Finder Of Lost Objects 2o3h4p

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Copyright © 2014 by Susie Hara. All rights reserved.

Cover and book design by Plainfeather Printworks.

Front cover: Wayne Jiang, “Backdoor #1.” © 2013 www.waynejiang.com

ISBN 978-0-9835791-6-8 ISBN: 9781483523422 Library of Congress Control Number: 2014930216

Ithuriel’s Spear is a fiscally sponsored project of Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco.

www.ithuriel.com

CHAPTER 1

October, 2005.

ON A SUNNY SAN FRANCISCO MORNING after a string of foggy days, I sat on the red exercise ball in my office, wondering how I was going to pay the rent. When Grace Valdez walked in the door I stood up, and the ball rolled away from me on its slow trajectory along the sloping floor. “I saw your sign,” she said. “I want to talk to you about finding something I’ve lost.” I held out my hand. “My name is Sadie. Sadie García Miller.” We shook hands. Hers was cool and dry. “Grace.” She paused. “Valdez.” “Please have a seat.” She surveyed the rolling ball and my chairless office. I pulled out a folding chair and set it up for her. I retrieved the ball and sat back down behind my desk. Grace Valdez looked like she had blown across town from a more upscale neighborhood, the Marina or Pacific Heights. She looked about ten years younger than me, around thirty. Her jagged-cut hair was shot through with subtle blond highlights, and her tawny skin seemed to glow. She wore designer jeans and a nice pair of strappy heels. “What is it you’re looking for?” I asked. She picked at her thumbnail cuticle. “My brother.…” “Ms. Valdez.” I hesitated. I needed the money. “I’d like to help you, but I don’t find missing persons. I find lost objects. I can refer you to an excellent private investigator.”

“No—no.” Her voice was breathy, Marilyn-Monroe-like.“ I mean, my brother has what I’m looking for. The book. My brother has it.” “A book.” Maybe I said it too loudly. Ms. Valdez flinched. Pretty jumpy for a woman in search of a simple book. But then, nothing is as it seems in my line of work. People say they’re looking for an object, but they’re really looking for a whole lot more. A way to fill up the emptiness, a way to cover the gaping hole. I’m an expert on that. “Mind if I smoke?” I said. She smiled for the first time and, taking out a pack of Camel filters, offered me one. “Thanks.” I lit our cigarettes with the snap of my lighter. She drew on her cigarette. “This is nice. You don’t get to smoke indoors much anymore.” “I know.” I usually didn’t smoke in the office, actually, because most of my clients or would-be clients would run screaming from the smell of cigarette smoke. But this was clearly an exception. I reached into the desk drawer, brought out the ashtray, and put it between us. “This might seem obvious, but— have you asked your brother to give the book back?” “Of course. He says he doesn’t have it. But he does, I know he does. He stole it from me, the—” she stopped herself— “jerk.” “I see. What’s the value of the book?” “I don’t think it has much financial value.” “Sentimental value, then. You want that particular book, no other copy will do, is that right?” “That’s right,” she said, and her eyes darkened. “The book is inscribed to me from my mother. She used to read it to me when I was a child. Since she’s been gone, I have always treasured it.”

“Gone?” I said. “Do you mean—” “Heart attack. When I was twelve.” “I’m sorry.” I didn’t tell her we had something in common. I chased away the hollow feeling in my chest. “Ms. Valdez. I have a few questions, if you don’t mind.” I opened my notebook. “When was the last time you saw your brother?” “It’ll be two years ago this Christmas.” “Did you ask him then if he had the book?” “No—it went missing after that.” Her voice was edged with resentment. “And you ed him?” “Many times, but he never responded.” “Did something happen between you that caused him to break off communication?” Her eyes shifted to the right. I followed her gaze. Where she was looking there was nothing interesting, only an oak filing cabinet; no pictures on the walls, no bookcases, no potted plants. And I knew, just like my grandpa taught me, she had to be hiding something. “I don’t know,” she said. “Where does your brother live?” “He used to live in Fresno, in the house where we grew up. But when I call, I either get the machine, or one of our tías picks up—they live there too.” “Did you ask your tías?” “They won’t talk to me either.” “And why is that?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, waving away a puff of smoke. I wanted to tell her yes, it does matter. Sometimes the smallest detail leads to the missing object. Instead I let the silence hang between us, hoping it would draw her out. “My aunts thought,” she said, “Joey and I were having… an improper relationship. We weren’t. They never believed me. I became the scapegoat. Know what I mean?” “They blamed it on you and not your brother?” “Of course,” Grace said, with a bitter smile. “Yes, we always get blamed, don’t we? ” I shook my head. She nodded. There was a hardness in her eyes, and under it, a hint of hurt. We smoked in silence for a time. “What’s the name of the book?” “The Journey, by Renata Holland.” I made a note of it. “When was it published?” “I’m not sure exactly, but—I think in the sixties.” “What’s it about?” I drew a quick sketch of a book in the corner of my notebook. “A young girl who goes on a dangerous journey to rescue her father.” A shiver ran through me. A girl trying to save her father. “That sounds intriguing,” I said. “So it’s a—Young Adult book?” “Yes, that’s what they call it now.” “What does the cover look like?” I asked. Her gaze turned inward. “A pale green background. A red-haired girl perched in a tree, looking up at the sky, at a full moon and stars. And it has one of those gold medal things on the cover, a Millhouse Award.”

“And the inscription—what does it say?” “To my daughter, Graciela.” In the whisper of sadness that flickered on her face, I caught a glimpse of a little girl, always on her own, an outsider searching to belong. “It’s a special book, then. A keepsake,” I said. The light in her eyes shifted, and she looked at me directly. “That’s a good way of saying it. Yes, it’s my talis— ”Her face colored. “I have to get it back. I can’t stop thinking about it, like when you need a cigarette, except you can’t have one but you can’t stop thinking about it either.” I perked up. The nature of the client’s fixation always contains clues to the lost treasure. To find the object of desire, follow the obsession. “When you think about the book, where do you see it?” “I picture it… in my mother’s hands. As she read to us.” An image came into focus of a warm, maternal woman with a soft, curvy body, a coil of braided black hair pinned up with tortoiseshell combs, her reading glasses perched on her nose. Along with the picture came a feeling of sadness, washing over me and settling in my chest like a bad cold. “Thanks,” I said. “These questions help me find things.” “I understand. I’m psychic too. I’ve tried and tried, but I can’t visualize where the book is now.” I started to tell her I’m not psychic, I just use my senses and intuition to lead me to the lost item. But I left it alone. Better to let my actions speak for themselves. Pulling out my contract, I told her I’d be happy to take her case. She took out her reading glasses and read the contract word for word. She didn’t blink at the fee schedule or the upfront retainer. We signed the agreement and she wrote me out a check. I tucked it away, silently thanking the gods of commerce. Just in the nick of time to cover my rent. “I’ll need a photo of Joey,” I said. “Not digital—a print.”

