If you could only see the way that she loves me
Maybe you would understand
Why I feel this way about our love
And what I must do
If you could only see how blue her eyes can be when she says
When she says she loves me
Tonic
It's late. I know it is, but I knock again anyway, louder this time. I wait. His truck is here, I saw it in the lot, but maybe he is out. I'm just about to go when I hear the scuffle of feet and the sliding open of the lock. Chris stands in the doorway looking rumpled, wearing only boxer shorts. I realize he looks like a little boy when he wakes up, his face still puffy with sleep, his hair is standing out from his head at odd angles.
"Holly… hey…" he blinks at me with a puzzled expression. "Come in. Come in." he stands aside to permit my entry.
We go into the kitchen and he busies himself with the coffee maker. I am so wound up, I can't sit still, so I pace.
"I saw her Chris! I saw her!" I finally blurt out, unable to contain it anymore.
He turns and looks at me, arms crossed over his chest. What is that I see in his eyes, pity?
"Holly…" he begins in a soft gentle voice. Yeah, that was pity.
"No Chris! I did!" I insist, cutting off whatever he was about to say.
"Ok…" He says slowly, "Listen Holly, would you mind if I went and put on a shirt or something?"
"No, no, go ahead." I continue to pace.
He's back in seconds wearing a t-shirt and gym shorts. He leans, hands braced on the edge of the counter behind him. "So, Holly, you think you saw Gail in San Francisco?" He looks confused.
"I did! I did see her!" I insist, "And she kissed me too!"
"WHAT?" Chris looks shocked and pushes himself on to his feet. "Ok, maybe you had better start at the beginning."
"So you know I was visiting my sister, Laurel, for a week." I say. He nods.
"Have you even been home yet?" He asks
"No. But just listen!" I take a page out of Gail's book and smack him on the arm.
"Ow! Ok! Tell me." He says rubbing his arm.
"Well I was people watching at this lesbian bar, well mostly lesbian bar, there are other people there too. Anyway, I see this couple coming up from the garden, they are speaking French, and I'm thinking wow, the woman is beautiful, in a classic nineteen forties way, and then she looks up, and it's Gail! And she freezes for just a second and stumbles when she sees me…"
"Wait, wait…" Chris interrupts, "How come you didn't know it was her when you first saw her?"
"Oh, well, she looks completely different!" I explain, "First of all, her hair is dark, almost black, and cut stylishly short. And she was wearing this crazy, little red dress with black pumps. A look that is so not our Gail. HOT, but just not the Gail we know. Expensive. You know."
"Ok…" Chris says again, trying to wrap his head around it all. "And…?
"And, I tried to look for them in the bar but they were gone." I stop pacing and look at him.
"Wait, I thought you said she kissed you." Chris looks confused again.
"Ok. Yeah. So then, I go into the restroom to try to pull myself together before Laurel shows up with her latest boy, and I forget to lock the door…" I close my eyes, suddenly flooded with the memory, "And Gail bursts in and kisses me for all she's worth, and then she literally runs out and gets into a car."
"Huh." Chris says, clearly attempting to process all of this. "Did you see Dov too? Or just Gail?"
"No Chris. I'm sorry, it was just the two of them." I say, looking into his worried eyes.
"Oh." He looks at the floor for a minute "Well, that's ok, Holly." He looks back at me, "So, would you know this guy again if you saw him?"
"Yeah, why?" And then it dawns on me what he's asking, "Oh! I mean, um yeah! And I got the license plate number of the car she got into too!"
"Great!" He smiles, and pushes himself upright. "Just let me put some clothes on, and I can meet you at the morgue in twenty."
"Ok!" I agree. This is not what I expected, but I'm ok with that.
"Oh, do you want to call Steve, or should I?" He asks as I am almost out the door.
"Do you think that's such a good idea?" I ask, wondering how Steve is going to react to our snooping into a very sensitive case involving Gail.
"You know Holly, if we don't tell him, he'll be pissed! I mean, I would be." Chris replies. "Ya know, don't worry. I'll do it. Just, just go."
It's seven thirty in the morning, and we have been here for hours. Steve and Chris and I are all stuffed into my office, huddled around my computer running Gail's mystery man's description on InterPol, but I haven't seen him yet. Brisk footsteps can be heard coming down the hall. They stop at my office door and we all look up to find Superintendant Elaine Peck standing in my doorway. She does not look pleased.
"Uh, hi Mom!" Steve says, standing up quickly.
"Don't you hi mom me, young man!" She shoots him an icy glare, and I can see clearly where Gail gets it from. "I need you to shut that off right now and come with me!" She commands.
"Wait." I say, "How did you know what we were doing?" I enquire, a little more sharply than I had, perhaps, intended.
"Don't be silly." She is looking at me with an amused, superior smile, "I've been monitoring the three of you for months!"
"You, you WHAT?" I am incredulous! "You've been bugging my computer?"
"Of course." She smiles again without humor or warmth, "How else was I going to catch you, when I knew that sooner or later you would do this?" The smile vanishes as quickly as it came. "Now come with me!" She orders and begins to march down the hall.
"Why do I feel like we've just been caught smoking behind the bleachers and we are getting sent to the Principal's office?" I grumble
"Because we are." Steve sighs.
After a tense and silent ride in the back seat of her car, Superintendent Peck marches us through the Toronto Police headquarters like a pack of naughty children, up the elevator, and directly into her office.
