Voicemail. She'd reached nothing but voicemail for the past three days.
Reluctantly, Aya slid her phone closed. Then she just stood there staring at it. Blank. Black. Unlit. Silent.
Marr, where are you?
Kaladi Coffee Roasters buzzed with the beginning weekday breakfast rush. However, the chatter, the ding of the register, and the aromas of coffee and pastry didn't calm her the way they usually did.
The cluttered shop, squished next to an Illegal Pete's in a sixties-era, low-budget strip mall off Evans Ave., attracted young families and those thirty-somethings who worked close enough to walk or ride their bicycles. The handwritten signs, the hand-stamped to-go bags, the hand-packed tea infusers, Aya loved them all. The shop's intimate interior, warm brown wood and sagging green booth cushions, floors so scuffed and worn that "polish" wasn't even in their dictionary, the magnetic strip under the counter where toddlers could play with alphabet letters while their parents waited for their orders, made people happy as soon as they walked in the door.
"Aya!" Darika yelled from up front. Though her voice was stern, her startlingly green eyes, ringed with eyeliner, were sympathetic. "Wake up, girl, you're falling behind."
"Oh. Sorry!" Aya stuck her phone in her back pocket. She grabbed the first two cups in line and then began brewing espresso shots and pouring milk into the steamer pitchers. "I didn't get much sleep last night," she called. Or the night before. Or the one before that. "I'm on it!"
Darika nodded, but the knot between her brows did not relax. She turned back to the cash register. The line of customers stretched out the door. Conversations blended into the new iHeartRadio channel playing overhead. Temps had risen; the snow was a distant memory. Flowers had bloomed and grass had greened overnight. Sunlight filled the open doorway with gold.
Behind Aya, so close that the flaps of his back pockets brushed against the tie of her apron, Paulie expertly built and grilled paninis. "Have the police said anything?" He shook his bleached, styled hair out of his eyes.
Aya, on the other hand, might have forgotten to brush her hair that morning. If the world was lucky, she'd remembered deodorant. "No, nothing," she said. As her eyes misted, she nearly neglected to spoon the foam onto a cappuccino. The customer's scowl reminded her just in time. "They said they would contact me if they learned anything new, but . . . but it's been . . . three days."
"Whoa." Paulie's manicured hands shot into her swimming vision. He took the used, steaming espresso grounds from her before she could spill them all over herself. "I'm sure she's fine. A fighter like Marr, she just has to be. Whatever happened, whatever's going on, the police are doing their best to bring her home safe."
While he measured the mix for two iced chai lattes, Aya took over his station, bagging the sandwiches and bagels with schmear he had prepared. She wiped her eyes on her An Café t-shirt sleeve, hoping a customer wasn't watching her. "Thanks, Paulie. I want to believe it, I really do. I'm just so worried."
The soul had followed her to work, the first time she'd shown herself since that awful morning, which wasn't helping Aya keep her composure. She stood apart from the hustle and bustle by the front windows, looking out. Her hands hung lax at her sides and she'd removed the tape from her ankles. Only her hair showed any kind of color. It burned in a halo of coppery strands.
Every time Aya looked her way, her stomach cramped with anxiety. She knew that her presence here meant something bad had happened to Lemara, but she didn't know what and hadn't had time to try and find out.
"All right, talk to me," Paulie said as he tamped fresh grounds into the trays. "What do the police know?"
"Not much," Aya said. Hopelessness welled up in her, threatening more tears. "Apparently, someone at The Church witnessed Marr and three other people being loaded, unconscious, into the bed of a pickup. The pickup was stolen and then abandoned. It took the police a while to identify the people allegedly taken."
"Even though you'd already gone down to the station to file a missing person's report?"
"Yeah. They turned me away because it hadn't been forty-eight hours yet." Aya wiped her hands on her apron, searching under the counter for a new pack of napkins.
"So how do they know it was Marr?"
She pressed against her unhappy stomach, wincing. If Lemara could have, she would have answered her phone. "They don't. But the witness's description matches and since I'd tried to report her missing . . . they're going on best guess."
Paulie stopped what he was doing and stared at her, his pierced lips parted. "Now I get why you're so distracted," he said in the flattest tone she'd ever heard him use.
Aya couldn't help it: she laughed. It wasn't funny, exactly, but being anxious about being anxious often made her act overcaffeinated with a side of adrenalized, which tended to put people, and not just the living ones, off. With Paulie's solid presence at her back, she managed to make it through the rest of their shift with few accidents.
But not none.
"Here," Darika said. She applied the Band-Aid with a snap of the paper backing. She patted Aya's hand, mindful of the burn now coated with Neosporin. "You need anything else, you let us know. You've got our numbers. Use them."
"Thanks," Aya said ruefully. "See you tomorrow."
Darika locked the door to the small office and crowded into the narrow aisle between the counter and the booths with Aya and Paulie. There, Aya stopped to retie her sneaker.
