The Mirrors of Fate (24 page)

“
Brrrr, it’s so cold in this store,” her mother complained to herself as her hands and pudgy frame jiggled slightly. “It’s like they’re trying to freeze chicken in here.”

Maria swallowed and looked away. The sense of caring was just a false alarm. But at least it had almost been.

“
Your mother is right, Ms. Jaghai, about your careless actions,” Montgomery reproached. “You truly need to realize the seriousness in this.”

“
I know it could have been me,” Maria said directly to her mother, ignoring Montgomery’s invasion into their conversation by placing her back to him, “but like I told you, I saw Da—Alan last night. He didn’t do anything to me.”

“
So what? He can the next time, can’t he? What you’re telling me is that you think there’s no chance he will try to hurt you again?”

“
I’m just saying the police need to stop thinking they’re dealing with some sort of mental patient or maniac. If they did maybe they could find him. He’s not out to haphazardly kill people in his path. There’s more to it than that.” And she wished she knew exactly what.

Her mother didn’t speak right away. Instead she looked at her with prolonged consideration, likely measuring in her head for herself exactly what her daughter was hiding from her. Eventually she grew frustrated enough. “I don’t want to hear anything else about it. You just forget about that for now and focus on what we’re doing here. We may have a long day ahead of us.”

A long day was quite the understatement
.
The hours went by agonizingly slow as Maria went from store to store, tried on dress after dress, and looked at accessory after accessory. She felt like a mannequin being fitted for a store window. Her mother might as well have gone shopping by herself. The choices made and the rejections decided upon were all her mother’s. Before long, their shopping eventually led them to a highly acclaimed and reputable clothing store, Sandra’s, within the Square.

Her mother surveyed the place. “You stay here with Montgomery. I’ll bring back stuff for you to try on so you won’t have to tag along. I promise this is the last store.”

Her mother went ahead of them, leaving Maria to stand with Montgomery by the entrance. “The fifth last one,” Maria said with a sigh. She crouched in a corner by the display window, as grumpy and miserable as a child. Not long after she had done so, Maria felt eyes on her. One of the female store clerks.

Maria did not acknowledge her presence at first, thinking the girl was just another one of the random, curious White Crest citizens who had been staring at her since the shopping adventure began. But the girl’s looks, which were at first glances taken in between tending to items and customers in the store, became an all-out staring session that was beginning to agitate Maria.

When she’d reached the limit of her patience, Maria finally locked eyes with the clerk. Fiery red hair, a skinny frame and a small upturned nose made Maria instantly recall her. This was the girl she had seen in the Square, the one who was with her boyfriend, and the one who couldn’t take her lustful eyes off of David.

“
I’m, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stare.” The girl’s voice was soft and barely more than a whisper.

“
It’s fine,” Maria lied, and she made sure the girl knew it by souring her tone with aversion. “Do you want something?”

“
No, no, it’s nothing.” The clerk turned on her heels and motioned to walk away, but something kept her soles glued to the spot. She turned back around. “No. It
is
something. I’ve been looking for you and since I’ve found you, I’m not leaving.”

Maria frowned angrily. “Excuse me?” She observed the clerk thoroughly, instantly thinking such bold words shouldn’t have come from such a fragile-looking girl. The redhead practically looked like a newborn animal. Her skin was translucent, revealing blue veins and red blood vessels at the surface of thin, stretchy skin. She was so thin Maria was sure her fingers could wrap twice around the girl’s neck.

“
Well, I actually, I’ve, uh, been hoping to see you around again,” the clerk said sheepishly again. “I remember seeing you here at the Square a little while back. You were...on a date with someone.”

Maria knew what came next would probably be a question of whether the guy with her was really the same one who “assaulted” her in the classroom. Whoever this chick was, she had obviously missed the numerously aired interviews of the very willing Gina and Ellie giving their account of their “good” friend’s many encounters with the young, dashing criminal.

“
Look,” Maria told her, “I don’t want to talk about anything related to that. If you want any information, go check the news.”

“
No, I don’t think you understand,” she became indignant. “I don’t know you, but I want to ask you something. I’ll leave you alone after that. I promise.”

Again with the fluctuating braveness. One moment the girl had been as nervous as a bird, but now her face had taken on a determined countenance. Despite how her nerves fought against her, whatever mission she had in mind, she did not plan on leaving before she accomplished it.

“
Fine, I guess so,” Maria finally agreed.

“
I just want to know one thing. Was that guy your boyfriend?”

“
No,” Maria said frankly. “Never was and never has been.”

“
So where did you meet him?”

“
Here in White Crest.”

The girl took a long labored breath. “Can I ask what his name was?”

Maria didn’t answer at first. “Why do you want to know his name?”

The clerk wrung her hands together and hesitated. “Well, I just thought it was someone I might have known, that’s all. I’m sorry for bothering you.”

She turned to leave but Maria sprang to her feet and grabbed the clerk’s shoulder. “Hey wait a minute!”

The girl spun back around to her, looking slightly irked.

“
He’s someone you might know? He was a friend of yours?”

The girl only asked her question again. “Could you please tell me what his name was? If you don’t want to, that’s fine.”

Damn it, she was in a bad position. She knew this inquiring clerk would not answer her question unless she answered hers first. And so she did, but with caution and a plan up her sleeves.

“
His name was Alan,” Maria told her.

“
Alan? Well, what about his last name?”

“
Kristinsson.”

The girl’s freckled face fell. “Oh. I see. Well, I just thought...”

“
That he reminded you of someone?”

The girl barely smiled and nodded her head. “Yeah, yeah. But I was wrong, it seems.”