“I’ll get that to you.” She stood and put the contract in her bag. “Ms. García Miller….” “Call me Sadie.” “Sadie. I’m wondering.” Her eyes burned. “Do you know St. Anthony?” I thought of saying that I was half-Catholic, half-Jewish, and these two halves did not make a whole. “I have to confess, I’m not Catholic,” I said, hoping she’d get the joke. “You don’t have to be Catholic. You’re familiar, though?” “Yes. Patron saint of lost objects.” “I’ve been praying to him for some time. When I saw the sign in your window today I knew it was meant to be.” “Maybe it was,” I said, gathering up the paperwork, even though I wasn’t sure if I agreed with “meant to be” as a concept. I felt more affinity to Insh’Allah, an Arabic phrase, literally “God willing,” but which in my rough translation meant that some things were simply out of our control. “By the way,” I said, “I’m from the Central Valley too. Bakersfield. Born and raised. Are you from Fresno originally or—.” “No,” she said, shoving her cigarettes into her bag, and she was gone, slamming the door behind her. The Tibetan bells hanging over the doorknob clanged violently, and in the wake of her departure the louvered blinds tapped on the glass.

CHAPTER 2

I finished my sentence to the empty room. Something about my question had pissed off Grace Valdez. But in my business, anger is a good thing. Like a big yellow traffic sign with a solid black arrow, it tells me—go this way. Pushing my hair out of my face and tucking it behind my ear, I felt something odd: no earrings. Wait a minute. I’d worn the opal ones today, for luck. I touched my earlobe on the other side, and sure enough, the earring was in place. No, no, no. Impossible. I searched every corner of my office, behind the oak filing cabinet and under my desk, and scoured the back room, around the sink and counters, telling myself it had to be there. But the truth was, I could have lost it anywhere: at home, on my way to the office. I sat down on the ball, trying to hold back the tears. I told myself the earring would turn up. I would find it, just the way I found things for everyone else. The first time I discovered my penchant for finding missing objects, I was eleven years old.

“Son of a bitch.” Dad was leafing through piles of paper—on his desk, on the kitchen counter, in the living room, swearing and sweating as he went. I put my hand on his shoulder. “What are you looking for, Dad?” “A document,” he said. “I can help you.” “Sadie, I’ve looked everywhere. If I don’t find it, I’m screwed. Royally screwed. I’ll lose my job.” This was weird—he’d never said anything like that before. “Dad. What do the papers look like? What colors? Tell me. I’ll find what you’re looking for.”

He shook his head, but then said, “OK. A bunch of papers. White. With black type and a big red stamp on each page that says ‘confidential.’Held together at the top with one of those two-hole binder clamps.” “Silver clip thing?” “Yes.” “OK, Dad. Let me look.” I started in the kitchen, making my way through every room of the house. I looked everywhere: no luck. I sat down on the couch and closed my eyes. I thought about Dad’s union, the United Farm Workers. I had just finished a paper on the Grape Strike and now I understood there was a whole other side of the UFW. I knew them as family friends—the other organizers and all the field workers who rumpled my hair and called me Sedita—but I’d never realized before that they had made history. When I thought about La Paz, the union headquarters, I got a fuzzy feeling in my chest. I was sore from shooting hoops the day before, and it seemed like my aching arms and shivery chest were all working together to give me a message. About the papers. I looked for a picture in my mind, but it was blank. Then the body feelings got so big they made me stand up and go outside and look at the moon, which was almost full. Right in front of me was the car. The car. The fuzzy feeling exploded. I checked the front and back seats, then went down on my knees and looked underneath the enger seat. Papers. I pulled them out. White, with a silver two-hole binder clip—. “Dad! Dad!” He ran out of the house, and we whooped and hollered and he lifted me high in the air and kissed me. “You found them in the car? Where? I looked all through it,” he said. “Under the enger seat.” “I swear I looked there.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Maybe it was hiding from you.”

“Sedita,” he said, his face lit by the moon. “You have the knack. Just like your mother.” His words settled into my heart. A knack. From my mother. Just as the memory of that day had unfurled and wrapped itself around me, it now folded itself back up again. I did what I always do when I want to forget all that. I opened my laptop and got to work. My online search for Grace’s brother turned up a zillion José Valdezes but only a few José Ruiz Valdezes, one of whom kept showing up as a cast member at community theaters in the Fresno area. A couple of feature articles in the San Joaquin Valley Spanish-language papers mentioned a “Joey” Valdez. I found The Journey and ordered a copy, then went back to looking for Joey Valdez. Traipsing through a labyrinth of websites, clicking and skimming, I went from one site to the next and the next and the next. Some time later, I heard the Tibetan bells and came out of my online trance long enough to look up from the screen. But it was only my cat Emma, batting the bells with her paw. There was something tugging at the back of my mind. What was it? Someone I was supposed to call? Daniela. I texted her, knowing my ten-year-old niece would never actually answer the phone. <What day is UR school play? I want to come. I’ll be there rooting for you.> I always had to fight off a nagging sense of worry about my niece, even when nothing was wrong. Lately, though, she was a regular drama queen. Maybe I had to get used to it— she was a preteen now. But it seemed like there was a layer of anger underneath her sass. Had something happened…? It was probably nothing, I told myself. She’ll be OK. She’ll be fine.

CHAPTER 3

I locked up my office and walked the six blocks to my truck. It was already eighty degrees, and when it’s October in San Francisco everyone celebrates the warm weather, riding their bicycles, putting on their cutoffs and tank tops, and— for some women (plus a few men)—donning their skimpiest dresses. I’d taken the opportunity to put on a red-and-yellow backless sundress, a vintage number in a crinkly 1950s rayon. Strolling down Valencia Street, I took in the lovely sight of skin—joyfully exposed in a collective festival of fleeting summer. A half hour later, I was on the road to Fresno. The drive to Fresno goes right through the heartland of California. The farms and agricultural corporations of the San Joaquin Valley are key to the state economy, even though the reality is that the top cash crop of California is marijuana, grown farther north, in beautiful Humboldt County. But for mainstream agriculture, this swath of land is essential not only to the state economy, but also to the exploitation and employment of thousands of migrant farm workers, generations of whom have settled in the San Joaquin Valley, aka the Central Valley, aka the Valley. As I drove south on Interstate 5, amidst the yellow-brown hills and neat rows of cotton, alfalfa, or nut trees, I had plenty of time to think. The landscape reminded me of growing up in the Valley. I ed all the times I’d driven with my dad, miles and miles of freeway and road, for his work, but once in awhile—for a special trip. The memory of my twelfth birthday came, unbidden. Dad was driving. He’d refused to answer any of my questions, but since I hadn’t had to get dressed up, I knew we weren’t going to a play or a restaurant. But for sure we were going to Los Angeles, I could tell by the route. I couldn’t believe it when we got there. “The Forum! Oh my gosh, we’re going to see the Lakers! You said we couldn’t go—you sneaky bootface.” Throwing my arms around him, I kissed him five times. He looked pretty proud of himself as he pulled the Volkswagen Bug into

