Joule had managed to get a small rental home set up during the drive down. It was twenty minutes away from Sarah’s, but it was the best she could do.
No one was renting houses just outside El Indio, Texas. Any place that was available, Helio Systems Tech had already snapped up for their employees. Apparently, they'd taken over almost half of a nearby hotel. Joule couldn't imagine living and working from a hotel bed with only a small bathroom, a mini fridge, and one window.
They would simply put more miles on the car every day. Joule just didn't care. They should have run a rental into the ground, but she loved this car. Even though this one hadn’t been with them as long as it should have; their first car had been lost in the flood at Stanford.
She grew attached to things and she didn't take lightly to just getting something different. She was confident she should hang on to what she could as long as she could. The world would snatch things away soon enough.
She wanted to begin looking through Sarah’s things immediately. But Cage had warned her about that. This was similar to the arrangement they’d had in Alabama, with several roommates living in the house—roommates who might not like being barged in on . . . or searched.
They’d learned from Dev that people were looking for Sarah, but no one was walking away from work to do it. It wasn’t that they didn’t care, it was just that no one could steal the time and they didn’t even know where to look.
Joule texted Dr. Murasawa hoping any friendliness that lingered between them would help. The text came back immediately.
— You're here to look for Sarah?
— Yes.
— Thank God. I'm driving around in my spare time, but the higher ups won’t give me a day to have everyone look. Meet on site in the morning?
That at least made sense, Joule thought. She got directions from her old boss thinking this was the best news they'd gotten. People were doing more than it appeared.
As they’d gotten close, they’d hit a grocery store for a gallon of milk, cereal, and crackers, enough to see them through in the morning. They’d already eaten most of the bag of snacks that Kayla had sent.
Entering the small vacation home, Joule found the decor just a little too cheerful for the circumstances. But there was a full kitchen, which made her wonder if it was possible that there would be enough time to cook a meal. She might have to force it.
By the morning, she was rolling awake before the alarm went off. While she would love to believe she’d gotten a good night's sleep, it hadn’t happened. She’d thought that—especially after going off to college—she’d gotten skilled at sleeping anywhere, on any strange mattress, but it wasn't true.
Unfortunately, Joule had logged just enough hours to know better than to crawl back under the covers. There was enough anxiety to roll out of bed and start moving. The phone had dinged all night because Joule had been unwilling to set it to ‘do not disturb.’ A spam call had excitedly woken her at 3a.m. only to be nothing.
Now, all the lines of communication she’d hoped would yield good news were empty. She showered, got dressed, and found her brother already in the kitchen, his spoon hovering over a bowl of Cheerios. He looked at her as if to say I see it happened to you, too.
They were off before even discussing it, hoping to get to the apartment where Sarah lived with her three roommates. Joule prayed one of them would be on hand and be generous enough to let them in to look around.
Though they followed the directions for Sarah’s address, neither twin had any familiarity with the area. The land was open and arid, patchy brush sprouting up on either side of a road that periodically turned to rough-trod gravel rather than pavement. Luckily, the apartments were the only two-story building in the whole area. Once a cream-colored stucco, the sides now showed evidence of storms, dirt, and time.
As Cage put the car in park, Joule asked, “Should we watch and see if anyone is home first?”
“And look like stalkers?” he immediately replied, already stepping out of the car into the hot morning air. “I’m sure everyone here will notice us.”
He was right. She joined him, the heat assaulting her despite the fact that she’d dressed for it.
She was placated by the movement she saw in one of the windows of the unit she was certain belonged to Sarah and her co-workers. Joule turned to motion to Cage, but had to follow him as he was already across the lot, heading up the metal staircase to knock on the door.
Even as she arrived on the landing and thought it was already too hot to run upstairs, a petite Hispanic woman opened the door.
“Hello?” She was wary and something in her look let them know it wasn't quite her natural state.
Though Joule was opening her mouth, Cage beat her to it. “My name is Cage Mazur. This is my sister Joule. We're friends of Sarah's.”
That didn't quite wipe the suspicious look off her face. “What do you want? She's not here.”
“We know. We were hoping to look around and find anything that might help find her.”
Joule added, “Deveron told us that the police aren't really looking for her.”
Maybe it was the mention of another co-worker or perhaps the fact that the police weren't doing enough to find her roommate that led her to open the door all the way. Her tone wasn’t warm, but she tried. “I’m Gisela, Gisela Lima. This is Brooklyn Cox and Amber Rivera.”
She motioned to Brooklyn as she said her name. Amber however was behind a closed door. She’d ducked out to see what was happening but disappeared quickly, clearly not fully dressed.
Gisela pushed the front door shut behind them, something Joule appreciated. Her anxiety pushed at the edges and she wanted to tell the others to keep the mosquitoes and bugs out. But it wasn’t her place and being weird wouldn’t help. Sarah was likely the only one here who would know to close the doors and douse herself in bug spray.
Gisele looked at them oddly, but luckily, Amber came out and motioned to the room she’d just vacated. Clearly, she’d heard everything, because she said, “That's Sarah’s side of the room. You can look at anything on that side.”
She was clear on the last two words, but Joule nodded that she understood.
Amber quickly added a solemn, “I hope you can find her. We’ve tried calling, and some of us drove around looking for her car, but . . .” She waved her hand at the empty room.
Joule understood. “Thank you.”
She and Cage ducked into the now empty room. They might have only a few minutes to see what they could find before the women left for work.
Outside, in the small dining room and kitchen area, she heard an argument between the roommates, but she couldn’t afford to pay attention. As Cage rifled through the closet, Joule began opening drawers.
They needed to find anything that could help.