Chapter 2

I walked into the small diner and quickly glanced around. There was a gray haired man behind the counter taking orders. He looked at me and a strange grin crept up his face. He was about 55, maybe 60, and he was wearing a plaid shirt and blue jeans. I walked over to the counter. "A large coffee please, black."

"Sure thing," the man said as he pulled out a paper cup and walked over to the coffee machine. Once the cup was full he turned around and handed it to me.

"Thank you." As he placed the cup on the counter, I pulled out my wallet from my purse. "How much?"

"Oh, no, it's on the house," he said and stared at me. He really, really stared. "You're new in town, right? 'Cause I haven't seen you around before."

"Yeah, I'm new hear." I took a small sip of my hot coffee. The coffee addict that I am, the sip woke me up and made me feel happy. "Actually, I'm not living here. I live all over the place. I got here today to check out a new job assignment."

"And what is it that you do?"

"I'm a private investigator, Cirra McDuff." I reached out a hand.

"Mike Corban." He took my hand and squeezed it firmly.

"Well, nice to meet you, Mike." I smiled then something hit my mind. I brought my tone to a serious note and started speaking, "I don't know how long I'll be in town, would you happen to know of a cheap place where I could stay?"

"Well, actually, yes I do. We rent rooms right above this diner. And there is one room still left available. Would you like to check it out?"

I looked at the clock that hung on the wall behind Mike. I was supposed to meet Mr. Morgan at seven, and it was six forty-five. I figured I have fifteen minutes to kill. "Sure."

Mike glanced past my shoulder at a group of teens who were sitting and chatting by a table. There were many of them. There was a Hispanic guy of about 18 who had his hair slicked back and gelled slightly. His eyes were focused on a round faced blond who kept her attention on a brown curly haired guy. Then there was a girl who had long brown hair and her eyes traveled from the Hispanic guy to the blond girl. Envy dwelled in her eyes every time she glanced at the blond. Then there was a guy with funny hair and on his lap sat a girl with short blond hair.

"Would any of you like to do me a favor?" Mike asked the teens.

They all looked at him and the envious girl with the long brown hair asked, "What is it, Mike?"

"I need somebody to take over the place for a couple of minutes while I go show this lady to an available room we have."

"Sure think, Mike." The girl smiled and stood up. She was wearing oversized ripped jeans and a really strange top that looked like it was a combination of a ripped black t-shirt that in neon pink colors it said "Kiss" on the front and "My Ass" on the back. But for the sleeves, it looked like colorful striped socks or something. Actually, the girl's fashion sense was similar to the singer's, Avril Lavine. Both of them lacked at it.

"Thanks, Brook." Mike smiled at the girl and came around the counted. When he got to the stairs, he glanced at me to make sure I was following him. When I got to the stairs he let me up first and followed behind me.

"Nice place," I said as I looked inside the room he showed me. It was small, but comfortable looking. A full sized bad stood in the middle of the room. There was a window on an adjacent wall that was facing the hospital. Then there was a bathroom door on the far end of the room. Obviously, no kitchen or livingroom, but since I can't cook for shit I didn't assume I'll need a kitchen.

---

Jason was early, but he sat down and glanced around to see if maybe she was early too, it didn't look like it. He noted that Brook Lynn was working the counter. Wondering where Mike had gone, Jason glanced down at his watch slowly growing impatient. He shouldn't be impatient, he was early. But still, he couldn't wait to tell this woman all about Sam and wait for Sam to be found.

Jason's eyes wondered to the stairs where he saw Mike and an unfamiliar woman going downstairs. He saw the woman smile at Mike and thank him graciously until she glanced at him and seemed to think for a moment. Then she walked over to him. "Excuse me, are you Mr. Morgan?"

"Yeah." Jason stood up and took her hand. "But just call me Jason."

"Jason... I'm Cirra McDuff."

"I know, please, sit."

She sat down and so did he. He ran his eyes through the woman and paid careful attention to the details. She had fire-red hair and deep brown eyes. Those eyes, they reminded him of Sam and just the thought made his heart beat faster. At that moment, he felt like Sam was still alive. He was almost sure of it. Crazy, he told himself, she couldn't possible have survived. But never the less, he felt his heart beat for the woman he lost. And strangely, he could have sworn he felt her heart beat as well. Somewhere in this word Sam was still alive, and he could feel it.

