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Lucinda had been an interesting experience. An apparent drunk who was cagey about Ella’s movements and described herself with a term Max had never heard before. On the way back to the station Max asked her phone’s virtual assistant to tell her what the heck intersex meant and discovered there was yet another category to add to her diversity knowledge—someone who wasn’t officially male or female because they were born with the sex anatomy either of both sexes or neither.
Max was just pulling into the parking at the back of the station when her cell phone vibrated. She parked then looked at her phone. A text from Howard. Kyle walked off the job. Looks like I won’t make it this evening. Bring me some honey cake?
Fuck. She’d known Kyle was too good to be true. An experienced HVAC man with over ten years’ experience, why had he even taken the job in the first place? She didn’t know if it was Howard’s fault this time, but she did know on some deep level that it was only a matter of time before Howard’s latest business venture tanked, even though she would never admit it out loud. A Harvard grad with an intellect superior to Einstein’s, Howard had turned out to be totally hopeless in the real world. Her jobs had supported them through countless failed inventions and numerous start-ups, each one brimming with promise until Howard managed yet another form of self-sabotage.
You know what the Midas touch is? She’d emailed her old friend, Lynn. I’m beginning to think Howard has the opposite. He expects everything to turn to gold, but instead it turns to sh*t.
There’s a term for that, Lynn had emailed back unhelpfully. Sadim touch, Midas spelled backward. She thought Lynn was making it up, but apparently it was a thing. She wished Lynn would be more supportive, but then again, Lynn had probably been the only friend honest enough to say it as she saw it.
Before Max left New Jersey, she and Lynn had a final drink at an outdoor café that faced Manhattan. Looking across the water at the amazing skyline, Max had wondered wistfully when she’d get to see that view again.
“It’s not just that he fails all the time, it’s that you’ve sabotaged your own career in the process,” Lynn had told her. “You could have been a commander by now, or at the very least, a sergeant. But every time Howard has some new cockamamie idea, you go along with it. I thought you’d wise up when you lost everything in Buffalo, but no, off you went to Fairfax. Then you came back here, and now you’re off to some godforsaken little town in the land of rat-infested palm trees. Why should this time be different?”
Max had shifted uncomfortably on the wooden bench that the owners thought provided ambiance, but which just made her butt hurt. “Come on Lynn. For once it’s a sensible idea and he’s followed through. He aced all the training and Florida is the place to be if you’re starting up an air conditioning company. They need it year-round, so there’s always a demand for it.”
“Of course he aced the training. No-one disputes that he’s brilliant. But you know your husband. He’ll forget to dot all his I’s and cross his T’s and end up with some massive fine, like he did in Buffalo. Or he’ll get bored with it when he discovers it’s no fun clambering on someone’s roof or in their backyard in ninety-degree weather. Or he’ll have some big argument with a customer and then discover the guy is a local big shot who can ruin his reputation.”
“He’s going to hire people so hopefully, there won’t be too much face-to-face interaction. He has his license so he can run the business, but he’ll bring in experienced HVAC guys and they’ll do the work.”
Lynn had snorted into her beer, then looked up at her friend and sighed.
“What do you see in him that none of us do?”
Max had laughed ruefully. “When things are going well, he can be charming, witty, and funny. And I still think if you combined Anderson Cooper and Idris Elba, you’d get my Howard. I can’t help it, but I still melt a little every time I see him.”
Everything she told Lynn was true, but what was also true was that she was getting really tired of being let down by him. The endless career moves that never worked out. The business ideas that failed. To say nothing of the deeper pain around their lack of children. And then there were the stupid small occurrences, like this one so that once again she’d be facing her parents alone.
Max opened the car door. It swung wide so quickly she was almost dragged to the ground with it. Damn, that wind was strong. She pushed the heavy back door into the station and almost tripped as she was blown inside.
Del guffawed but quickly turned it into a cough when he saw she wasn’t amused.
“Think it’s gonna turn into a hurricane?” she asked him.
“Nah. It’s all hype. If we believed the forecasters every time they said we were in the eye of a hurricane, we’d be evacuating the town every other week.”
“Hope you’re right. I have to leave pretty soon to drive down to Naples.”
“You’ll be fine. Bridge is still open.” Del put down the report he’d been scanning. “How did the interview go?”
“She was kinda forthcoming, but kinda not. Claims she doesn’t know what time our missing gal left her house.”
Del laughed. “Uh-oh. Is our missing woman two-timing her fiancée?”
Max shrugged.
“What about suicide?” Del asked. “You think she disappeared so she could off herself?”
“There’s nothing to indicate it. Neither Breezy nor Lucinda mentioned any kind of depression.”
Max wrote up a report due from the previous week and was about to delve further into Ella when she noticed the time. “Crap! I have to leave. I’m late already. Do me a favor? I was at Clam Bayou earlier. That place needs a proper search. Can you contact marine patrol? I’m not back till the day after tomorrow.”
Del looked at her sideways. “You taking time off already? The boss won’t like that. Is it medical?”
“Religious holiday.”
Del’s expression turned to one of surprise. “I never took you for a holy roller.”
“I’m not. But my parents... never mind. Just do it for me?”
“Sure. What else do I need to know?”
“It’s all in my notes. I gotta run.”
In the car, Max reviewed everything that had happened that day. She hoped Del would see the note about researching a name change for Ella. Could it be connected to her family history? Was it connected to her disappearance? She was still fairly certain that Ella had left of her own volition, but what made her leave without telling Breezy? The obvious answer was that she was scared of her fiancée, who was obviously unstable. In the short time Max had known her, she’d witnessed some pretty erratic mood swings. But if that was Ella’s reason for leaving, why not wait until Breezy was out of the house, take all her stuff and leave a note?
Something about this case was beginning to get to her. Even though Breezy was an over-the-top drama queen, the fact that Ella had no history was intriguing.
It looked like Ella had gone off the grid. It also looked as if it wasn’t the first time.