“My daughter Adria disappeared two months ago,” Maureen Alcott told me. “Then she came home, and she doesn’t remember anything that happened. Adria, this is Tom Jurgen. The private detective I told you about.”
Adria, 23, was shy and nervous. “H-hello. I’m Adria.” She sat at the other side of the kitchen table. Skinny, with short blond hair, she wore a pale yellow dress and a silver bracelet on her left wrist.
Maureen sat between us. In her early fifties, her face was thin and tense, with dark brown eyes and a thick nose. Her arms were crossed on the table. She looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to say something.
“Nice to meet you.” I took a sip of coffee from the cup in front of me. “Can you tell me what happened?”
Adria looked at her mother. Maureen shook her head. “She doesn’t remember. Like I said.”
Okay. “What do you remember before it happened?”
Again she looked at her mother. Again Maureen answered: “Nothing. She just—”
“Adria? Can you tell me?” I wanted to hear her speak more than a few words.
She looked down at the table. Her voice was so low I had to lean forward. “I was—I think I was walking down a street. I didn’t know where I was. Then I was here.” She glanced at her mother. “She said my name was Adria, and she’s my mother.”
Adria bit her lip, as if fighting back tears.
“Where did you find her?” I looked at Maureen.
“Outside. On the front porch.” We were in her house in Evanston. Adria’s father had died 11 years ago. Maureen was unmarried, although she’d mentioned a boyfriend. He wasn’t here.
“What did the doctors say?”
“She’s fine.” Maureen rolled her eyes in frustration. “No physical injuries, no head or brain trauma. They did CTs, MRIs, blood tests, spinal stuff, heart, liver—she’s perfectly healthy, she just can’t remember anything.” She glared at Adria, then softened her eyes. “It’s not your fault, honey . . .”
Adria was crying silently. Maureen grabbed a napkin from the counter behind her and pushed it into her hand.
“What did she have when you found her?” I asked when Adria had wiped her eyes.
Maureen stood up. “Just a minute.”
We were alone while Maureen went into the other room. “How do you feel?” I asked quietly.
She gazed at me, as if trying to remember who I was. “Scared.”
I nodded. “Do you remember what happened since you came home?”
“I have—trouble. You’re Tom, right? I know Maureen—mom. I can remember where the grocery store is now. I recognize the doctors. One of the police who interviewed me was kind of cute—” She blushed, and Maureen came back before she could go on.
She dropped a cardboard box on the kitchen table. “This is what she was wearing. Everything. Even her shoes.” She crossed her arms. “It’s what she was wearing when she disappeared.”
There wasn’t much. A Northwestern University sweatshirt, a gray T-shirt, jeans, sneakers, and underwear. Everything, like her mother had said. The clothes were clean. The pockets were empty.
“They tested everything,” Maureen said. “Looking for dust or dirt or DNA. They didn’t find anything. They might be brand-new.”
I replaced the clothing in the box. Then I looked over at Adria. “What about that bracelet?”
The bracelet was a simple silver band around her wrist with a black stone at the clasp. She pushed it up and down, twisting it. “I just found it in my room. I like it.”
“Rick gave it to her. Rick Dunley.” Maureen frowned. “Adria’s boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend.”
“Were they involved when she disappeared?”
“He broke up with her, four, five months ago? Do you remember—no, of course you don’t.” She shook her head. “They stayed friends. The police talked to him. When she disappeared.”
I looked down at the box, then over to Adria. Then to her mother. “I’m not sure how much I can do. But I’ll try. Can I take the box? And can you give me Rick Dunley’s number?””
She wrote the phone number and address down, along the names of friends she remembered. She also wrote me a check. I put both in my wallet and hefted the box. “I’ll be in touch. Thanks.” I smiled at Adria. “Glad you’re okay.”
She seemed surprised. “Th-thanks.”
Adria went back up to her room. Maureen took me to the door and held it open for me.
“She’s adopted,” she said as we walked to my Prius. “She knows. I never got married, but I wanted to raise a child, and—well, anyway, she’s my daughter. I need to know what happened to her.”
I nodded. “I understand.”
She looked away from me suddenly, her eyes glistening with tears. “Th-thank you.”
I put the box in the trunk of my Prius and climbed in behind the wheel, thinking.
Mostly I wished Rachel was here.
Rachel, my girlfriend, was studying for a psychology degree. Right now she was in class: “Freud, Dreams, and The Matrix: The Limits of the Unconscious.” I couldn’t call her like I usually do to let her know what I was up to—just in case I get ambushed by a serial killer or a vengeful ghost—so I sent her a quick text.
