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A more unlikely pairing than the one sitting across my desk would be hard to imagine. The older one, buttoned-down, pressed, groomed to within an inch of his life; the only jarring note, a compressed mouth. The younger -- ah, well, he was a sight to behold, he was! With the exception of his remarkable hair and his pasty white skin, everything was black leather or some sort of metal. Oversized jacket, baggy pants, heavy boots, wristlets, even a collar around his neck -- all black leather emblazoned with studs, buckles, rings, chains and zippers. There were -- I counted them -- six small gold rings on his left earlobe. To complete the picture, when he finally gave in to the warmth of my office and opened his jacket, there, under the black nylon of his tank top, the outline of another ring inserted in his left nipple was apparent, a sight which caused my own to cringe. The hair? Well, now, that was truly unique. First of all, what little there was was dyed a flat black with vivid varicolored polka dots evenly spaced. Except for that one remarkable swath about an inch wide straight across the crown of Derek Adams' head, front to back, the head was shaved smooth as a baby's behind. Most of the strip was only about an eighth of an inch in length, excepting the very front and at the nape of his neck. Pasted down between his scowl was a braided lock about four or five inches long, which culminated in a single silver bead in the shape of a skull. The strip down the back of his neck, however, was a thing of beauty. It was also braided, needing more individual hairs than the front one to be the same width as the strip on his scalp above it, and ended with a watch! Far as I could see, it was a working timepiece. "A swatch?" I asked, smiling at him, and getting an involuntary flash of amusement from the hard eyes of this adolescent before he could retreat once more into the inner rage which so obviously consumed him. Since the two of them had arrived, the older one had done all the talking. This youngster mostly chewed his nails, scowled, said nothing. "Mrs. Casey?" After blinking a couple of times, I answered. "Sorry about that. Someday I'm going to have to look up the phrase 'woolgathering' they use to describe what I was just doing; never really understood that. Please go ahead, Mr. Adams." "Perfectly all right. I can fully appreciate it, considering the appearance of my son here." Son here rolled a languid, yet still exceedingly hostile eye in the direction of his dandified father before returning his attention to the wayward nail on his right pinkie, the one that was presently receiving the benefit of what appeared to be quite costly orthodontics work. But, of course, hostility is what it's all about at this age, isn't it? "As I was saying, I'm absolutely certain there is no cause for alarm regarding my daughter. It's not as if this is the first time she's run away due to some imagined slight." Mr. Adams spoke calmly, his words directed not only to me but obviously to the vision sitting next to him. But I did notice a brief, absolutely venomous flash again in Derek's eyes at his father's use of the word imagined. For a long instant he transferred the glare to me, and his meaning was unmistakable: Don't believe him! From the first I'd puzzled over what manner of creatures were swimming around, just under the surface, with these two. So far I didn't know what hidden agenda Derek had in accompanying his father because it was obvious his wasn't a reluctant appearance, even considering the fact that he hadn't uttered a word so far. Why was he here? To verify with his own eyes that father actually went through with hiring someone to find Derek's sister? With that thought, I spoke up just as Mr. Adams opened his mouth to continue. "Derek, what do you think about your sister's disappearance? Did she tell you anything about --" "No," said Mr. Adams, "she doesn't confide in anyone." When Derek at once glowered straight at him, he had the grace to flush slightly. "The lady asked me, didn't she?" Derek's voice was harsh, sounding rusty from disuse. Adams threw up his hands in the classic gesture of I-give-up and looked away from the accusing stare of his son. After a long moment of trying to scorch the back of his father's head with his pale eyes, Derek faced me and spoke after clearing his throat a couple of times. "No, she didn't really tell me where she was going, and I didn't know when. But it ain't the same this time. I mean, she ran out without any more than the clothes on her back --" "You can't know that for sure, Derek," protested Adams, unable to restrain himself. "She might have --" "Hey, man, I'm talking here!" Adams visibly started at the volume and harshness from his son, flushing harder as he snapped his lips together. But this time it wasn't from embarrassment, I felt, but rather cold anger. Derek would pay for this exhibition of disrespect, I was sure. Derek looked back at me, still scowling, and continued. "I know she only had the clothes on her back because we saw her running down the street when we was coming back from practice. It was already getting dark, and it was going to snow. You know how it is sometimes? You can actually smell it in the air when it's going to snow, you know?" I nodded for I, too, noticed many times you could actually smell snow when it was imminent. I gestured for him to go on. Adams was, to all appearances, on his own woolgathering trek. The rictus of anger shown earlier had smoothed out to a placid, almost pleasant expression. Nobody in the room was fooled by that. "But by the time Goober got the car turned around, we couldn't find her nowhere. She just sort of vanished, you know? And that was three days ago." "Goober?" Again Derek almost -- but not quite -- lost his expression of animosity when he explained that Goober was a really little guy, a peanut -- hence, Goober. And people say kids today have no sense of humor. Well, that wasn't much, but it was a start. "And how long ago was this, did you say?" "Three days --" began Adams, only to chop it off, making a face of mock apology to his son before continuing when Derek rolled his eyes and subsided, teeth nipping away at a cuticle on the left hand. "It was three days ago she ran away." I looked through the front windows at the outside world, noting that while it had indeed quit snowing for the moment, the sky had cleared twenty-four hours after this totally unexpected snowfall had hit Denver four days before summer was officially over. Then, as usual in these parts, when the insulating cloud cover disappeared, temperatures plummeted at that point, dropping to just below freezing for two nights after the snow. As of now it was sloppy, the thermometer outside registering a toasty 