I’d forgotten about the sun coming through the window. I was awake before six, just an hour or two after finally dropping off on the hard floor. I dragged myself up, groggy, splashing cold water on my face.
Elias called me and I gave him directions to pick me up at the bus stop two blocks away, where he’d dropped me last night. Given his incessant curiosity, I fully expected him to try to follow me to the house, so I’d gone the long way just in case, keeping an eye out for headlights or footsteps behind me.
Elias pulled up. There was a gift basket sitting on the front passenger seat. I stared at it.
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s for you. I figured seeing as you’re sleeping in a ditch you could use some toiletries. You didn’t get much at the shops.’
‘Okay, firstly: I’m not sleeping in a ditch. Secondly, that’s way too much effort.’ Thirdly, I added silently as I looked at the size of the gift basket, I already got toothpaste, toothbrush and deodorant. What else is there? Knowing Elias, probably stuff I’d never even heard of.
It was all packed in a blue cardboard box and wrapped with clear cellophane. I tugged the cellophane off and poked around. A fluffy white towel, rolled up neatly. A collection of hotel-sized toiletries, miscellaneous brands, and a few other things like a hairbrush and spray deodorant.
‘You forgot the clean underwear.’
‘I figured you could sort that out yourself.’ He picked out a bottle of shampoo. ‘This stuff is my mum’s favourite, she brings home a bunch of bottles every time she goes away for work. I figured she had plenty to spare.’
Okay, so it hadn’t cost him anything, but he’d obviously put time and effort into it. Nobody had ever done anything like that for me before, unless you counted all the stuff people heaped on us after Frankie disappeared. It was exactly the sort of thoughtful thing he would do, but it felt weird. Personal.
‘You don’t seem like the fragrances type so I kept things simple. Except the hand cream. It’s jasmine vanilla, you have to try it.’ He picked up a red tube and flipped the lid. Before I knew it he had grabbed my hand, turned it palm up and squeezed out a liberal amount. The smell of jasmine filled the car.
I didn’t have much choice so I rubbed it in. A hint of the fragrance was all right, but after a few seconds it was starting to become a little overpowering. Elias realised he’d put too much on my hands and reached out to scrape some off.
I shot him a look. ‘Do you and I have to have a talk about personal space?’
‘Sorry.’ He rubbed the moisturiser into his hands. ‘Couldn’t let it go to waste.’
‘You smell like a girl.’
‘At least I don’t smell like I slept in a ditch.’
We called one of Sephora’s remaining friends and went to see the other. Like the first two, they knew nothing. It was a lot of time spent telling Elias’ story with nothing to show for it.
‘She really did just drop off the map.’ Elias’ enthusiasm was starting to wane a little. ‘We’re running out of options.’
We’d left his contact details with everyone we had spoken to, but I wasn’t expecting anything to come of it. There was only one person left on our list to talk to.
I hadn’t been to Dad’s office for years. It’s a large white concrete block in a business park, surrounded by multinational pharmaceutical and tech companies. Not as corporate as the businesses in the city high rises, but still. Not exactly my comfort zone.
‘I’m staying here,’ I reminded Elias as he pulled into the car park.
‘Come on, I need you. Besides, what are the chances of us running into your dad?’
About three hundred people worked at Prado, from memory. Statistically, you’d think we’d probably be safe. But I had zero confidence in that being the case. And zero interest in Dad catching me and yelling the building down.
‘Nope. Staying here.’
He left the car running for me, but even so I had to wriggle out of the front seat and sit on the bare floor in the back to get away from sun burning through the windscreen. I had my folder full of notes but only made a half-hearted effort to skim through them. I was stupidly anxious about Elias being in the Prado building.
In the end, he was gone for nearly half an hour. I had started wondering if I needed to go in after him when the driver’s door opened and he slid in. ‘Hey.’
‘I was starting to worry they’d locked you up in there.’
‘Do they do that?’
‘Maybe.’ I scanned his face, trying to read it. ‘How’d you go?’
‘She doesn’t know anything.’
‘It took you half an hour to find that out?’
A shrug. ‘We were talking. I liked her. I guess she’s, like, my aunt, or second cousin or something.’
I’d given up trying to keep track of Elias’ new family tree. If she was related to Aurora, I could understand why a relatively simple conversation could take so long.
‘Was she curious to meet you?’
‘I guess so. But kinda cool towards me, you know. Like she didn’t want to get too emotionally invested, or maybe she just needs some time to adjust to the idea. I liked her, though.’
I felt like that part could just be Elias’ imagination, but didn’t say so. ‘What does she do at Prado?’
A shrug. ‘I didn’t ask, sorry.’
My dad would probably know, but even if I was at home to ask him, he would want to know why, and then he’d tell me to butt out of other people’s business.
I thought about our list of Sephora’s friends, now exhausted. ‘So we’re out of leads.’
‘You’ll think of something.’ That Elias optimism was back. Talking to Yvonne seemed to have cheered him up. ‘In the meantime, can we go get some lunch?’
‘It’s eleven a.m.’
‘Yeah. I could go a burger or something.’
We got burgers from a small takeaway place and sat at the picnic table in a park across the road. I hadn’t eaten breakfast and my hunger hit me all at once as I started in on the burger.
‘I was thinking about her paintings,’ Elias said finally. ‘I know we couldn’t find any information on Bridget Green, but maybe there’s something in the paintings that could tell us where she is.’
I thought about the artworks we’d seen online. ‘There’s photos of landscapes,’ I said slowly.
‘Yeah.’ Elias cocked an eyebrow. ‘What are you thinking?’
‘So maybe we can work out where they were taken. Maybe.’
‘And find where she is now.’ His eyes lit up, and I immediately regretted getting his hopes up.
‘It’s a long shot,’ I warned him.
He grinned at me, unfazed as always. ‘Let’s go.’