In addition to having red hair and hazelnut eyes and being hot in general, Rachel has psychic powers. They could have come in handy talking to Adria Alcott. But I couldn’t ask her to skip class for one of my cases, and she would have jabbed an elbow into my stomach if I tried.
It was more than just not having her help on cases. Most of them don’t involve the supernatural anyway—just cheating spouses, employee background checks, embezzlement, and the like. But even though she’d cut back on her graphic design work, school was taking up more and more of her time—classes, studying, projects, papers. I’d encouraged her to enroll, wanting to be a supportive boyfriend, but we didn’t have as much time for each other lately. I’m insecure enough to worry that she might meet someone she liked more, or that she’d just grow tired of me as she explored life more than she’d done in years.
I tried to remind myself that she still said she loved me, sometimes. I couldn’t control her life—and I’d end up in pain if I tried. Mostly I reminded myself that I had my own job, and we needed my income to pay the cable bill more than ever.
I called the number Maureen had given me for Rick Dunley. He was a lawyer at a firm in town, and he agreed to talk to me, without any enthusiasm about it. “I don’t really know anything about what happened to her,” he told me on the phone. “And I said that two months ago.”
In his office in downtown Evanston, Dunley sat behind a small desk in front of a window that looked down on the main street. He wore a loose necktie, his jacket hanging over the back of his chair, and he had slim shoulders and close cut hair.
The firm handled patent law with two other partners and a secretary, and even though he was barely 30, Dunley seemed to be doing well.
“Like I told you, I can’t really help you. Or Adria. I’m sorry, but . . .” He shrugged.
“I understand. Your name just came up when I was talking to Adria and her mother, and I thought I’d start with you, since you’re close.”
“Came up how?” He frowned, on guard.
“Adria was wearing a silver bracelet you gave her. Do you remember it?”
“How is that important?”
“Maybe it’s not. She says she doesn’t remember you.”
Dunley nodded. “Yeah, I bought that for her. We were dating. We dated for close to a year, and then we just—It wasn’t a big fight or anything, we just decided it wasn’t really going anywhere. We stayed friendly.”
“Do you remember giving her the bracelet?”
His frown and annoyance grew deeper. “Yeah, and it’s none of your business, all right? We—” He stopped, took a deep breath, and relaxed. “Okay. I gave that to her after the first time we slept together. That’s all I’m going to tell you about it. Okay?”
“Fine.” I wasn’t expecting much from Dunley anyway. “I know you’ve been through this before, but can you think of any reason why Adria would have disappeared? Do you think she ran away, or got kidnapped or—”
“Abducted by aliens?” He laughed. “Believe me, I thought about it. The cops questioned me three times. Adria’s mother didn’t like me. I don’t know, man. Adria was always—well, shy. Introverted. She was still living with her mother, you know? Working at a coffee shop. I liked her, don’t get me wrong. It just—didn’t seem like it was going to work out. She knew it too.”
I nodded. I could delve deeper into Dunley’s personal life later if I had to. “Do you remember anyone who, uh, didn’t like her? Or maybe liked her too much?”
He looked down at his keyboard, thinking. “There was this one guy working there who was always a little too friendly, just this side of sexual harassment. I think his name was Anderson. Or maybe Henderson. And her manager was a bitch. She was a little paranoid about her neighbor next door, but that was nothing.” He shook his head. “I told the cops all of this when she disappeared. I don’t think there’s anything more I can tell you now.” He pushed his chair back.
I could take the hint. I stood up before he did. “Here’s my card—” I dropped it next to his keyboard.” If you think anything else, please let me know—phone call, text, email, whatever. Thanks for your time.”
“Sure thing.” His head was down, already back to work.
“Oh, by the way—”
“Yeah?” His head jerked up, suspicious, as if I was pulling a Lieutenant Columbo thing on him.
“Where’s the coffee shop where she worked?”
The manager of the coffee shop, a tall woman named Teri, didn’t have much time for me. I could see how Adria might have disliked her—she shouted curt orders to her staff and barely smiled at her customers.
“She just didn’t show up one day.” Teri watched two baristas behind the counter with her arms crossed as she talked to me. “I called her at home, her mother said she wasn’t there. We were swamped. The next day I hired a new girl. Patricia! Refill the cream!” She shook her head, frustrated.
“There was a co-worker named Anderson. Or Henderson? He used to bother the staff, I’m told.”