58 degrees, leaving everything dripping. Yet great sections of the city were still without power for lights, heat and cooking even now, thanks to the fact that trees were down from one end of the city to the other. In truth, it was a wretched time to be a fifteen-year-old girl, underdressed, and without a roof over your head. Not, of course, that there is ever such a thing as a good time to be in such a predicament. "Can you give me a list of her friends? You know, kids she might contact if she needs help?" I asked the question of both of them, but before Derek could dislodge his fingernail from his teeth, Adams answered the question. "I don't really know who her friends are, I'm sorry to say. Monica was never one to confide in me, unfortunately." I restrained my impulse to tell him it was part of his job description to know who his daughter's friends were, insofar as that might be possible. Obviously, my growing annoyance at his nonchalance regarding his daughter's situation needed to be kept to myself, at least until I was paid. "I know some of them, lady. If you got a pencil and paper, I'll write them down. Don't think I remember no phone numbers, though." "Well, I'll take what I can get, Derek," I said as I handed him a pen and scratchpad. "Just give me as much information as you can." Derek hitched his chair closer to the desk for a writing surface, and still gnawing away at his right ring finger, began to scribble away in the typical left-hander's upside-down style, scowling darkly as he concentrated. Adams was for once unaware he was being observed, and the look he wore as he watched his son was something to behold. It seemed to be an amalgam of disgust, frustration, anger, and something else -- something almost feral. Gave me a turn, he did. When he saw me watching him, his face resumed the nearly placid blankness shown when they had first stomped snow into my office. Which, all things considered, was definitely peculiar. You see, although this man obviously didn't know me from Adam -- well, perhaps from Eve -- I certainly remembered him. The gentleman sitting across my desk, nattily attired, polished, almost glossy, had been the first major romance of my life. The fact that such emotion was entirely one-sided had nothing to do with the fact that he occupied an enormous part in my thoughts when I had been the age of the lost Monica. I'd found many ways of blocking his path in the halls, or languidly leaning against his car before he went home . . . yeah, with some ditzy girl clinging to his muscular arm, throwing knowing smiles at me when I was forced to jump away from the car so as not to end up under the spinning wheels. Things hadn't changed much in all these years. He still didn't know I was alive. In fact, there hadn't been the slightest expression of recognition when they entered my office, just banal hand-shaking and meaningless small chitchat from this still very handsome man. I, on the other hand -- to my intense self-disgust -- developed a markedly increased heart rate immediately upon reading the note left on my desk that Barbara had made me an appointment for 10:30 this morning with one Madison Adams and his son, Derek, regarding the disappearance of a daughter, Monica. It wasn't that I would have dropped my wonderful George Halley -- husband, lover and general all-around sweetie-pie -- off some nearby cliff, you understand. But it would have been balm for my ego if the hunk from my adolescent past had at least even remembered my name, for God's sake! I mean, would that be too much to ask of an all-seeing, all-loving God? Apparently so. All this traipsed and muttered crankily through my head while we sat there in silence, listening to the sound of Derek's pen on the paper. At last, after a long frown as he stared at the pad, he handed both it and the pen back to me without a word. I glanced at it, noting a couple of the names were only first ones, but most were complete names, and even a couple with phone numbers had come to mind. What was at the bottom of the second sheet, however, was surprising. Scrawled as the last entry was "Derek Madison," followed by "from 4 to 6 weekdays," and a telephone number. I knew at once this was where he worked, and he wanted me to call him there. I glanced up briefly, noting he was staring hard at me, a look of warning visible. "Thanks, Derek. This should help." If we thought we were kidding his father, however, we were probably mistaken. Madison Adams -- I always did think it sounded like an amalgam of the Continental Congress -- was watching both of us, even to including a couple of quick glances at the two sheets of paper I at that moment decided to rip from the pad, fold, and put in my blazer pocket. It was glaringly obvious father wanted to see what son had written to me, and it wasn't going to happen, not in this lifetime. From that point on we discussed fees, the fact I'd make regular reports, and would contact him at once when I knew anything of real importance, day or night. Even as I agreed to it, I found myself making a surprising reservation to myself that I would do so, of course, only after I'd talked privately to Derek. For some unknown reason, I wanted to investigate that niggling little feeling further that something was off-center here before I blew the whistle on a girl with a history of running away from home, this time with a blizzard landing on her before she'd been gone two hours. Adams and his son were on their feet, heading out the door, just as the love of my life entered the hallway from the garage in back while carrying Fuzz, the latter having needed the great outdoors for a pitstop. For just a moment I looked at the two men passing one another, deciding that while George was not as classically handsome as Madison still was, he had a number of other attributes in his favor. The chief among those attributes was certainly that he was mine, or course; but fast on the heels of that was that he did indeed know me very well from Eve. "Who's the kid with the entertaining hairdo?" inquired George after they drove off as he carefully rubbed Fuzz' tiny feet dry of the slush picked up in my parking area. "Son of the classy dude next to him, one I'd have married -- or whatever -- in the proverbial trice had he even known I was alive back then," I answered, giving a mock sigh of regret over opportunities lost and gone forever, plaintive and pitiful, watching for George's reaction out of the corner of my eye. "That so? We going across the street to enjoy some of Perry's swiss steak for dinner tonight?" The trouble with George is, he's maniacally jealous. "Ready when you are, Gridley," I answered, getting up and enjoying a cold-lipped but highly satisfactory smooch from my husband and a hot-tongued slurp from Fuzz, resident guard Chihuahua. |