the tag. ‘It’s for an alt. down vest, whatever that is, size large.’

  ‘Alternative down,’ Kit said. ‘He has allergies.’

  In the silence of the house, the doorbell chimed again.

  Virgie’s eyes widened and she scanned the room, her gaze settling on the narrow window above the bed.

  ‘No,’ Kit said.

  ‘We might not have any choice.’ Virgie wiped her forehead. ‘Remember what I told you. I can probably lie us out of this mess.’

  A knock hammered on the front door. Kit now looked at the window as well. Maybe it was their best option. Then she heard the door open, followed by what sounded like footsteps on Farley’s hardwood floor. Virgie seemed to transition into another zone. She nodded to the sound of the steps, stood against the bedroom wall and motioned Kit to do the same.

  The steps grew nearer and paused before the bedroom door. Kit heard a click, looked down and saw the silver knob turn. She glanced at Virgie, whose entire body seemed to tense. Kit could barely breathe. Maybe it was John Paul, maybe even Farley. She didn’t dare ask. Finally the footsteps went back the way they had come. Kit heard the sound of a door closing, exhaled and realized she had broken out in sweat.

  ‘Now,’ she told Virgie. ‘We are getting out of here.’

  Virgie nodded but didn’t meet Kit’s eyes. She creaked the door open and Kit grabbed the plastic bag. Together, they ran to the front, looked through the blinds and then rushed to Kit’s car.

  ‘Never again,’ Kit told her as they drove out of the complex, car windows down, warm breeze blowing in. ‘I’m never going to let you talk me into a risk like that again.’

  ‘Don’t be so quick with all that.’ Virgie glanced down at the bag in Kit’s lap. ‘At least you have more than you did before. There’s more stuff in the bag too.’

  FOUR

  The items Virgie found in the bag consisted of only a credit-card receipt for a bottle of port from an expensive shop and an empty pink-and-blue Benadryl box. Farley’s allergies were no secret, so that explained the Benadryl. Yet he drank wine only when he was forced to at business functions or trying to impress a woman. Maybe that thirty-nine-dollar purchase was for Monique. Perhaps he was just stocking up on allergy medicine and maybe nothing in the bag meant anything. Yet they were the only clues Kit had.

  John Paul sent her a text: Didn’t mean to be harsh. Call if you need anything. No reason to answer it just yet. John Paul wasn’t about to change his mind about helping her. Besides, the man was a walking lie detector and she was vulnerable. In no time, he’d have her confessing to breaking into Farley’s.

  She also had several frantic voice messages from Monique, desperate to know if she had heard from Farley. Kit called her back and, when she got no answer, left a message saying she hadn’t and to please call her the moment she learned anything.

  She and Virgie returned to the shelter. Kit knew she’d have to talk to Monique on Sunday morning when she went into the radio station to work on the program logs. As they got ready to leave that evening, Virgie was bundled up in a scarf, as if for the streets, and Kit invited her to spend the night at her house.

  ‘I have a guest room no one has used,’ she told her as they walked to the door. ‘I’d feel better if I had someone else staying there.’

  Virgie’s expression hardened. ‘I got a place.’

  Kit knew better than to ask where.

  It was time to go home, to practice what she had been taught about living with her fears and her memories. Once alone, she could quiet the thoughts and tune down the sound on the film that ran continuously in the back of her mind.

  The house had been her consolation prize in the divorce. Richard, who had proven more attentive as an ex than a husband, had replaced the broken sprinkler and hired a contractor to build a redwood arbor to protect the back patio from the sun. He and his niece Jessica had purchased a townhouse closer to her college – a sensible move, he had explained. Kit might as well have the house. It wasn’t as if they had lived together there. This peaceful neighborhood, this house, would be her fresh start.

  He meant well. To him, security was an arbor where strawberries already threaded their way upward. Yet this Tudor-style house he had occupied for the short time of their separation felt like someone else’s home.

  Farley had tried to distract her with dinner invitations, even when Monique was around, which she was most of the time. Kit knew neither of them wanted her there and she didn’t take it personally. They were too preoccupied with each other and the shiny newness of their relationship to care about much else. When their eyes met across a table, their smiles seemed to match and Kit had to look away. She didn’t need any reminders of how that felt.

  Now, with the empty allergy-medicine box, the tag for the alternative-down vest and the wine receipt lined on her white pedestal table, Kit switched off the television she wasn’t watching anyway, headed for the stove and turned the heat on under her copper teapot. Something wasn’t right – maybe just the mosaic of thoughts trying to distract her again.

  Deep breath. Breath is the anchor.

  The banquette circling the table was stiff but cozy in a way that made her feel as if she were sitting in an old diner. It lacked only a potted palm or a neon sign to qualify as really cheesy. Maybe that’s what this place was missing – something corny enough to make her smile.

  The banquette overlooked the backyard, which,
thanks to the new lighting system Richard had installed, would soon be visible through the open blinds. As she waited for her tea water to boil, she looked at the receipts again. The wine was from a shop on Fair Oaks Boulevard. That would be her first stop after seeing Monique tomorrow morning. She glanced out of the window at her backyard, now darker than before. Not a single light had come on. Kit got up and went to the sliding glass door, wondering if she had accidentally disconnected the switch. She wanted those lights.

  As she touched the handle, the door slid open. Night air drifted in through the screen. Although it still carried the warmth of the day, it felt ice cold. Kit shoved the door shut and clicked the lock. Then she tested it. The door held firmly.

  She would not have left that door unlocked. She would not have turned off the backyard lights.

  The tea kettle’s whine became a piercing whistle.

  Someone was in this house.

  The thought was as persistent as the sound of the kettle. Kit ran to the stove, yanked it off the burner and set it on a potholder.

  Her phone lay on the table.

  She should pick it up and call someone – the police.

  And tell them what? That someone might have been in here but nothing was missing?

  She glanced down at the text from John Paul again.

  Call if you need anything.

  The stairs creaked. Kit glanced up them, toward her bedroom, and couldn’t take a step.

  Certainly no one was up there, but why take chances? John Paul answered on the first ring.

  ‘Taking me up on my offer?’

  ‘I need you to come over here right now.’

  ‘Good.’ He chuckled. ‘I was actually going to buy you some flowers.’

  ‘This isn’t funny, John Paul,’ she said. ‘I think someone’s been in my house.’

  ‘Don’t do anything.’ He spoke with certainty as if reciting a memorized script. ‘Stay where you are. I’m on my way.’

  Knowing that restored her confidence. Reminding herself of what she’d just survived did the rest. No one would be hiding up there, assuming anyone had been in here at all. Although what had happened a year ago had tested everything she thought she believed about herself, it had also taught her that she was a survivor. Now, though, she fought a different battle – her mind against her mind, her memory against her reality.