I had the buzz that came from digging up a strong lead, being back on the hunt, one step closer to getting the answer. People have asked me my whole life why the fuck I get mixed up in shit like this. The simple answer is that it distracts me from my own sorry train wreck. Getting up in other people’s business keeps me occupied and out of my own damn skull. So, no noble aspirations here. I’m no hero—far the fuck from it. Just good old-fashioned self-interest. I keep hoping I’ll run into some sorry son of a bitch one day more fucked up than me, or at least as badass, to boost my obviously flagging self-esteem and feed my passive-aggressive death wish. To date, no credible challengers.
It took a little over an hour of Tinker Bell in my skull to narrow the search once I hit the city. The ever-increasing ringing led me to a small cluster of waterside apartments and finally to the door of one on the third floor. These places were not as nice, nor as expensive and exclusive as where Caern had lived. The neighborhood and the dwellings made me figure its tenants were mostly townies, the locals who did all the real work around here, to keep the idle rich, well, idle.
No magic spells or locks on the door to apartment 3E. It opened easily enough with a simple working, and I was in. I snapped on the lights and saw, as well as felt, that this was a real home, a place someone had invested some of the energy of living into.
Clothes were scattered over several pieces of furniture. There was an abandoned ring of jeans with panties coiled inside them about three feet from the door, like someone had come home from a rough day and shucked off their clothes right there. Takeout food boxes and cartons littered the coffee table beside a plastic, transparent, rainbow-colored bong; a baggie with weed; and about a dozen empty, or half-empty, diet soda and beer cans. Wandering the small, four-room apartment, there were emotions—love, excitement, sadness, anger, desire, self-doubt—splashed about the air like someone had opened big cans of bright paint and spattered them about randomly.
There was an insistent yowl, and a little gray-and-white cat padded out from the debris. Her paws were much bigger than the rest of her. Her eyes were the color of a stormy sky. She looked at me, and I looked at her. The bell in my skull silenced. This was the cat that had been in Caern’s condo. I knelt down to pet her, and she bolted back to her hiding place. I had a way with women.
For a second, I had thought it was going to be this easy, that Caern had changed her name and had been living the normal life of a twentysomething within spitting distance of her old life, but checking through the piles of mail stacked up on the small table by the door dissuaded me of that premise. This girl, Dree Elias, had bills and was behind on several. She had a job and benefits statements from her employer, including several past-due notices on a loan against her 401(k). These kinds of things were chum to any serious hacker or investigator, the kind of bread crumbs that they could track from life A to life B. If Dree Elias had been Caern Ankou, I would never have been summoned by her dad.
A few pictures were framed about the place—most people her age had ditched the notion of paper photos for digital memories. Most of the pictures were family: Mom, Dad, and maybe Grandma. A few of a pretty girl about the right age for either Dree or Caern with brown hair and green eyes, snuggling the cat that had greeted me. One pic of the same girl with maybe a boyfriend on the white sand of one of the beaches.
I was figuring Dree as a friend of Caern’s, maybe, or maybe she had picked up Caern’s cat at a shelter, or she was just an acquaintance that took the cat in. Doubtful. This skittish little furball was loved. That love was the only connecting tissue between my lost princess and this girl. That didn’t feel like a coincidence. From the bathroom, I removed a clump of hair from a hairbrush and tucked it away in case I needed it.
From the mail and an ID badge with a lanyard hung on a key hook near the door, I was able to get the address of where Dree worked, at the local branch of Alpha Bank, one of the massive European banking corporations. I opened a tin of cat food and left it by the cat’s bowls. She was immediately out again and noisily letting me know she wanted the food. I gave her a quick rub, which she allowed, because she was already devouring the food from the can. I locked the door on my way out.
* * *
The Spetses island branch of Alpha Bank was a two-story building that blended well with the quaint cafes and shops it was nestled alongside in the cove of Ntapia Beach. I found a small place a few doors down and had some fresh seafood and several frosted mugs of beer at a table under an awning, looking out over the waters. I worked on a quick arts-and-crafts project with my linen napkin and Dree’s hair from her brush. When it was done, I pocketed it and finished my beer before strolling over to the bank.
I walked into the cool, shaded lobby and saw the girl from the photographs and the ID, Dree, with her long, brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was dressed in a cream blouse and dark blue pants. She had a lanyard about her neck,
