She lowered her head and, beneath fluffy blond bangs, demurely replied, “No. Oh no, no, no.”
So there was nothing to do but buy a well-marshmallowed cup of hot chocolate and slink out of there.
The rest of the day passed more or less the same. On my desperate, fruitless hunt, I zoomed through so many restaurants and fast-food joints that I lost track, wound through the community library and its many desks of clueless employees, and popped in and out of every other lodge or hotel where polite but unhelpful employees all shook their heads the same. No one anywhere had seen him.
The only dent I’d made by the time it started to get dark was on my wallet, having spent more money on snacks and coffee than I could afford. At this rate, I was going to be losing money on this job, not earning it.
Finally, having searched basically every place that looked like a public establishment in town, I returned to where I had started, the garage parking lot, to regroup.
I sat there in my car, the picture of the nonexistent man, Brock Anderson, crumpled in my hand.
Maybe there was no such man. Maybe Russell Snow and his fake name had given me a fake job too, and I had no one to blame but myself for having believed him.
I turned my phone back on and the text returned to the screen: I’ve been thinking about you.
There was another one from Tiffany: Helloooo? Kyle said he talked to you??
I turned my gaze to stare out the window desolately at the outskirts of the town where I’d searched what seemed like everywhere. There was no point in continuing to look, but this couldn’t be the end of the line, the dead end of my search. It couldn’t be.
I stared vacantly at the sign beside me: East Street Garage. East Street Garage, Garage, Garage—why not try it? I straightened myself up and paused, squinting at the not-so-promising red-brick building at the end of the line of cars. Why try it at all? What was the point? Out of all the places Brock Anderson would go—to eat, to buy supplies—he probably wouldn’t go to a mechanic. How often did you need to eat versus go get your car looked at? If I hadn’t found Brock Anderson anywhere in town, I wouldn’t find him here, at this random garage on the outskirts of town.
And yet what did I have to lose? This was my last chance, so why not try it? So I did. I got out of my car and walked over to a man sitting on a lime lawn chair out front. At my approach, he put his tan hand over his eyes to block out the sun.
“Excuse me, but have you seen this man?” I asked, holding out the printout.
Still using his weathered hand as a visor, the man squinted long and hard at the paper, so long that I was about to take the paper back when he grumbled, “What’s it to ya?”
Now his dark squint was on me, his tan hand tilted up.
“Uh, nothing—just want to talk to him!”
I gave him a nervous, close-lipped smile, and his black eyes slid over me. Evidently not finding my blond nervousness a threat, he said, “Sold ’im winter tires less’n a week ago.”
I gaped at him, so surprised and overwhelmed with wanting to hug him and thank him and thank God for being a blond, unthreatening-looking private detective that it took me a minute before I could sputter out, “T-thank you. Thank you so much!”
His cracked, brown lips moved into something suggesting a smile, and he continued with a precarious fling of his arm behind him. “Had a maroon pickup truck, kinda rusty. Left thataway.”
“Thank you!” I said, shaking his hand vigorously before I headed back to my car.
Flopped on my camo-printed seat, I tried to figure out what to do next.
That I had to follow Brock Anderson up that road, find him, and get evidence of his criminal activity was obvious. The only question was, how? Another glance at the half-crumpled photo confirmed what I had sensed already: this was a cunning face, a suspicious face, one that would only buy the most convincing of stories. I couldn’t just show up claiming I was lost. I needed a plausible excuse, a reason.
My stomach growled. In the meantime, while I brainstormed my next move, I needed food.
I hadn’t planned on returning to the New Moon Café, but when I found myself pulling up to the wood-slatted building, I turned off my car and hurried inside.
Now was not the time to debate my choice of food. Once I grew hungry, I also grew unbearably indecisive; the best thing was to eat until I was no longer starving and be done with it.
When I passed through the café’s cloud-blue door, I knew I had made the right choice. Now the bakery was even busier and was filled with the delicious aroma of the cookies that a different ponytailed girl was loading into a jar on the front counter.