“
Tell me who you thought it was,” Maria urged.

The girl gave Maria a strange, uncertain appraisal. “What does that matter? It doesn’t matter if he’s not the person I was looking for.”

“
I answered your question,” Maria reminded her with a hard glare, “so it’s your turn.”

The clerk looked at her skeptically, but then finally spoke as if the answer didn’t matter to her anymore. “Well, he just reminded me a lot of my old boyfriend, David.”

Maria’s heart froze, just as it had when “Alan” responded to that name.

“
What?” the clerk asked.

“
Uh, do they really look a lot alike? This David and the guy I was with?” Maria tried to remain as cool as she could so as not to scare the girl off, and by the looks of it, the clerk looked just about ready to excuse herself.

“
Only slightly. But it was just a feeling, you know, gestures, a smile, things like that. Not that much in the face when I really think about it. Anyways, thank you for speaking with me.”

The clerk parted with a final smile before Maria could think of any words to keep her from going back to her duties. But there was no way she could let her make a getaway. Apart from Mr. Lohan, this was the only other person she could possibly find out more about David from.

The clerk went behind the counter and began working. Maria went up to her. “So,” Maria began casually, “you say they don’t look alike very much, huh? Heh, then you must have really thought the guy I was with was good-looking. I saw you staring at him a lot.” Maria gave her a mischievous smile to rope her in.

The girl didn’t know how to respond and seemed surprised the conversation was still continuing.

“
I’m sorry,” she said, “but when you see someone familiar, sometimes you tend to stare. I wasn’t chasing down your beau, or anything like that.”

Maria grinned. “Oh no, no. That’s quite fine. He’s really good-looking, so I expect it. Can I ask your name?”

“
Tiffany,” she said.

“
I’m Maria.” The two shook hands. “Well, here’s the deal, Tiffany. I have to wait until my obsessive mother gets done with things. Can I help you around the store?”

As much as the clerk told her it wasn’t store policy for customers to be helping, Maria managed to convince her to let her do a few menial jobs. Montgomery watched from a distance. The two started making casual conversation about why the girl was working there, how she got the job, what kind of things she liked to do, anything at all to gain the redheaded girl’s quick confidence. As they chatted idly for some minutes, Maria tried to carefully re-introduce the topic of David.

“
I wish my parents let me have a job like you. I need the money.”

“
My parents didn’t really
let
me. I’m twenty-one,” Tiffany said.

To learn of their age gap was more than surprising. With her thin frame, small hands and demure personality, Maria had not expected Tiffany to be so much older than her.

“
You’re really twenty-one? I thought you were a lot younger than that. You must have tons of boyfriends then with the way you look.”

She smiled. “No. Just one right now. He’s really nice, but you know men, they’re a handful.”

“
No argument here. So when did you break up with this David guy?”

The girl took a while to respond, but when she finally did her eyes were glazy. “He died in a car crash some years ago. That’s when we broke up basically.”

A car crash?

“
I...I’m sorry about that. How many years ago?”

“
Almost three years now,” Tiffany said, without needing even a second to think about it. “He died when he was just nineteen. His birthday would be in December. He’d be twenty-two now if he were still alive.”

He’s
twenty-two? There’s no way.

“
He was a very nice person,” Tiffany said, staring out into space, her eyes softened by nostalgia. “Handsome obviously, sweet and very charming.”

Maria wanted to say she forgot to add “deceitful,” “malicious” and “dangerous” to the list, but she held herself back. “What about his family?” Maria queried. “Are they still around? Did you get along with them too?”

“
I did, but they’re gone. Most of them died in the same car crash.”

Death...all this talk of death. If David really did die, who was this David now?

“
I loved his family,” Tiffany continued, “but naturally, it hurt more when I found out he was gone. But I was lucky. I didn’t have to see his body.”

“
What do you mean?”

“
His body was burnt to ash, along with his parents’.” The girl fought back the tears seeping into her eyelashes. “Police got to the scene first. They only got one out. But him and his parents...Doctors said they were burnt to ashes. And that damn fire brigade.” She laughed scornfully, holding herself rigid. “That damn fire brigade took forever to come. Forever. How long does it take to answer a call? How long? And how long does a gas fire burn, or how long do you
let
it burn before everyone is ash?” She stared strangely at her feet. “I just feel like no one responded fast enough. Like they didn’t care. Like God didn’t want them to. To basically cremate them like that...Like Death wanted to make sure they were
absolutely
gone. It makes me want to—” She stopped, looked up and smiled away any sign of discomfort. “I-I’m so sorry. What I meant to say before I started rambling was that I was glad not to have to go through seeing him and identifying him. That would be too hard. I was lucky. I was lucky.”

She found her distraction from sorrow by mindlessly returning to her duties. But Maria used the crucial moment to evaluate things in her mind. No recognizable body remains must have been in the car, so the medical team assumed David had been burnt, when obviously he had gotten out before the police arrived. But how could there have been nothing? Not a bone? Not even teeth? She’d read about this for her project. Even in cremation it took a grinder at the back of the furnace to completely break down enamel and other larger bones. There had to be some sort of cover up by the medical team, because...What ordinary fire could do that?

Her mother shouted from the changing rooms. “Maria, come here and try on these outfits!”

“
I’m coming!” Maria sent back. “I have to go,” she told the clerk.

Tiffany nodded. “Yes that’s fine. Thanks for helping out. I’m sorry if I bored you with my sob story.”

“
No, you didn’t! It was nice meeting you, and thank you so much for sharing all that with me.”