the line of cars waiting to get into the parking lot. “OK, Punkamonk. I have to drive.” But he was grinning. At the start of the game, the sound of the shoes on the court—jeet, jeet, jeet. It smelled like floor varnish and hot dogs, and all the mixed smells of a gazillion people. The lights were so bright the floor looked like polished amber. “I don’t see him, Dad. You sure he’s here?” “Right there. In the corner by the—” “I see—I see him!” Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I’d read up about him and watched every game I could on tv, at least when I was allowed to. I hugged myself, and hugged my dad. We couldn’t see very well way in the back, but it didn’t matter. We were here. Watching the Lakers play the Blazers. I still couldn’t believe it. Lately, my Dad didn’t look so sad and tired all the time. I knew he still missed my mother, but now he seemed different—he joked around more, and he acted more Dad-like. I was pretty sure the Bad Time was over. I kept looking over at him—he’d never cared about basketball—just shot hoops with me once in awhile, and hardly ever watched a game on tv. But now he was following every play—his eyes darting back and forth—and when Kareem did his sky hoop and everyone jumped to their feet, Dad did too. He was yelling right along with me. After the game, we went to Baskin-Robbins, my favorite place to eat. “Mmm.” I took my first spoon of vanilla ice cream with a glob of hot fudge and whipped cream and savored the cool, creamy sweetness. “You win some, you lose some,” Dad said. “It’s OK, Dad, really. Winning doesn’t matter, as long as you play a good game. Right?” “Right, Punkamonk.” He took something out of his pocket and handed it to me. It was a small square

white box. I opened it. Inside, nestled on the cotton was a pair of earrings, with luminous, round stones. When they caught the light, they were blue, coral, and turquoise. “Wow. Thank you, Dad.” He’d never given me jewelry before. I wondered if this was Gloria’s idea, but I didn’t say anything. “Do you like them? They’re opals.” “Love them.” I took out the gold posts that Gloria had given me, placed them in the box, and put on the birthday earrings. “Beautiful girl,” he said. I hugged him. I knew I wasn’t beautiful, but it was still nice. “Dad. Tell me something.” “Anything.” “I didn’t think you liked basketball.” “I never said that.” “Yeah, but I just… know. So—do you like basketball now? Now that you’ve seen Kareem and all?” “It was a good game, and the best part is that I was there with you.” “But do you—like basketball? “Not as much as you do, Sedita.” He grinned and took a big bite of whipped cream, giving himself a perfect white mustache.

* * *

I exited at the town of Los Banos on 152 and took the turnoff to 99. It was warm

in the city but here it was broiling. It had to be almost 100 degrees. I felt the sweat rolling down between my breasts to my belly. My thoughts turned to what I’d found out so far on the Grace Valdez case. The obituary for the father, Rodrigo Valdez, said he was survived by his children: José Ruiz Valdez, Teresita Ruiz Valdez, and Graciela Valdez. Why wasn’t her name Ruiz Valdez, like the other siblings? The obit on Mr. Valdez also mentioned the earlier ing of his wife, the beloved Consuelo Ruiz Valdez. The Valdez neighborhood was a mix of solid-looking wood-frame houses from the early part of the twentieth century, along with stucco buildings that looked like they were built in the 1940s, and newer, ranch-style suburban houses. I parked my truck in front of the Valdez home, a white stucco house with a redtiled roof. A beautiful, ancient bougainvillea climbed up the side of the house, but the grass in the front yard was dried out, and the rosebushes lining the driveway looked neglected. I rang the doorbell. No answer. I tried the door. Locked. I looked in through the window, through a crack in the drapes, but it was dark. A teenage boy was riding by on a red bicycle. “Who are you looking for, Señora?” I didn’t like being called Señora — I’m not that old, but I did appreciate that he spoke to me in Spanish. So many people look at my curly blond hair and don’t get it that I’m Latina. “I’m looking for Joey Valdez, or whoever lives here now. I’m offering gardening and landscaping services.” I answered in Spanish and gestured to my truck. When I first bought the pickup, I’d planned to paint over the “Parker Landscaping and Gardening” sign on the side, but then decided not to when it turned out it came in handy for times like these. The boy switched to English. “Joey’s been gone for a long time. He lives in Mexico City now. His tías live here, but they’re at work. You sure you’re not looking for Joey for something else?” “Why would I be looking for him?” I smiled. “I just thought, you know, Hollywood.”

“Hollywood?” “You know—Joey’s a star—everyone used to watch him on Amor Perdido,” he said. “Well. I might be a reporter from Hollywood.” I said, grinning. “Or else I’m a gardener. Did you watch his show?” “It’s a telenovela, you know. I’m not into it. But mi mamá and mis tías, they’re all, ‘we love him.’Joey has a different name now. Like a professional name. It’s Ramon-something.” ”So he’s famous. Cool. I’d like to see that show. Do you know his whole name— Joey’s professional name?” The boy shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, but he’s probably got, like, a website.” I handed him my card, which read: Tanya Parker, Gardening and Landscaping Services. “Entonces—gracias por todo,” I said. “OK, de nada,” he said, riding away.

I drove to the old downtown area, looking for a place to eat. An image of Grace kept floating in my mind. Not so much a picture of her, more a feeling. Anger and sadness, all wrapped up in a package of what? Betrayal. That was it. The injustice of the betrayal was somehow embedded in the lost book. And now a picture did come into my mind: money. There was something to do with money in all this. But how could betrayal and money lead me to her book? And why was the book so important to her? Was it really because her mother gave it to her, or was there another layer? I scanned the streets for a family-owned-type place, not a chain with a California-cated version of Mexican food. I wanted some tamales, bad. I had grown up eating Mexican food. Tortillas, frijoles, tamales, chile rellenos, and enchiladas—these are my comfort foods, not macaroni and cheese. I found what I was looking for: Dolores’s Place, Taqueria and Restaurant. The sign said “Patio in Back.” I went straight through to the patio, an oasis of sorts. Magenta-

blossomed trees provided shade, and a fountain in the center made a soothing sound. I found a table and sat down with my notebook to think about the case. “Can I get you some coffee?” the waitress said, handing me a menu. I had to stop myself from gaping. She was the exact image of my babysitter Gloria Lopez, who came into my life when I was five years old, right after my mother died. She was only twenty back then, barely out of her teenage years, but to my eyes she was all grownup and wise, like a giant, glamorous goddess. From the beginning, she was never just a babysitter, she was always my Tía Gloria. The waitress, with big eyes, lots of cleavage, and an air that was warm and business-like at the same time, reminded me of the young Gloria. I smiled. “Yes, coffee, please.” I missed her. If I drove another couple of hours I’d be there. As usual, I wanted to see her and I didn’t. Familia, so complicated. But spending time with her always turned out to be a good thing. And, I reminded myself, Gloria’s so lonely these days, and it seems to make her so happy when I visit. My thoughts circled back to the case. So Joey was a soap opera star in a telenovela. I hadn’t found that in my Internet search, but now it turned out Joey had a professional name. Odd that Grace didn’t know about it—but she seemed cut off from this world, of tías hooked on novelas, and a town where everyone knows your business. Grace had left Fresno behind, along with the legacy of farm worker parents who worked their butts off so their kids could get out of the fields. Even though she obviously had a good job or some kind of real money coming in, she hadn’t lost her working-class edge. I liked that about her. I ate my tamales, which were OK, as long as I didn’t compare them to Gloria’s, which were incredible—moist, delicately flavored. Not dry like these. Every Christmas I used to help her make dozens of tamales, and then we’d have a big party and they’d be gone in no time. I drank my coffee and looked over my notes on the Grace Case so far. NEXT STEP? I wrote in my notebook. I made a quick sketch of a clock. I could wait a couple of hours until Grace’s tías got off work. Or: I had another alternative. With a few quick lines, I drew a house. I could go back to the Valdez house and look for the book in my own fashion.

