SK01 - Waist Deep (19 page)

I let the conversation die.
It had only been a cushion anyway, a way of restoring a sense of normalcy
between us
.

“C
all
me
a couple of times a day,” Adam said.
“Since you don’t have a phone, I can’t call you.
Once I get this thing figured out, I don’t want to let it sit any longer than I have to.”

“You got it.”

Adam slid his business card across the table to me.
“Use a land-line.
Ask me if I can meet you for lunch or dinner.
Whatever’s appropriate.
If I say yes, I’ve got something for you.”

I thought that was a little bit much in the cloak-and-dagger department, but he knew better than I did, so I nodded.
“How long?”

Adam shrugged.
“I have no clue.”

He finished his latté in one gulp and left without
anothe
r
word.

3
2

I called Matt Sinderling after lunch.
He was eager to hear any news, but I told him I didn’t have anything concrete.
I wasn’t ready to tell him that his little girl
may have
become a prostitute briefly and might now be starring in sex films on the Internet.
I hoped he didn’t frequent those sites himself.
I had a vision of him coming across his own daughter’s movies and it gave me a black feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Tell me something,” Matt
pleaded
.
“Tell me what you’ve been doing.”

“I’ve been following leads,” I told him.

“What kind of leads?”

“Let me see if they go anywhere,” I said.
“If they pan out, I’ll fill you in.
Rozumiš?
”

“Huh?”

It was Czech for “do you understand?”
My grandmother
was born in Czechoslovakia and came to the United States as a fifteen
-
year
-old girl. She
used to say it to me all time.
It was amazing how many different inflections she was able to come up with—one for comforting me, one for teaching, one for reprimanding.
I didn’t know why it popped out, but it did.

“Just something my grandma used to say.
Listen, I’ll fill you in on anything that’s worth hearing. I just don’t want to waste your time reporting every dead end.”

“Yeah, I suppose,” Matt said.
He sounded doubtful and after the beating Leon gave me, that sound pissed me off.

“Listen, Matt, if you want me off this case, I’ll return your money and we’ll call it good,” I said.
My voice was as sharp as his was doubtful.

“It’s not that,” he answered immediately.
“It’s just…well, I guess I started to get my hopes up a little.
I thought there might be some results by now.”

“I haven’t found her,” I said.
“But I’ve talked to someone who’s seen her since she ran away.
And I have an idea where she went from there.”

“Where?” His voice was excited.
“Who?”

“That’s for a face-to-face conversation.
If it pans out.
”

He was silent for a moment, as if trying to decipher what that meant exactly.

I didn’t want him thinking about that, so I said, “Listen, I need a car for some of the things I’m trying to do.
I can rent one, but I wanted to okay
it
with you first.”

“That’s fine.
Wait—does it have to be a new car?”

“No.
It just has to run.”

“I’ve got my brother’s old car at the house.
It’s in the garage under a tarp.”

“What is it?”

“An old Celica.
I was saving it
as a surprise
for Kris when she
got her license
.”

“Does she know the car?”

“Know it?”

“Would she recognize it if she saw it?”

“Oh.” He thought for a moment.
“I doubt it.
It’s been in the garage since she was twelve.”

“Okay.
That’s fine.”

We quickly planned for him to pick me up after work and take me to get the car.
When we hung up, I was pretty certain he was no longer worried that I was soaking him for cash.
Myself, I hoped
that
were true.

33

I pushed the grocery cart down the aisle, staring absently at the shelves and thinking that I should just head to the macaroni and cheese aisle, load up and be done with it.
But I walked slowly up and down every aisle, enacting my monthly ritual.

I passed through the coffee aisle and threw in a small can of Western Family ground coffee.
That made me think of Clell, the security guard who took me in out of the cold.
It had been a simple act of human kindness, but I didn’t think that he realized how rare instances of that kindness had become.
Which, I suppose, made him all the more extraordinary.