Paulie, who stopped to wait for her, let out a low, appreciative whistle. Not for Darika, her wavy black hair bouncing against her ample bottom, but for the two men in plain dark suits, striped ties, and shiny shoes who reached the front door at the same time she did. The taller one held it for her. She ducked under his arm, frowning up at him with her eyes while her mouth smiled a thank-you. Probably wondering, like Aya, if they were lost.
"Weird. Not our usual type of clientele," Aya observed upon standing. She tugged her messy night braid out of her sweatshirt collar so she could zip the sweatshirt closed. "A little too starched, don't you think?"
"Who cares?" Paulie said, his expression ecstatic. He stuffed his hands in his stonewashed pockets. "Look at them. Think one of 'em might swing my way?"
Amused, Aya watched as the pair approached Rick at the counter and flashed white and blue badges in single-fold black wallets at him. "I think they're Feds. Don't sound like a lot of fun." Not like she'd ever met any, but she watched TV.
Paulie snorted. "I don't think the government lets its employees wear their hair like that."
She opened her mouth, but then she closed it, considering. He might have a point. "Uh-oh. Check out how close they're standing to each other," she teased instead.
"Damn," Paulie said under his breath. "Didn't anyone tell them not to fish off the company pier?"
Aya giggled. She slung her messenger bag over her head.
Then the man with the shaggy brown hair, tucking his ID back in his jacket, looked directly at her. Rick, his face pink with excitement, had pointed her out.
"Uh-oh is right," Paulie said from the corner of his mouth, his sculpted eyebrows rising, as the two Feds approached in a way that made it impossible to reach the door to the street behind them.
Through the three-inch space between two sets of broad, jacketed shoulders, Aya noticed that the soul finally moved. She took a couple of steps in the wake of the two men, then fritzed out. In the beat between heartbeats, she reappeared next to Aya. The tape constricted her lower face as before, but her eyes narrowed as she switched her gaze from one agent to the other.
"Miss Nakano?" tall-and-shaggy asked in a smooth, deep voice that practically set Paulie vibrating like a cell on silent. "I'm Agent Buchanan and this is my partner, Agent Abbot. We'd like to ask you a few questions about Lemara Bako, if that's okay with you." He bent a little to look her in the face, probably without realizing it.
"Sure," she said, surprising herself with her eagerness. "I mean, I already told Sergeant Mollerson everything, but if you're here to help find Marr – Lemara – and . . ." she glanced involuntarily at the soul, "and those other people, I'll tell you whatever you want to know."
Apparently, she surprised them, too. They exchanged a glance.
"All right," gamely said the other, Abbot, the one with the cropped hair and the unshaven jaw, in a rougher voice. "You're Miss Bako's roommate, is that correct?"
"Yes, for the past two years. We're both enrolled in an evening MBA degree program at Daniels College of Business."
"And you're both twenty-two."
"Uh, huh."
Agent Buchanan checked a pocket notepad. "You're graduating this spring, correct?"
"Yeah. Friday." Aya was having a hard time concentrating on the conversation. This was all basic personal stuff, the same questions Sergeant Mollerson had asked her. Besides, Paulie was eyeing the full-lipped Agent Abbot with such intensity that the agent had noticed. His eyes, a pretty hazel fringed with dark lashes, kept flicking toward Paulie, but not with returned interest – with a dawning discomfort that made Aya want to laugh out loud. Also, the soul was radiating some very strong emotions on her other side. It was starting to make her feel sick.
"That would be May twenty-second?"
"Yes."
Buchanan made a note on the pad. "And Miss Bako?"
Aya shook her head. "No. Marr didn't pass her Applied Financial Management class, so she's staying for the summer."
"Do you think that failing the class affected Miss Bako's state of mind?" Abbot asked, latching onto that bit of information the same as the sergeant had.
"Was she acting strangely, not like herself?" Buchanan clarified in a kinder tone.
"No. She was disappointed, of course, but not in any way that changed her attitude or behavior."
"Did you notice any strange smells around her before she left?" Abbot asked next.
Lemara's dirty socks stank, but that wasn't strange. "What do you mean?"
"Sulfur, or rotten eggs?"
"Um. No?" she offered. Was he asking if Lemara had gas?
"How about cold spots?"
"Cold . . ." She frowned at him. Yeah, she had, but that had nothing to do with Lemara and everything to do with the soul hovering at her shoulder.
"Excuse me, but what does that have to do with anything?" Paulie interrupted, speaking her thought aloud. "Why are the Feds involved in this case, anyway?"
"Who are you?" Abbot asked sharply.
Wow. He really hadn't appreciated Paulie's staring.
"This is Paulie Makar," Aya said. One of her favorite otter-people, with his gorgeous singing voice, often better than the artists on his playlists, and his dark eyes that squinched into dots whenever he laughed, and the fierce rivalry between him and Lemara that kept them on a strictly frenemy basis, but she sure as hell wasn't going to explain all that. "He's our friend. He works here."