I parked a couple of blocks away. There were no cars in the driveway or in front

of the house. It was quiet—everyone was at work or school. I took out Grandpa’s lock-picking kit, put it in my bag, and slipped on my gloves. Strolling over to the Valdez house, I did a quick scan of the neighborhood. At the back of the house I stood still for a moment, and listened with every cell in my body. Just because the young man on the bicycle had said they were at work, and just because there was no car in the driveway, that didn’t mean no one was home. But I didn’t hear anything, not a tv, no water running, nothing. I scanned the surrounding houses—no nosy neighbors peeking. I tried the windows—no go. I figured the back door was locked too, but my private-investigator friend Boyko always says: “Try the obvious thing first.” I put my hand on the knob—it opened. The house was quiet. I found myself in a laundry room alcove, with a washerdryer and a perfectly ordered row of supplies: laundry soap, bleach, stain remover, and those wispy sheet things that people put in their dryers. I stepped quietly into the kitchen. It was spotless. Someone was a compulsive cleaner in this household. I tiptoed into the living room. So far so good. A tv and a worn rust-colored couch and armchairs, circa 1970. Then a sound came from the back of the house. Shit. My heart hammered in my chest. They were the softest of footsteps, like someone trying not to be heard. I started to hightail it out of there but stopped. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a movement close to the ground. A white cat stepped lightly into the room, claiming it as her own, with a blue-eyed glare. She rubbed up against my leg. I sighed with relief but my heart was still pounding. I stood for a moment, poised for flight. Then, shaking my head, I braced myself, and pushed onward. The hall off the living room led to a bedroom. Twin beds, each meticulously made and covered with a chenille bedspread, and another tv. On one of the bedside tables was a magazine, and from its cover a beautiful woman in a lowcut dress gazed at me with wistful abandon. I looked at the magazine more closely: TV Y Novelas. Everything you always wanted to know about novelas but were afraid to ask. I wanted to take it with me but that would be wrong. I made a mental note to pick up a copy of the magazine when I got home. Down the hall I found another bedroom. Bingo. It was like a museum to

adolescent boyhood. Football trophies, posters of local theater productions, and action figures. There was a tv (the third, and counting), but no computer and— most important—no books. Was that possible? I opened the closet—some men’s shirts and pants, a couple of sports coats, but nothing else. I looked around the room—surely Joey had read something when he was growing up? I went through the dresser. No printed material of any kind. The hum of a car interrupted my search. Fuck! Was it in the driveway or on the street? I dropped to a crouch and scuttled to the kitchen. I rose my head slightly to get a look out the window, and then ducked. A blue Ford Escort was in the driveway. I was looking for a hiding place when I heard the terrifying clicking of heels on pavement. The skin on my neck prickled and I was sweating like crazy. But the next sound, thank God, came from the front porch—keys jangling, the turn of a lock. I made for the back door and slipped out quickly, then tore across the backyard. I crouched behind a bush while I got my bearings. I could try to scale the fence right away, or just wait there until it got dark and then creep out along the driveway. From my vantage point, I saw movement through the back window. The sound of a tv blared. Good. I edged my way over to the fence. “Hey! Qué hace? What are you doing?” A short, round woman yelled at me from the back doorway. “I’m calling the police.”

CHAPTER 4

I tore to the fence, got a toehold, climbed over, and jumped down. I ran like hell down the alley and then forced myself to walk slowly and casually down the neighborhood streets, back to my truck. In my whole career I had never experienced being interrupted while I was in the midst of doing the right thing. And even though the yelling woman did make me feel a moment’s guilt, I knew that ultimately, as long as I was doing the humane, the ethical, and the righteous thing—in my own version of morality culled from by my father’s, grandfather’s, and Gloria’s practical moral code—I was not breaking any damn law. This was my litmus test. The book truly belonged to Grace, so if I had to break and enter (although I hadn’t really “broken” anything) to find Grace’s rightful object, I was doing the right thing.

I practiced some deep breathing and kept to the speed limit as I got out of town. I didn’t hear any sirens, but that was no surprise—Grace’s tía knew, surely, that if you’re not white, the last thing in the world you want is the police. The prickly sensation on my neck and upper chest got more intense. Oh great, just what I needed. The doctors call it dermatitis—I call it a pain in the neck. I tilted the rearview mirror to take a look. My throat was streaked with red and covered with tiny bumps. Damn. I lit a cigarette and took a grateful inhale. Gradually, my heart stopped hammering. The comforting ritual of smoke-in, smoke-out, steadied me. One of the pleasures of living solo was smoking wherever I wanted—even in the car. Lou Ann had always got on my case about smoking. I sighed. Our ionate, soulful bond had lasted six years, including a few separations and reconciliations. I need more space, I kept telling her. I used to think she dumped me, but over time I’d realized it was probably mutual. I couldn’t bring myself to break it off so she’d done it for the both of us. I need you around more, she used to say. But with all the same-sex weddings in the news, I ed how good it had been with us at the beginning. And I couldn’t help thinking, if we’d just worked on our relationship a little bit more, maybe we’d be one of those just-

married couples smiling out of a photograph. My hands were sweaty on the wheel. When I came to the turnoff, I instinctively turned south, to Keene, and Gloria’s. She was usually home in the afternoons. On either side of the highway, workers bent over the rows of crops; they looked tiny in the distance. How many people driving by noticed these were real people working in the fields in the hot sun? From here I could only see the colors of their clothing, no real features. How is it that a whole country of immigrants cannot make the connection between their great-great-however-manygenerations-back-immigrant-grandparents and the people standing right in front of them every day—cleaning their buildings, taking care of their children, or harvesting their produce? When I was little, I used to go with my dad to meetings or to visit the workers in their homes. Everyone would joke about how I was his “assistant,” and would pat me on the head. And when he worked at home at the kitchen table, I insisted on helping with mailings, stuffing envelopes, and licking stamps. By the time I was twelve, it wasn’t a joke anymore. I helped with canvassing, went on picket lines, and sat in on meetings. And at fourteen, I was even typing letters. Everyone assumed I would go into the “family business”—that I would become an organizer. But that was before everything changed. The day it happened, I’d come home from my after-school babysitting job. I was in a good mood because I had just gotten paid and I felt all grownup and accomplished. People were all sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me. Our neighbor Sonia, her eyes bloodshot. Dad’s friend from work, Ed, who was pale and drawn. And Gloria—crying. I looked around the room and my insides froze up. Gloria put her hands on my shoulders. “M’ija.” Her voice cracked. She pulled herself up and looked me deep in the eyes. “M’ija, your dad is—gone.” That was the most she could get out in English and then she put her arms around me and started talking in a stream of Spanish. I sputtered, “What? What?” It was like a movie, a familiar story—had I seen it before? I was in the theater, looking at the screen, but I was in the movie, too. I was an actor on the screen. A wave was rising in me, a wave of anger. Ed came over and hugged me and said, “Your father was in an—accident.” He and Gloria exchanged a look. “He—they rushed him to the hospital but—I’m sorry.”