"Have a seat!" she points to a bench on the far wall of her office. She sits down at her desk and immediately begins typing something at her computer. The room is silent. Forty-seven minutes later, she looks up at us.
"Oh my goodness!" She says, looking at her watch, "I had no idea it was getting to be so late!" She stands up and comes around her desk, spinning her monitor to face us as she goes. There appear to be a number of open documents and browsers. "If you will excuse me, I have a meeting to go to. It might just take all day, but I expect you all to be here when I return. If you need anything, Lois, my assistant, will be bringing you lunch around noon." She leaves the room, closing and locking the door behind her.
Steve is the first to move. He stands up and makes his way over to an elaborate display case on the wall to the left of her desk. When he turns back around, he is holding three glasses and crystal decanter full of brown liquid.
"I don't know about you, but I need a drink!" He places them on her desk and pours.
The scotch hits my throat like fire, lighting up my stomach, and illuminating my veins.
"Ok. Let's do this!" Chris says, flipping to a virtual facial reconstruction and recognition software that I would kill to have access to at my lab.
By the time noon rolls around, we have compiled quite a bit of information on the Sanchez family's movements, businesses and associates. It seems that there are a number of orphanages throughout the less affluent parts of Europe where young teens are being offered a life of fame and fortune through the Sanchez music industry business. There are some that go that route, some are adopted by wealthy families, both here and in the States, the rest simply disappear. The man I saw Gail with turns out to be Luc Dufort, a club promoter in Paris, Prague, Bangkok and Toronto. with a number of unsolved crimes for which he is a suspect.
Lunch arrives on a catering cart from the executive kitchen. There are more than enough fancy sandwiches, chips and cookies than we need. Steve helps himself to a chocolate chocolate-chip first, which makes me laugh, because that would be so Gail, if she were here. We are just beginning to track Dufort's recent movements via some high tech satellite feed that I'm sure we don't normally have access to, when the door opens. Superintendant Peck is back.
"So," She practically croons, "How is it going? Do we have everything we need?"
"Well Ma'am, we seem to be making progress." Chris says in a flat tone.
"Thank you Charlie, but I was asking my son, as ranking officer, of course." She smiles dismissively at him.
"What about Holly?" Chris challenges, "I'm pretty sure her being a doctor and all, as well as her pay-scale out ranks us both."
"Don't be silly Charlie," She snaps, "That woman is an outside consultant. Steven?"
Steve rolls his eyes, and gives a report of what we have discovered, so far. When he is done, Elaine packs everything we printed out so far into her bag, looks sternly at us all and says, "You have all been reassigned to me, for now. You will not speak of this to anyone outside of this room! Lock up when you are done for the night. I expect you to report back here first thing in the morning.
Time passes quickly, and then much too slow. We have been camped out around Gail's mother's desk, in her office suite for five days now. I am hunkered down in front of the second computer that appeared on the third day, willing it to process data faster. Chris is in the shower. Steve is lying on the bench, reading tour schedules and profit reports, his unfinished dinner on the floor beneath him, when the door bursts open and Elaine, as we have been asked to call her, pokes in her head looking smug.
"I'm glad to see you are making such good progress!" She says with her cold, cold smile. Sharks must smile like that at seals, I think to myself.
"I thought you might be able to use some help." She smiles again.
She steps aside to open the door wider and reveal Dov standing there next to her. I leap from where I am crouching behind her desk and run to greet him. Steve gets up too, he extends a hand in greeting. Dov is looking rough. He is gaunt, and dirty, and his face looks like it's been smashed by a baseball bat. Chris comes out of the bathroom wearing only his jeans, and freezes. He breaks into a giant smile and rushes to grab Dov by the shoulders.
"Hey Brother!" Chris greets him as they embrace.
"Where is Gail? I ask suddenly alarmed.
Dov sighs and slumps on the bench next to Steve. He holds his head in his hands for a moment, running his fingers nervously through his hair.
"I don't know." He sits up and looks around the room at all of us. "I don't know." He repeats as if trying to clear his head. "She and Luc were supposed to meet me at the recording studio two days ago, but they never showed."
"What recording studio?" Steve asks, sharply
"The one here, behind Club Venus." Dov replies "Anyway, I spoke to her when they landed in San Francisco. They were coming back from Tokyo, and decided to stay in California for a few days before coming back here. Luc said something about meeting with a Hollywood producer… Shit! I can't remember.."
"It's ok, take your time and tell us what happened." Steve said.
"Ok, ok," Dov began, "So we found the adoption agency that was funneling the girls to Sanchez Entertainment. We were waiting for Gail and Luc to return from Bangkok and Tokyo to do the bust along with the FBI on the other side of the border. And then you know they didn't show up when they were supposed to. I mean, there was this warehouse in London, and there must be at least one hundred girls who we saved from the kind of abuse… but, they're gone… Gail's disappeared"
He hung his head between his knees, exhausted.
I felt like someone had punched me hard. I looked over to see Steve's face go white and Chris close his eyes. Chris leaned over to grip Dov's shoulder.
"Do you need anything? Coffee? A shower? Food?"
Dov shook his head staring at the floor.
"We will find her! We will." Chris continued, "You're tired. I mean Christ! You look like hell! Why don't you take a nap while we work, and then you can start telling us all of the places where you think she might be."
There was nothing left to do, but hope, and go back to work.