She was beautiful, breathtaking in fact. He couldn't make himself take his eyes off of her.
She looked bored as she rested her chin in one hand and stared at a computer screen, her eyes seeming to fly through the contents of whatever she was reading. And then she stopped…and looked up at him.
He was mesmerized by her eyes. They were almost an unnatural shade of gray…maybe silver.
Her lips quirked upwards in a small smile. She looked amused. "Can I help you?" Oh, her voice. It was like a soft Irish ballad.
That's when he caught himself. He almost laughed at the thought of how stupid he was sounding to himself. He had definitely spent too much time with his sister and her friends. So, he smiled, "I was noticing that you looked a little bored."
She smiled, "I suppose that I am." She closed her laptop and stood before him. "I'm Cloie McLeod and you are?"
"Kyle. Kyle Valenti."
Kyle hit the steering wheel in frustration. Everything had been picture perfect from the beginning and where was he now? Even he didn't know. Maybe he just needed to spend some time with his family. He hadn't seen his father or Amy in a while but he talked to Maria on the phone frequently.
"You're what?" Kyle and Maria chorused.
Jim Valenti smiled as he held Amy's hand. "We're getting married, son."
He shouldn't have been shocked. His dad and Ms. DeLuca had been seeing each other for a few years now. But, being a twenty year-old hearing your forty-seven year-old father announce that he was going to get married again, he couldn't press the feeling down.
Maria, on the other hand, seemed to have gotten over the initial shock already and was hugging her mother tightly. "Oh, I'm so happy for you, Mom." She even hugged his dad.
Kyle shook his head a bit and then grinned, "Congratulations." What else was there to say? In all of the years since his mother and Maria's father had left, their parents hadn't been truly happy. Until they found each other anyway. And if they were happy, so was he.
It was odd though…he was now gaining a sister. That was also an odd thing. He didn't think of her becoming his step-sister. Over the past four years, they had become friends and almost siblings. So it seemed right to simply refer to her as his sister.
What had happened to him? Seven months ago, he had been living a perfectly normal life. He was a FBI agent living in D.C., occasionally making the trip back to Roswell for visits. He could spend hours at a time talking on the phone with his sister (because she talked so much) catching up on the news of the town. And he was happily a bachelor with no worries in the world.
Until he met Cloie. She had stolen his heart from him at first glance. And he admitted it. He realized that happy bachelor routine was just that…a routine. He loved spending time with Cloie. He had met her in the food court of the Old Post Office and had walked her back to her office after lunch. She worked one floor above him.
They had a whirlwind romance. They went on their first date that same night and two weeks later, he had proposed, knowing that she was his other half.
Kyle took a deep breath to try and suppress the memories as he turned onto Maria's street. She could help him.
The driveway was empty, but that didn't mean anything. Maria had probably pulled her car into the garage. Kyle stepped out of his truck and walked up to the door. After several unanswered knocks, he pulled the spare key out of his billfold and went inside.
The house felt lonely, he mused. Like no one had been there for a while. There were no dirty dishes, no clothes lying around, and the only piles of newspaper were a week or more out of date. A quick peek at the answering machine showed a full in-box. The mailbox in the yard was empty though. Wherever Maria and Michael were, they were at least getting their mail.
Kyle drove to the hotel that Maria had told him that Max and Liz were staying at. The desk clerk told him that the Evans had checked out the morning after they had arrived.
One place left to look.
As Kyle came up the walk he could hear the muffled shouting.
"Do you think that we're not hurt by this? Because you'd be wrong. Everything I see, touch, hear, and smell has Isabel in it. She is everywhere in this house. And Liz is pregnant and her child may never see its father. We have plenty to worry about without you getting drunk and being bitter. So either shut the fuck up or get your ass in gear."
Something was definitely wrong, a little voice in the back of his mind screamed at him. It sounded like Max, Michael, and Isabel had vanished…and Alex was actually losing it. He waited a few moments, trying to catch the rest of the conversation, but not being able to understand them. He raised his hand and knocked on the door.