“What happened?” The adults all looked at each other, and didn’t answer. “What do you mean, M’ija?” “What kind of accident?” “A car accident,” Ed said. A great silence came over me. This was a bad dream, seeping in like a sheet of ice from my chest and moving upward to my throat and down to my stomach, where it buried me in an avalanche of silence. “Sweet Sadie,” Ed said, but I pushed him away, hard, and ran up the stairs to my room, slamming the door. I kicked the door over and over until it started to splinter. I heard someone in the hallway. “M’ija,” Gloria said, “Can I come in?” I didn’t say anything. Gloria opened the door a crack. “Don’t kick me,” she said in Spanish and tried to smile. Her eyes were so puffy and her nose so red and the idea of my kicking her so funny that I laughed. She laughed too, still crying, and came in and put her arms around me, and something broke in my chest and the tears finally came.

Rolling up the memory like a carpet, I stowed it away. I pulled up in front of Gloria’s duplex and sat in my truck. Maybe I shouldn’t have driven down to Keene after all. Whenever I visited Gloria, it brought back these memories. Should I have called first? I hadn’t seen her since last Christmas. I tilted the rearview mirror to see if my rash had gone down. Christ, it was still there. She opened the front door as I was heading up the steps to her porch. “M’ija! I didn’t know.” Her face transformed in an instant from a tired middle-aged woman to a delighted child. We hugged, and both of us teared up. “If I knew, I would have made chiles rellenos for you,” she said. And like that, the memory of her delicious golden rellenos was right there, in my mouth. “You don’t have to make anything for me, Tía. I was in the area on a job, and I thought I’d come down.”

“You’re always welcome, M’ija.” She looked at me closely and her face creased over with worry, “Ay, your neck is all red, todo estás bien?” In the living room, the couch was covered with a brightly colored crocheted blanket, Gloria’s handiwork. The coffee table was clean and the magazines stacked. Everything neat as a pin, as always. The television blared. “I know you hate the tv, but I’m watching my favorite novela, just a couple more minutes and I’ll turn it off.” I whipped my head around to look. A man and woman in turn-of-the-century costume gazed at each other with smoldering desire across a lavish room. Gloria laughed. “I thought you didn’t like tv.” “I don’t usually, but I want to see this. What’s this novela called?” “Amor Real,” she said. “It’s a rerun, pero it’s good.” We stared at the screen as the scene changed and the man and woman kissed, by the light of the moon, out behind the hacienda, while the music came to a climax. Unbeknownst to the secret lovers, a menacing figure lurked in the shadows. The camera showed us his face, tortured and vindictive. A commercial followed. “Come on, I’ll make some lemonade for you, Sedicita.” “Thanks.” I followed her into the kitchen. “You watch a lot of novelas, don’t you?” “Of course. Everyone does. Except you, M’ija. Why are you interested all of a sudden?” “Have you ever heard of a novela actor named Joey Valdez, or José Ruiz Valdez, or Ramon something—that’s his professional name.” “No. Why, is he your new boyfriend?” She smiled and got out the glass pitcher. Like so many of Gloria’s things, I found the pitcher comforting. It reminded me of all the times she had made lemonade for me, always on a hot day, and we would sit and talk, drinking from ice-cold glasses.

“No, it’s something related to a job I’m doing.” I paced around her small kitchen, restless from the long drive. She squeezed frozen lemonade from a can. “I never heard of him, pero I don’t keep up with all the actors and actresses.” The lemonade fell into the pitcher with a plop. “So anyway… do you have a new boyfriend?” I just looked at her. “Or girlfriend?” she added. “You know I always liked Lou Ann. She was so nice. I just want you to be happy. With a familia. I pray for you.” Adding water to the lemonade, she stirred it with a long wooden spoon, until it dissolved. “Your father was such a good man,” she said. “If he hadn’t got me started with that part-time job as a secretary at the union, I don’t know where I’d be now. It wasn’t like it is now, having a child on your own. Back then, people looked down on you, like you were—you know, a—whore.” She whispered the last word. As if saying it louder might give it the same power it had had, all those years ago, to hurt. “He gave me a whole new life when he got me that job.” I didn’t say anything. Instead I stared out the window, even though there was nothing to see out there. Why did she always bring him up? You’d think I’d have healed or whatever the self-help books call it: the courage to grieve, the courage to survive, the courage to mend. But courage is crap. Some things you never get over. Gloria picked up the tray with the lemonade and I tried to take it from her but she wouldn’t let go. After a brief tug-of-war I gave up. In the living room, she turned down the sound on the tv. “So how are you, Tía?” I needed a cigarette, bad. “You know, the usual. The arthritis, it’s the same. I still have the job, gracias Dios. Yolanda comes up to see me every few weeks. I can’t complain. I’m fine.” Gloria filled me in on her daughter Yolanda, and, as usual, puffed up with pride when she talked about her. We sipped the tart, sweet lemonade. It was heavenly.

“Are you spending the night?” she said. “I wish I could. But I have to go back tonight.” “You’re going to drive back late at night, Sedicita?” She shook her head. “Yes.” I felt guilty, as always, for not staying longer. “You will stay for dinner, then.” It was a statement, not a question. There was no arguing with her on this point. “I’d love to, Tía. If it’s not too much trouble. I’d be crazy not to stay for dinner.” Her eyes got all soft and she kissed me on the cheek. After she went into the kitchen I heard the familiar sounds of her preparing to cook up a storm, so I followed her. “Relax, you don’t have to cook yet,” I said. “I’m just getting a few things ready. You rest. Why don’t you take a nap?” “I don’t think I could fall asleep right now. I’m all wound up. I’m going to go outside for a minute.” “Híjole! When are you going to quit smoking?” She frowned. “Why don’t you just lie down on the couch and rest instead of smoking?” “But,” I said. “No ‘buts.’ Go lie down.” We went into the living room and she turned off the tv. “And anyway you work too hard ,M’ija, and you have those rings under your eyes.” She pointed at the couch. I sat down, but as soon as she left the room I went outside for a smoke. I stood on her porch, leaning against the pillar. Being here, in Keene, always made the memories slide up to meet me in the present. The morning of my first day back to school after he died, Gloria was waiting for me in the VW. I got in and slammed the door. The Dad smell hit me so hard I almost bolted—cigarettes and red licorice. I started crying but didn’t want Gloria to see, so I just turned and stared out the side window, letting the tears roll down without a sound. “Sedita?” Her voice was anxious.

