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The small but tidy workroom held hand crafted items and brilliantly colored stained glass windows and lamps. Combs feared he’d break something, and shifted uneasily, crossing and then uncrossing his legs in the antique cane-back chair.
“Excuse the mess.” Mark January sat opposite him. “I’m covered up with holiday orders, so every surface has projects in various degrees of being finished.”
“That’s okay.” Combs shifted again, and then gave up and stood. “I’m worried about your sister.”
Mark stood, too. “Mind if I work while we talk? I got a few more pieces to cut for this panel, and like I said, I’m up against a wall. Besides,” he wiped his hands on the stained canvas apron, “keeping busy helps keep my mind off Aaron. You’re sure I can’t file a missing person’s report?”
Combs shook his head. “He’s an adult. You can file immediately, and missing kids or developmentally disabled adults will get attention right away.” He shrugged. “Hate to say it, but depends on the workload how quick the police would get to him. Playing devil’s advocate here, they’d argue maybe he took the day off, or his truck wouldn’t start and he caught a ride with a friend, or had a tiff with a lover. No offense.” He walked to the nearest table, solid, made from rough unfinished pine, and gently touched the jigsaw of cut glass pieces. “Christmas wreath?”
“Yeah, it’s a wreath.” Mark adjusted safety goggles over his eyes before he scored a large sheet of green glass with a “screeing” sound, lifted it, and broke it cleanly. “He could call me to pick him up. I’ve left messages, he’s not answering his phone.” Deft hands turned half the sheet a three-quarter turn, scored it again along a gold-painted line, and split it again.
“Well, I bet he’s with September. She left in a hurry. She took a few things. A rose lampshade that was in her office.”
“I made that.” Mark paused, puzzled. “Why pack a lamp?”
“I didn’t see her cello, either. That’s what makes me think she ran.” Or someone took her. Combs had a bad feeling. “What can you tell me about her stalker?”
Mark shrugged. “Not much.” He manipulated a long, thin strip of swirly green glass he’d separated from one end of the larger sheet. “The stalker thing, that was her story, but Mom figured it was an excuse to explain when she messed up.” A row of leaves drawn with a gold paint pen marched down the long strip of glass. With quick, sure strokes, Mark scored each in turn, cracked them free, creating a loose pile of rough leaf-shaped pieces. Combs came closer, and got waved back. “Watch your eyes. Shards fly in unexpected directions.”
Combs reflexively blinked and took a step away. “She messed up, how? She left school early for some music scholarship. A tour, too, right?”
“Yep. A sixteen-year-old cello prodigy, that’s our September. But too young to be on her own.” Mark chose one of the small rectangles of green glass and began to shape it, scoring and breaking off bits at a time until the proper inner and outer curves defined each leaf. “My folks had this family friend.” He made a face. “Older. Kind of a creep, if you ask me. He was supposed to watch out for September, but apparently he couldn’t handle the job. She started spending more time partying than practicing, was a no-show for a couple of concerts, and they kicked her out of the tour.”
“A party girl? Drugs?” Combs raised his eyebrows. That didn’t sound like the responsible woman he knew today.
“Don’t know. Maybe. Probably.” Mark added another rough-cut green leaf to the growing pile. “Hell, I did my share of booze and pot growing up here in Heartland, and later in college. A teenager virtually on her own in Chicago? It’s likely. Anyway, September finally got scared and called April to rescue her.” He peered over the goggles. “You remember April?” The question had extra teeth.
Combs stared back evenly. “September returned the favor, didn’t she?” April nearly got herself, her son, and September killed. April remained in the hospital, and probably faced jail time once she was well enough to face a judge.
“Why didn’t this family friend help September? Who is he?” Mark had no clue what kind of real trouble September had faced, or how April helped her out, and it wasn’t his place to enlighten the man.
Mark stopped, holding the glasscutter in one hand and another strip of glass in the other. “It’s been eight years. I haven’t a clue where Uncle Vic might be. The family sort of lost touch, and who could blame him? After September’s meltdown, she hooked up with Christopher Day, they moved away and eventually got married. What does this have to do with anything?”
“Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Might have something to do with Aaron. She left her front door unlatched. Not only unlocked, Mark, but unlatched. And I found this.” Combs held out the red-lettered card. “On the table, beside a bunch of blue flowers.”
“Flowers? Blue ones?” Mark set down the glass cutter, and took off his goggles to examine the note. “Anniversary? What anniversary is that? Today’s December eighteenth.”
Combs’s phone rang. He dug in his pocket, and saw it was Gonzales. “Gotta take this.” He walked away from Mark to the front of the room, speaking in a low voice. “Combs here.” When Mark held up a hand and then pointed to an adjacent room, he watched the man go. “What’s up?”
“You remember Theodore Williams, right? He’s here with me and he’s got quite a story. Ties in with Sly’s visit to September this morning.” He chuckled. “Hate to break in on a date with your girlfriend—”
“She’s not my girlfriend.” The inside joke fell flat. “She stood me up.” He hoped that’s all it was.
“So she’s got better taste than we thought.”
Combs cracked his knuckles. “What’s Teddy into now?” He’d been instrumental in helping catch his mother’s murderer, and become a good friend to September as well. Combs’s breath quickened. “Does he know where September is?”
“You’re ahead of me already. Yes, as a matter of fact, says he left September at his house.”
His shoulders relaxed, and he leaned against one of the tables. She hadn’t left town after all. Had he jumped to conclusions on the stalker angle?
“She gave Teddy notes from Humphrey Fish for some story Sly planned to write about animals making people lose their minds.” He laughed again, the way kids whistled past a grave. “Crazy, right? Sounds like something Sly would make up. We found nothing in Sly’s Gremlin, nothing at his work computer and his laptop is missing. We still haven’t found the man. Looking more and more like somebody shut him up. Maybe Fish’s notes will tell us why.”
Crazy-ass memory loss. Like Aaron? When Mark returned, carrying a picture frame, Combs replied softly, not wanting the other man to hear. “Take Teddy home and I’ll meet you there. We can talk to September, too.” He pocketed the phone and turned to the other man. “What’s that?”
“You said blue flowers.” Mark held out the picture, a professional portrait of a somber teenage September with her cello held protectively with one hand, and a bouquet of blue flowers clenched in her other white-knuckled fist. A hatchet-faced balding overweight man with piercing green eyes, bad skin and worse teeth loomed behind September, his hand possessively on her shoulder.
“Who’s he?”
“Victor Grant, the man my parents asked to watch out for September when she went on tour. I had to call Mom, and she recognized the date.” He tapped the photo. “You said blue flowers, and it reminded me of this picture.”
Combs must have looked puzzled.
“Blue flowers. Forget-Me-Nots. Uncle Vic gave her a bouquet of blue flowers after every performance.” Mark tapped the picture again. “Eight years ago today September walked out of a concert in Chicago. She hasn’t played since.”