---

I sat down just as Jason has instructed. He watched me up and down quickly and I felt my heart suddenly beating out of control. Surprisingly, his eyes stopped on mine and the way he looked at me, it was like he knew me. A smile crept onto his face and quickly went away. I realized what he was thinking. He was thinking that soon, I'll find his fiancé, and then he remembered that she's more then likely dead.

It felt like if I wasn't going to look away, he'd never tell me anything. He was in a maze. So, I took my eyes of his and the hypnotic spell broke. I opened my purse and pulled out a notebook. I opened the first page and found the doctor's appointment. I had a doctor to see next week here in Port Charles General Hospital. The doctor was a brain specialist who was going to tell me what were my chances of remembering. The last time I've been at the doctor's, they told me my chances were slim. But I still had hope. Then I turned to the second page which just so happened to be blank. I pulled out a black pen from the spiral and uncapped it. "Okey, we may begin. Can you tell me basic information about this fiancé of yours? Like name, hair, eyes, that type of stuff."

Jason opened his leather jacket and from an inner pocket he pulled out a photo. I caught a glimpse of a gun in there but payed no attention. I knew how to use guns, actually, that was one of the things I knew about the old me. I never took any training at shooting, yet, I never missed a target. All my doctor's told me that I probably knew how to shoot before the memory loss.

"Name, Samantha McCall. Age, twenty nine. Hair, black. Eyes, dark brown." He handed me the photo while I was writing the information down in my notebook. "Here's a photo of her."

I took the photo and studied it. The woman was beautiful, beyond beautiful actually. I looked at her eyes and couldn't help but wonder. Thought the shape was slightly different, the color was the same as mine. I wondered if she was someone I might be related to. Our face shape was the same too. But then again, there were many differences like my eyes were slightly a different shape and my lips were wider. I put the photo down and glanced at Jason. "When was she last seen and where?"

"October 9th, three years ago. We were to do on a boating vacation, but work got in the way. I had to take care of a few things so she decided to give the boat a test drive. She had just gotten an old boat. I tried to talk it out of her and wanted her to buy a new one, but she wanted something that she could fix and spend time on. A few hours after sailing, the radar was lost and the boat was never seen again. Neither was she."

"Over the phone, you said you had two private i's, can you tell me what they did and what they discovered?"

"Yeah, the first one is a good friend of mine, Stan. He's better with information then with finding things. He didn't find anything. He read every newspaper in this state and the bordering stares but there was never any article written about finding her, or anyone. The other p.i. didn't have much luck either. He hired a diving expedition and went to the bottom of the waters where the boat dropped from radar. But he didn't find the boat in that location."

I wrote a few things down and glanced up at him. "Which direction was she going in?"

"East."

"Sometimes when a boat drops from radar, it could just be a defective GPS system. Did he check any distance further East."

"Yes, he checked a hundred miles east of the location where the signal was lost. He found a boat, but the body he found belonged to a man."

"Was it possible she would have been having an affair?"

His face turned harsh at that question. "No. Not in a million years. First of all, she was as crazy about me as I am about her. Secondly, she was too respectful of a person to be doing that."

"Okey," I nodded. "Was it possible that someone might have attacked her in the boat?"

"Yes. By profession, I'm not an honorable person, so my enemies might have tried to kidnap her. But according to the autopsy, the man died from drowning."

I wrote that down and continued with the questioning. "Did the PI's diving team check the name of the boat?"

"No, I don't think so."

I now knew what I needed to know and I also knew where to begin my search. I closed the notebook and put the pen in it's spiral. Once I had slipped the notebook into my purse, I looked up at him and found him to be once again staring into my eyes. And speaking of eyes, he had the most beautiful blue eyes. I took a sip of my coffee, which had managed to turn cold, and then I looked at him as a whole. His hair was sexy, his face was seductive, and his eyes mesmerizing. I took another sip of my coffee and put the cup down. "Do you know where I could rent a diving boat and where I could buy some diving equipment?"

He smiled at me slightly. "I have a boat and equipment. It's on pier 52, dock C."

I stood up to leave. "Okey then. Dress comfortably for tomorrow because the both of us will be going diving at seven in the morning."