I didn’t turn around. “Let’s just go to school,” I snapped. “I don’t want to talk about it.” The night before, Gloria and Grandpa were talking in the kitchen and thought I couldn’t hear them. “It’s time she went back to school,” Grandpa said. “It’s only been a week. Give her a few more days,” Gloria said. “The girl needs a routine, she needs to get back to her friends, and to finish out the school year. Then we can talk about moving her to Brooklyn to live with me,” he said. My heart sank. Brooklyn. Dad and I had visited Grandpa, and I didn’t want to live there—it was cold, and all the buildings were made of dark rust-colored bricks. In silence, Gloria drove me to school. My mind was a giant, arctic space. What did people mean when they talked about their heart being broken? I couldn’t feel my heart, anywhere. Gloria pulled up to the school entrance. “I love you, M’ija,” she said. “I will always love you.” I got out of the car without a word. It was a twenty-year-old memory, but I still ed the smells, and the broken sound of her voice. I finished my cigarette and came back inside. Flipping through Gloria’s coffee-table magazines, I spotted a copy of TV Y Novelas. I stretched out on the couch with the magazine, hoping to get more insight into Joey Valdez’s world. The next thing I knew, I woke up to the sound of Gloria’s voice, calling me to dinner.

It was still light but fading fast when I started home. The satisfying comfort of Gloria’s chiles rellenos nestled in my stomach, and the rounded sweetness of her outrageous flan was still on my tongue. I had the warm feeling I always came away with after visiting Gloria. And as usual, I carried more tangible warm

things too. On the seat beside me were various containers full of leftover rellenos, arroz y frijoles, and even some flan. This was why, even though I didn’t cook, I had a substantial Tupperware collection in my kitchen cabinet. I was smoking a delicious cigarette and driving up 99 when my cell phone went off. “It’s Grace,” she said, in her breathy voice. “How’s it going?” I gave her an update, leaving out the part about my tour of the Fresno house. Silence. “Are you still there?” I said. “Yeah, I’m here,” she said, a slight edge to her voice. “A novela star. I didn’t know anything about that. Where does he live now?” “Mexico City.” “Dios mio,” she said. “Yeah, I know. Listen—I’m going to need that photo of Joey.” Her voice became more business-like. “No problem. I’ll drop it by tomorrow morning.” We arranged a time to meet and I disconnected. The dark, empty road of the Central Valley stretched out before me for miles and miles.

CHAPTER 5

Grace

Grace told her assistant Heath she’d be back in an hour. She stepped into the elevator and felt around in her purse for her Camels. Most people in the office looked down on her for smoking but she didn’t care. Her boss was a smoker too, and all those smoke breaks with him, at the dot-com and now at MarkStrat, had turned out to be good for her career. It was a plus that they both smoked Camel Filters—brand bonding. And in a way, over the long run it’d helped get her the promotion to Brand Manager. As soon as she left the building she lit up. Driving over to the Mission she sang a short tune she’d made up that morning: Gracias, San Antonio, San Antonio, San Antonio. Then she recited the prayers she’d learned from her friend in the fourth grade:

Dear St. Anthony, I pray Bring it back, without delay

Something’s lost and can’t be found Please, St. Anthony, look around

They always got in trouble with the nuns for chanting the rhymes. The sisters said you shouldn’t say those kinds of things to St. Anthony, or any saint, it was vulgar, you should recite the novena instead. She had been chanting the rhyming prayers anyway, all these years, and they really worked. They led her to her car when it was stolen, helped her find her wallet, and after she lost her job, helped

her find a new one. But the prayers had never brought back her book, had never led her to the one precious gift from her mamá. She had always managed to hang onto it before, but now Joey had finally got his hands on it. She thought back to those times, when she and Joey used to sit on either side of Mamá on the sagging rust-colored couch, the feel of the imitation suede soft and smooth against their limbs, leaning in as closely as possible without actually falling into her lap, listening to every word.

Mamá finished the chapter and closed the book. “One more chapter, please?” Grace begged. “No, mi vida, it’s time to go to bed.” She kissed them both good night. Joey grabbed the book and ran down the hall. Grace ran to catch up and snatched it from his hands. “It’s mine and you know it.” She tore ahead of him to her room and stashed the book in its hiding place. Joey came storming in. “Where is it? Where do you always hide it?” He looked under the bed, in the closet, in her dresser. He stood there, shaking his head, searching for something to say. Then he got a glint in his eye that made her heart sink. “At least she’s my real mother.” He watched to make sure he had hit his mark, then made his exit. Grace sank down on the narrow bed. Teresita came in, blowing on her freshly painted nails. “What was that all about?” “Nothing.” Her sister shrugged her shoulders and left. Teresita’s side of the room was a heap of clothes, makeup, and schoolwork, but Grace always kept her side neat. She looked up at her altar to La Virgen de Guadalupe and ed the thing she had learned yesterday. The knowledge,

like a glistening bit of gold, shimmered for a moment and settled in her mind. Last night, when Mamá read to them, Grace had heard the word for the first time. At school today she looked it up in the dictionary while everyone was at recess. It was the perfect word. She said to herself: I have the book. It’s mine. It is my talisman.

Grace came back to the present, clearing her mind with a deep breath. She parked across the street from Sadie’s office. A bunch of people were standing around on the sidewalk, all dressed up in their Walmart clothes, looking sad but kidding around. Of course, she thought, it’s a mortuary. The whole thing reminded her of Mamá’s funeral, how everyone stood around just like that, joking and telling stories, Joey and Teresita and the rest of them. Pinché assholes. She crossed the street and once again examined Sadie’s sign, which had first drawn her in.

Recovery of Lost Objects Sadie García Miller, Finder

She opened the door to the office and the sound of the bells gave her a feeling of peace. Sadie stood up and, as the Pilates ball started to roll away, put her hand out to steady it. She was cute in her own way, Grace thought, with her kinky blond hair, brown eyes, UNCENSORED tank top, and black lace petticoat. And those arms… Dios mio. She must work out. Where would you get an outfit like that? She glanced down to check out the shoes. Scuffed work boots. Doc Martens. And then she realized what Sadie’s brand was. Of course—thrift-shop chic. “Hola, que tal?” Sadie said. Grace stopped short. “Hablas Español?”