Then I thought of Kris again and pushed my cart forward.
I wondered where the hell she was and what I could do to find her besides wait for Adam.
Since I didn’t have a phone, I certainly didn’t own a computer or have an Internet hookup.
I couldn’t very well go down to the public library and start surfing porn sites looking for her.

Or could I?

As I passed the mustard, ketchup and mayonnaise, I tried to remember what the latest ruling on library access had been.
The First Amendment Nazis had gone on a rampage a few years ago, saying that any filter on the Internet at library workstations was tantamount to a free speech violation.
This had been in response to a parents group asking that content filters be in place for juvenile users.
As soon as the wacko liberals stepped in and cried free speech violation, the
wacko
conservative
s
answered the call, saying that all of the library computers should have content filters and they knew just where to set them.

It had gone to the city council, which passed an ordinance for juvenile filters unless the kid had parental consent for unfiltered access.
But the council hadn’t put any filter on access for adults.

So were adults at the library right now, cruising porn sites on the Internet?
I didn’t know.
I didn’t relish the idea of sitting at a work station doing that, especially since the odds of me hitting the right site were infinitesimal.
On top of that, I was sure that the library had some sort of tracking for child pornography.
And, Adam pointed out, that’s exactly what any site featuring Kris would be.

I almost walked
right
by the mac ‘n cheese, but stopped at the last minute.
I grabbed a handful of the slim boxes and dropped them into my cart.

When it came to searching for Kris online, t
he truth was, I was grateful that I didn’t have to
do it. I didn’t want sit and weed through
what was considered disgusting only a decade ago and was now seemingly becoming an acceptable hobby.

“Stef?”

I looked up and saw Cassie.
She had a basket in one hand and her work smock from the Rocket draped over her arm.

“I thought that was you
,” she said with her mysterious
smile
.

I managed an awkward smile
of my own
in return
.
“I didn’t know you shopped here,” I said and instantly felt like a dork.

She nodded.
“Yeah.
Work, live, shop and go to school all in the same square mile.
Pretty boring.”

The smile on her face was genuine and
for a moment, the darkness in my gut faded.

“Me, too,” I answered, still a dork.

She pointed to my eye and cut beneath it.
“I was going to ask you about that when you came in for coffee, but I didn’t get a chance.”

My fingers touched the small cut, felt the scab.
“Yeah.
Uh…it’s a long story.”

She accepted that with a nod and gestured toward my basket.
“You must have stock in Western Family.”

“How’s that?”

“Coffee and Mac ‘n cheese.
Both W
estern Family brand
.
You must be a shareholder in the company.”

I smiled.
“If I could afford stock in any company, you’d be looking at Maxwell House and Kraft.”

She grabbed two boxes of Western Family Mac ‘n Cheese for herself.
“Kraft’s overrated,” she said.
“But Maxwell House is good.”

“Coming from a barista, I’ll take that as expert opinion.”

She nodded.
“You can.”

We both fell silent.
At first, it was a nice comfortable silence, maybe even a hint of affection there.
I thought about asking her out, but the words stuck in my throat.
When I didn’t say anything, the silence started to turn awkward.

“Well, I better finish shopping,” she said.
“I’ve got some studying to do.”

“Yeah,” I said
.

She gave me a faint smile.
“Okay.
See
ya.”

She walked down the aisle.
I watched her go, screaming at myself inside.

“Cassie?”

She turned and looked over her shoulder at me.
Her eyes were soft.

“Uh, would you like to get some coffee sometime?”

But she just smiled.
“We get coffee all the time already.”

”Yeah,” I muttered.

She shrugged.
“Maybe we could go for some ice cream instead?”

I smiled.
“Sure.
That’d be nice.”

“Okay,” she said.
“Let’s do that sometime, then.”

She turned around and strolled away.
I watched her go, admiring her
long braid and the sway of her hips
.
Then
she went around a corner and was gone.

I looked down into my shopping cart.
Right then I decided I deserved to have a nice steak and a beer with the money Matt had paid me.

I started toward the meat department.
On the way, I swung back down the coffee aisle and threw in a large can of Maxwell House.