“He quit. Haven’t seen him in months. Dash, that’s a cappuccino, not a latté!”
I bought a coffee and found a seat, waiting for the rush to fade out. Teri watched her staff like a cat waiting to snatch a mosquito, but eventually she disappeared into the back for a break, or a cigarette.
Dash, a young white guy with a mustache and a tattoo of a hammer on his arm, came by with a tray and a rag for clearing cups and wiping down tables. I asked him about Adria, but she’d been gone when he got hired. As he headed to another table, the door opened, “Hi, Mr. Haldane! Mrs. Haldane!”
“Hi, Dash,” said Mr. Haldane, holding the hand of a woman in her 30s in sunglasses and a floppy hat. She was blonde, slender, and unsteady on her feet. Haldane was closer to my age—late 40s—but in much better shape, darn him, wiry and athletic in slacks and wool sweater. At least he was balding.
His wife sat down at a table in the corner, and Haldane went up to the counter to order their beverages. He chatted with the other barista, waiting for his order, but Ms. Haldane sat almost motionless, hands in her lap, staring nowhere behind her dark glasses.
Teri emerged from the back and said hi to Haldane, and I decided it was time to go before she kicked me out. At least the coffee was good.
I spent a few more hours in Evanston tracking down Adria’s friends, none of whom had any information that helped me. Or her. So I went back home to work from my computer.
Rachel was still in class. The office felt spooky without her working near me. I forced myself to start calling the people on Maureen Alcott’s list without looking over my shoulder at Rachel’s desk every two seconds. When I was finished with the names, I went onto the internet to look up news stories reporting on Adria’s disappearance.
The case had gotten decent coverage in the local media for about a week, then predictably faded away. Maureen was all over social media, though, posting photos of her daughter, offering a reward, and begging for help from anyone who might have seen Adria or knew anything. “Please help me find my daughter.” Have you seen my daughter?” “Please share any information you have about my daughter—REWARD!”
A few people responded. Someone had seen Adria in a brown Audi in Chicago. Someone else saw her at a truck stop in Texas. Another person pretended to be Adria.
One friend said he’d seen Adria in an Evanston park. Nothing seemed to come from that. An old boyfriend said online that she’d just gotten sick of living with her mother and ran away. That started a fight that got ugly, until the guy got blocked everywhere.
Maureen had been tenacious, but she must have been exhausted by the time her daughter finally came back.
I heard the door open. “Honey! I’m home!” Rachel stuck her face inside the office door. “What’s for dinner, sweetheart?”
It was my night to cook. “Pasta salad. How was school? Play with anybody at recess?”
“Those boys are so mean, they never share their baseball. And the teachers give too much homework.” She waved a hand. “Let me change.”
She came back to the office ten minutes later. I don’t know what she’d changed from, but now she was wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt from the college. “I’ve got two chapters to read and a test to study for, and I’ve still got to finish that stupid web page for that stupid client.” She paused for a quick kiss. “Anything new in the P.I. world, shamus?”
“Actually, if you’ve got a minute—” I stood up and lifted the box of Adria’s clothes. “Could you take a look at this? See if you get anything?”
Rachel sighed. “Sure. What am I looking for? Or don’t you want to tell me?”
Sometimes it’s better if she has no idea what to search for, but this time I told her about Adria. “Anything about where she was, or where this came from, or who she was with, or anything like that.”
She sat on the floor and went through the clothes one by one. She held up the panties. “I assume you examined this thoroughly?”
“Not in front of her mother.”
She picked up the gray T-shirt. “No bra?”
“She’s kind of, uh, slender, I guess.”
“Cute?” She cocked an eye at me. Rachel can get jealous too.
I shrugged. “Like a kid sister. Are you getting anything there?”
“Nothing.” Rachel stood up. “It might as well be brand new.”
“Maybe it is.” Whoever took Adria could have bought her new clothes before letting her go, if that’s what happened. “What’s your day like tomorrow? More classes?”
“Just one in the morning. Why? Oh.”
“Yeah.” I picked up the box and carried it back to my desk. “I don’t even know if there’s anything supernatural about this. But if you could, you know—”
“Do a Vulcan mind-meld on her? It doesn’t work like that.” She sank into her chair.
“I know.” I sat down too. “It’ll just take a few minutes. I can pick you up from class. We can get something to eat, or—”
“A chocolate milkshake at the malt shop with two straws? Will you carry my books?” She sighed. “Fine. I could use a break.”
“Thanks.”
“Now don’t bother me. I’ve got work to do.” She snatched her mouse and went to work.
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