“I was bilingual when I was kid—I’ve lost some of it. My mother was from Mexico.” Grace thought for a moment. Was it too personal a question? “Did she away? Your mother?” “Yes, when I was five years old.” “I’m sorry.” “Thank you,” Sadie said. “But I have to say I was so young—I don’t exactly her. I don’t… miss her. I know that might seem strange.” “It doesn’t seem strange,” Grace said. “I guess we have something in common,” Sadie said, a whisper of sadness in her eyes. Grace took out the snapshot of Joey. There he was, with his lazy smile and those long eyelashes, wearing tight Levis and leaning against his old falling-apart Mustang convertible that he’d refused to give up. She’d taken the picture on Christmas Day, almost three years ago. She set it down on the desk. Sadie looked at the photo quietly. “Nice-looking guy. How tall is he?” “A little taller than me, I guess.” “So he’s about five-seven? “I think so.” Taking the photo and putting it in an envelope, Sadie said, “All right. Thanks.” Grace had a funny feeling, somewhere around her third chakra, at her solar plexus. Sadie wasn’t telling her something. “Did you leave a note for my aunts when you went to the house?” “They weren’t home.” “What else did you find out?”

“Just what I’ve told you.” Grace was annoyed. Something wasn’t right. But then a shift occurred in the vibration in her third chakra, a stabilizing hum. It meant everything was as it should be. She said a silent prayer to St. Anthony, took a deep breath, and exhaled. “I have a couple of questions for you,” Sadie said. “Why do you think Joey stole the book?” “I don’t know but I can guess.” “What’s your guess?” “He wanted to get back at me. He knew how much I treasured it.” “You said the book had no financial value. Are you sure about that? I did some research, and it turns out a first edition of The Journey is quite valuable.” “It is?” Grace pulled out her cigarettes, then put them back. “But that’s not why he took it.” “So—is it a first edition?” She’s certainly persistent, Grace thought. “I’ve never thought about it. It might be. It’s old, like from the sixties. But I don’t think that’s what this is all about.” She checked her watch and stood up. “I have to get back to work.” “OK. I’ll follow up on some leads and get back to you,” Sadie said. At the door, Grace turned around. Sadie’s hair looked golden in a shaft of light coming in the window. Claro que si, this was a girl who could throw together a few things from a thrift shop and still look like a rock star. Grace smiled. “I like your outfit.” She closed the door behind her, and the bells chimed softly. As she crossed the street she heard them resonating in her mind, like a call to prayer in some distant country.

CHAPTER 6

She likes my outfit? Was Grace being sarcastic or what? I wasn’t making much progress with this case. What was I missing? I kicked the ball around the room, drank some more coffee, and went outside for a cigarette. When I came back, my cat Emma blinked at me from her patch of sun, then closed her eyes and went back to sleep. I sat down on the ball. Thank god I didn’t have to be stuck in a chair all day. For one miserable week when I was in my twenties, I’d been an istrative assistant, and then, over the years, a bike messenger, stagehand, dry cleaning clerk, and process server. When I had the great good luck to get this small storefront in San Francisco’s Mission District, I knew it was time to turn my Finding sideline into an actual business. The Mission, La Mision, is my beloved turf. I’m on Valencia Street, not in the trendy, over-gentrified part, but farther out, near Cesar Chavez Street, on the salt-of-the-earth end, where instead of restaurants and boutiques, you find corner bars, thrift shops, and a mortuary. People ask me how I can make a living doing what I do. I have a rent-controlled apartment, I say, and I got a sweet deal on the lease for my storefront because the rents dropped after the recession. Which is all true. But what I don’t say is that every time I think I can’t make it with this Finding thing anymore, a job always comes along, just in time for me to pay my rent. Go figure. My last Recovery involved restoring a wedding ring to its rightful owner. ed down from my client’s Egyptian great-grandmother through four generations of women, the ring had wrongfully come into the possession of her ex-husband, a software entrepreneur who had hit it big with his dot-com. After the software bubble burst, his business tanked and he retreated to his McMansion in Woodside, a Silicon Valley enclave for the wounded rich, where he spent his days dreaming up unrealized business schemes and watching porn films with “guests.” My Grandpa Saul, a tailor by trade, had taught me that stealing was wrong, but when you took back what was rightfully yours, it was not a crime. It was justice.

Grandpa had learned how to pick a lock from his father, a Jewish gangster, Jake “Hands” Miller. And even though Grandpa decided not to go into the family business, he had ed these handy bits of knowledge on to me, along with his lock picks. Using my surveillance skills, Grandpa’s tutelage, and a friend who agreed to be a decoy “guest” to distract the ex-husband, I was able to liberate my client’s ring from her ex-husband and return it to its owner. Although the exhusband reported the ring as stolen, the police had better things to do than pursue the alleged theft. My client, thrilled at getting her ring back, insisted on giving me a hefty bonus on top of my regular Finding fee, and I’d been living on that big chunk of change for a couple of months. It was almost gone. Bouncing on the ball, thinking over Grace’s case, it came to me. I knew what I had to do. Sometimes you can’t do everything on your own. Sometimes you need a little help. I called his cell, and he actually answered. “Boyko. Where are you?” “I’m at home.” “I need to talk to you. In person.” “OK, meet me at the office. I was just leaving.” “Leaving leaving, or just figuratively leaving?” “Sadie, sometimes I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I’m leaving now, OK?” “See you soon.” He was notoriously late, so I still had some time to kill. I was going through my e-mail when I heard the bells. I looked up to see the FedEx goddess in the doorway. She was as butch as the day is long, with short brown hair, high cheekbones, and muscular arms. “Oh hi,” I said. “I haven’t seen you for a while.” Brilliant choice of words, Sadie. “Package for Sadie García Miller, is that you, Luv?” With an English accent to die for. “Yes, that’s me,” I chirped, and signed for the package.

“Thanks.” She was out the door before I could even attempt to flirt. Not that I should be flirting. With anyone. I didn’t seem to be any good at relationships, and I had pledged to take a break from all romantic or sexual liaisons. Cousin Catherine thought there was no point to that. “You just have to be persistent. Treat it like a job search,” she’d said. But I insisted that being celibate for a while was the way to go, and asked her to be my witness. I thought it would be good to get some clarity on what I really wanted. And what did I really want? It was unclear. I opened the package, and there it was. The Book. I felt a momentary thrill. Even though it wasn’t my client’s special copy, it was one stepping-stone closer. The cover, unlike Grace’s, showed a girl in a green dress, an auburn braid down her back, walking a tightrope in the starry night sky. The title, The Journey, was emblazoned in gold and matched the metallic sheen of the Millhouse medal stamped on the cover. I opened the book at random.

Madame Possible turned to the children. “I give each of you a talisman for your journey, for whenever you need help. But only use it if you are in danger.”

I felt a shiver of recognition: a talisman, custom-made for each person. It reminded me of another search, and another kind of touchstone, so many years ago.

I’d been living in Brooklyn with my grandpa for almost a year. I was lying on my bed reading an Agatha Christie mystery, my homework spread out around me. The phone rang and I went to the kitchen to answer it. Before I could even speak into the receiver a voice said, “Hello, Saul?” Heavy Bronx accent—a guy in his fifties, maybe. “He’s not here right now,” I said. Silence. “You must be Josh’s kid. Sadie. Am I right?” “Who’s this?”