The soul touched the duct tape. Her fingers tapped, then scrabbled around like gray spider legs seeking entry. Time sped up and slowed down for her, making her motions seem jerky and disconnected.
"Well, Mr. Makar," Buchanan said over whatever Abbot was about to. He shot a quelling look at his shorter partner, who subsided much like a dog that had been told to heel. "The state patrol called us in to help. We're investigating whether there is a connection between these disappearances and others across southeastern Colorado."
The soul wrestled with the tape, tearing it from her face. The wound in her throat bubbled with blackish blood that did not fall. The table lamp next to Paulie flickered.
Buchanan's quick gaze zeroed in on the lamp. He cleared his throat, keeping one eye on its antics. "So, Miss Bako, she went out that night with –" he checked his notes, "Desmond Varley."
The tape came away in pieces. The soul took a huge, shuddering breath that sent shivers down the back of Aya's neck. The bulb in the lamp went out for a second, then came back on full strength. Aya pretended not to see it. Flickering lights caused by souls interfering with electromagnetic frequencies were the original soundtrack of her entire existence.
"He's missing too, isn't he?" Aya hugged her elbows.
"Yes," Buchanan and the soul said at the same time.
"What?" Aya asked the soul, startled.
Buchanan's long eyebrows lowered and pinched together. "Yes," he repeated, bemused. "Desmond Varley has been reported missing as well as identified by the witness."
"I met them," the soul said to Aya, her voice a raspy whisper. "At The Church, that night. Marr and Des. They were nice. It was the girl, Kittney. She was just a kid. Maybe sixteen? She was drunk, so Marr helped me take her to the bathroom, and –" She winced, rubbing her temple as though she had a headache.
"Um." Aya fidgeted. She had a thousand questions for this soul, like where was Lemara, was she all right, what had happened?, but she couldn't ask without sounding like a total lunatic talking to thin air. "Was there a . . . a girl on the list? A teenager? Her name is Kittney."
Abbot scratched behind his ear. "Kittney what?"
Aya glanced at the soul, who shook her head. "I, um." She shrank upon herself, hugging her elbows tighter. "I don't know."
"No, there has been no Kittney reported missing," Buchanan said slowly, scanning his notes. "Why would you ask about her?"
"I smelled sulfur," the soul whispered. "Before she killed me."
"She's being fostered by a family friend," Aya, inventing wildly, said. "Kind of a new thing. She's . . . she hasn't been home in a few days, either, and I just thought . . ."
"Thank you, Miss Nakano, we'll check up on that," Buchanan said in the tone of voice that said no, they would not; Aya breathed a private sigh of relief that he wasn't going to ask for details because she was positive she could be arrested for lying to a Federal agent. He clicked his pen, and then gave his partner another of his meaningful looks as he tucked the notepad away.
"All right, I think that's all we need for now," Abbot said in a voice of authority. "If you think of anything else, you can contact us any time."
Aya accepted the business card he handed to her. Agent Buchanan offered her and Paulie a friendly, if distant, smile, but Agent Abbot only scowled.
After a moment, Paulie sighed longingly. "They look as good going as they do coming," he said. Then he shook himself. "You ready?"
"Um, actually, I forgot something in the office," Aya said, edging in that direction. "You go on ahead and I'll catch you tomorrow, okay?"
"Sure." He leaned in and pecked her cheek. "Try not to worry, Aya. The Feds are on this now. Marr's as good as home."
"Thanks. Bye, Paulie."
He waved and then left. A glance at Rick showed him busy with a group of teenagers on their way to late-starting classes.
Aya hurried into the back hall, but once there, she darted past the doors to the office and the single restroom. Dodging shelves of cleaning supplies and a mop propped in a big yellow bucket, she let herself out the back door. She shut the door and turned around.
"Oh, good, you came," she said.
The soul, who resembled a tattered black-and-white photograph, crossed her arms over her middle. "Why can you see me?"
"I don't know." Aya nervously surveyed the parking lot but couldn't see anyone within earshot. Still, she lowered her voice, just in case. "I've always been able to see souls. It's probably how you found me in the first place. Can you tell me what your name is?"
"Julia," she whispered, her expression wistful. "Julia MacGregor. You said you could help me. Is that true?"
"I'm going to try," Aya said firmly. "But I need you to tell me everything that you know."
A/N: Hello, hello! How are you all? Welp, I hit a little snag while trying to write this chapter, mainly with the timeline. Did you notice the problem? If not, then good (LOL). I fixed it simply by switching chapters 3 and 4 around.
Reviewer Thanks! Topkicker26 and Darwin. You ladies are the best! Luv ya! :3
Thinking of leaving without a review? Aw, please leave one! I'd love to hear what you think of the story so far! Especially since I seem to have become a target for NovelStar phishing bots. I am not going to use your shady, shady app, NovelStar! Go away! lol
Ever Yours,
~ Anne