Chapter Two

 

Tori rode in the passenger seat of his Jeep, leaning her ear against the door. Tires hummed on the wide open 605 South. Her dry mouth and flushed cheeks screamed panic. To find solace, she studied his scuffed dashboard. The GPS displayed the map as they drove. Visible to the right, sunlight played between trees lining the flood basin.

Grady’s clean-shaven face meant he’d head to court this afternoon, and she left him to his thinking. If he had stubble, as he sometimes did during prison consultations, it’d match his reddish-brown hair, parted and combed back. Between them, his Brooks Brothers suit jacket had been folded lengthwise, then horizontally. As a public defender, he made an immaculate appearance without spending a lot of money. He defended those who couldn’t defend themselves. He obtained grants and federal funding with his spotless reputation.

Reputation? Growing up, Tori defended her mob family. One day at boarding school, a kid taunted her, saying his parents thought her father was a mobster. Tori beat the crap out of the kid. Afterward, she’d looked up the word, and truth unraveled. Many things came into focus. Charm, ruthlessness, and a win-at-all-costs mentality defined mobsters. Psychopathy was more like a wide rainbow than black and white. She didn’t think her first cousin, Vivienne, was high on the scale. Nausea swirled in her stomach whenever she thought of Vivienne.

Grady cleared his throat, something he did before breaking the silence.

She turned toward him. Faint lines bracketed his eyes.

“Hey,” he said. “I like the name you picked for your food truck. Deep Fried to Taste. Catchy. In the warehouse neighborhood, greasy food goes great with late night boozing."

"Irish drinkers eat junk food.” She pressed her back against the seat. “They’ll reward me with insider information."

"You sound like a sleuth. What angle are you working?"

"The search angle. Finding Vivienne. McGinn has her," she moaned.

“That’s what you think.” He shot her a withering look. “I had this client, basically a good guy. He needed to get off the grid but didn’t qualify for a legit government program such as witness protection. The poor schmuck got mixed up with the wrong crowd. He looked at old newspapers and found a name of a baby who’d died but was around his age.”

“Look, Grady. I know this trick. Let me tell you the rest. He requested the state government to give him the birth certificate.”

“Exactly,” he said. “Many people lose birth certificates.”

“Right. It’s not unusual to lose one,” she said. “With a birth certificate, your client got a social security card. Maybe enrolled in college for a student ID. He used these to open a bank account, get a credit card, and driver’s license.”

“Okay, fine. Did Vivienne disappear like this?” His reason for the story was to work Vivienne into it. His assumption sliced through her skin.

Her outrage rasped like feathers ruffling in anger. She took a breath to calm down, knowing he wasn’t done with his little narrative.

“She’d have to change hair color,” he said. “Lose or gain weight. Put a tack in her shoe. Walk with a limp. Move to a crowded city, rent a cheap apartment. Build an employment history by working some job.”

“Uh huh.” Not up for an argument, she shifted her gaze back to the GPS map mirroring the Jeep as it sped onto a fly-over carpool lane linking up to the 22 West. The map indicated ten more minutes of travel time and small talk.

“Tell me about your childhood.” Grady knew about her family’s obscene amounts of money and no doubt assumed mob parents shaped children in strange ways.

“I witnessed death, destruction, and evil on a regular basis.” Tori paused and reined in sarcasm. “Just kidding, but our families lived apart from society. No normal parents invited us to play dates. Our parents sent Viv and me to boarding school, Stevenson's Academy at Pebble Beach."

“I’ve heard of it. Students adopt social graces of the elite society.” Laughter spilled from him.

“Probably so.” A headache took over, threads of difference between his family and hers, and pressed on her forehead. The pressure against her only meant she had to succeed. Find Vivienne. Ease into a normal life.

“Stevenson’s has a sailing club. Did you sail?"

Pride filled her heart. “Viv and I raced a Rhodes Nineteen.”

“Nineteen feet long with a deep keel. Any other hobbies?" Why the hell did he care? He guarded against getting emotional. This much she knew. The vulnerability could ooze in and defeat his lawyer mind. He’d already researched her fingerprints. Before being arrested, she didn’t have any criminal record, but this didn’t erase the barrier between them.

"We collected Beanie Babies."

"Well,” he said, “I had Squealer the Pig."

The pink piggy that grabbed headlines of collectors’ magazines didn’t come close to the headline of her murder case. "Squealer? Viv loved that one." She placed a hand on her heart. "Something happened to her. She's just gone." She ground her teeth against the mist closing in on her, trying to draw her into a tunnel and away from the truth of her disappearance.