Grabbing her keys from the desk, she led the way to the parking lot, noticing how unusually quiet Elliot had been since the crime scene, and wondering why exactly that was.
6Searching
He’d been driving through the rain for hours, aimlessly roaming on dark, almost barren streets. It was after midnight, and the wet asphalt shone in shades of streetlight orange and brake-light red, on occasions sparking with headlight bluish-white. He hadn’t stopped for a while, not since he’d gassed up north of San Francisco, his restlessness keeping him motivated to go on, mile after mile, delaying the inevitable.
Soon he’d have to go back to the empty, dark, unwelcoming house he’d been dreading returning to again. Without her, without his Mira, the house was just a cold and damp dwelling, not a home. Without her warm body wrapped around his like a vine, the bed couldn’t be slept in, condemning him to wander aimlessly looking for what he’d lost and never finding it.
He had to call it quits and head home.
Like he’d done the night before, at about three in the morning, exhausted, hungry, and cold, frustrated he’d failed again.
She wasn’t out there, not in that rain that promised to turn into snow before morning, layering a dangerously slick coat of black ice on wind-washed sections of the road.
No one was out there.
Just him, driving, still clinging to the idea that maybe, just as he turned the next corner, he’d see her.
Because the night before had been unbearable. The old house had creaked back to life as soon as he’d turned the power back on, and the heater had kicked in. In the cold darkness, he could still feel Mira’s presence, expecting her to fall into his arms any moment, while he wandered through the empty house calling her name, feeling for her in the dark with open arms, listening for her breath while holding his.
She wasn’t there.
Desolate, he’d turned on the lights, flooding the house with the harshness of reality. It was empty, a soulless carcass he’d held on to against all odds and all reason, the last, enduring memory he could preserve of her.
It was her shrine.
And he hated the house he’d preserved intact since the day she’d left it behind, dreading its emptiness, its silence, the absence of her more painful there than anywhere else. Unbearable, yet the last enduring memento of their searing love. Of the life she’d torn apart when she’d left.
He couldn’t go back, not again, not for another night of torture.
Resigned to what he needed to do, he turned the car around and headed back south, toward San Francisco, speeding the entire time, even though the rain had grown heavier as soon as he’d left the mountains.
By the time the Golden Gate started to gild the sky in the distance, the rain had turned into a light drizzle, almost indiscernible from the thick fog that engulfed the city. His wipers still ran, their rhythmic thump almost organic, the heartbeat of his car as it sped through the night.
A few blocks east from the highway, slowing down as he entered the heart of the city, he looked for her. Even at that late hour, San Francisco wasn’t asleep, not like Mount Chester was, its less-than-fortunate dwellers still huddled in small groups on the cold, humid streets, trying to survive yet another night without a roof over their heads.
He didn’t see her on any of the streets he’d driven thus far. He halted at a stoplight, the bright red coloring his pale hands, as they gripped the steering wheel, a weird shade of ghostly crimson. The light changed, and he turned left, his breath caught in his chest as he decided to turn back to the highway. Forcing the air out of his lungs, he waited a moment before inhaling deeply, feeling the burn of oxygen deep inside his chest. Then he screamed, rage rushing out of his lungs in a loud and loaded roar, rattling his windows as he sped through the almost-deserted streets, no one to hear him, no one to soothe his excruciating pain.
That’s when he saw her.
A mere shadow in the corner of his eye as he sped by, a pale and shivering figure hiding in the dark near the entrance of a five-story office building. Her long, blond hair escaped the black hoodie she wore pulled over her head almost to her eyes, her hands hid from the cold shoved deeply in the kangaroo pocket.
Mira?
He slammed the brakes so forcefully the tires screamed, and the car swerved as it came to a stop. Then he put it in reverse and drove back to where he’d seen her. Fog seeping through the lowered passenger window, he waited, endless minutes flying by while he looked at her, mesmerized, and she stared at him with fear building in her round eyes.
Hesitantly, she approached the car, after looking left and right a few times, as if afraid she’d be spotted talking with him. She stopped in front of the passenger door and bent forward a little, probably to see him better.
He smiled, but didn’t say a word.
She was shorter than Mira, and her eyes were brown, not blue. She wasn’t Mira… not even close. But she could help scatter the cold emptiness of that house, at least for a night or two.
She wasn’t a prostitute, not one of those skanks who trolled the Tenderloin neighborhood day and night, clad in trashy, stretchy outfits that hugged their curves and showcased their availability. No, this girl was different, a runaway maybe, someone hopefully no one would miss. She wore dirty, torn jeans and a pair of worn-out sneakers that had seen