“Your Cousin Albert. Al.” “I didn’t know I had a Cousin Al.” I knew we had some cousins somewhere in New York, but no one ever talked about them. “Yeah, well. Your grandpa and me—we’ve been… estranged. I’ve been trying for months to get him to talk to me. Maybe you’ll talk to me.” “I don’t know. I have to do my homework.” “I’m sorry about your father.” “Thanks. May I take a message?” There was something a little creepy about my cousin. “Sadie. Maybe you can help me.” “I don’t think so—you’ll have to talk to my grandfather. I can take a message.” “Listen—tell Sauly I need that thing.” “Could you be more specific?” “He’ll know what I mean.” I laughed. “OK. Does he have your number?” “Oh yeah. He has my number. Listen, Dolly, you be good now.” Dolly? After I hung up I tried to get back to my homework, but I fell asleep. When I woke up, I roamed the apartment, trying to clear my head. I felt funny. It started in my solar plexus and then spread out and around—a sparky kind of feeling. That feeling—it was the same as when I found my dad’s missing papers. Why was I getting it now? I made a cup of Swee-Touch-Nee tea—tea of the Jews. I had learned a lot about my Jewish roots from living with Grandpa all this time. But he’d never mentioned Cousin Al. The fuzzy sensation persisted as I drank my tea. For a moment I closed my eyes and a picture came into in my mind: a smooth, blue stone. It seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

I went into Grandpa’s room and opened the drawer next to his bed. Nothing. I started going through his desk, which had a series of cubbyholes. Each one had papers in them, except for one, which had only a paperclip. I felt the whisper of a headache, and picked up the clip. Something told me to hold it in my hand for a moment. I felt my arm reaching out and my knuckles pushing against the backing of the empty cubbyhole. In the space below, there was something papery and cool. I pulled it out. It was a letter, still in its envelope, addressed to my grandpa, in my dad’s handwriting. The hint of a headache became a pounding in my temples. Inside the envelope was a letter, and also a blue stone. Of course: Dad’s touchstone. He used to pull it out of his pocket and play with it; he called it his “worry beads.” What led me to find this? And why? I felt a chill. And then I heard Al’s raspy voice. “I need that thing.” I fingered the stone. Was this the “thing”? Why did Cousin Al need it? I unfolded the letter. Typed, on the crinkly onion skin paper Dad always liked to use. At the top it said, “In case of my death.” I recognized Dad’s typewriter, which was now mine. The “e” key always stuck, giving those letters a faded appearance. I read a couple of lines until I got to the words that sent a tremor through my whole body.

I’ve received a few more threatening letters and phone calls. I don’t think the goons will actually carry through, but if they do, I want to confirm my wishes for Sadie in case of my death.

I was shaking inside, and then it spread to my shoulders and spine as I read further. I had always had a feeling the adults were lying to me about his death. I had asked Gloria and Grandpa over and over, but each of them just shook their heads and said “car accident.”

I’m not backing off on the Strike. We’re continuing in spite of the threats. Thank god they haven’t threatened Sadie or I’d have to resign. If they go ahead with it they’ll probably set it up to look like an accident. Don’t the police to investigate, though—they won’t take it seriously. And

another thing: if this does happen—my guess is the Teamsters are involved.

The Teamsters. Was that who had threatened him? I how Dad’s face would cloud when he talked about them. “Still plenty of good guys in the ranks. But these jerks? A bunch of thugs.” I read further, skimming until I found what I was looking for:

If I die under mysterious circumstances, Murray Stein, a UFW lawyer and friend, and he’ll use the private investigator he works with. If you don’t get results with them, and you have to involve the New York cousins, so be it. But please—only the cousins as a last resort. I’ve enclosed a letter for Sadie—please give it to her on her eighteenth birthday. Among other things, I ask her to promise not to look into this. But we both know —when she wants to find something, she’s like a dog with a bone. Make her promise. We have to protect her, above all.

CHAPTER 7

Walking through the door of the Chat I felt, as usual, that I was going back in time. The booths, with their fake red leather banquettes cracking with age, the long counter, and the black-and-white linoleum tiled floor were straight out of the 1950s. Only the tattooed waitress, in her short skirt and fishnet stockings, seemed up-to-date. The diner, which had been named the Chat ‘n Chew back when chat meant talking face-to-face, was Boyko’s “office.” Although he had a cramped workspace South of Market, he rarely used it. Boyko Grubo sat in his regular booth by the window, eating a grilled cheese sandwich and French fries, and drinking a chocolate milkshake. He was 5’ 8” and built like a barrel. His substantial gut came from his love of donuts, carbs, and anything fried. He had a craggy face, short blond hair going gray, and laugh lines indelibly etched alongside startlingly blue eyes. I had met Boyko a few years back during my stint as a process server, and we had stayed in . He’d come over from Bulgaria thirty-some years ago, and after establishing himself by working three jobs at once, had settled into his true calling as a private investigator. He enjoyed the fruits of his labor: Lexus SUV, 80-inch tv and all the latest-and-greatest phones, laptops, tablets, and webcams. But he was known to be one of the best, working the long hours that came with the territory. Unofficially, he was my consultant and had covered my butt more than once when I got in trouble. Officially, even though we were vastly different people, he was my good friend. “Sexy Sadie was the latest and the greatest of them all,” he sang, squeezing my arm and pulling me into the booth. I hugged him. “Thanks, very funny.” I rolled my eyes. He’d sung the Beatles lyric to me more than once, but it never failed to amuse him each time, as if it were a brand-new salutation. “You smell like an ashtray. When are you going to quit that nasty habit?” His command of the English language was better than many native speakers, except for his slight variation on the letter a, which he pronounced like a short e.

“Ever since you quit smoking, you’re such a pain in the ass. You’re like the born-again patron saint of non-smokers,” I said. “What would you like, Sadie? A sandwich, some soup?” “Nothing, thanks.” He motioned to the waitress to come over. “What can I get you?” “Nada.” “What about a milkshake?” he said, gesturing at his glass. “Seriously, I’m not hungry.” The waitress arrived and he ordered me a cup of coffee. I smiled. There was no point arguing with him. “So Boyko. I have a new client. She’s looking for a book.” He rubbed his hands over his face and then picked up the wrapper from his straw, curling it around his thick index finger. “Something valuable—like a first edition?” “No, she wants it for personal reasons. But—yeah—a first edition of this book sold at an auction recently for ten thousand bucks.” He whistled. “It’s not about money,” I said, and filled him in on Grace and her missing keepsake. He unwound the straw wrapper from his finger and placed it carefully on the table, then sprinkled water on it. We watched it slowly uncurl itself, like a lazy snake. “She says her brother has it, that he stole it from her,” I said. He looked up from his snake trick, his eyes sparking with interest. “Did you do a locate on the brother yet?”

The waitress came back. “Here ya go.” She was cute as a button, with a sassy air. “Thanks,” I said. “Isn’t she a doll?” He gestured at the waitress. She grinned and pushed the hair from her eyes. “Life-sized,” she said, and went off to wait on another customer. “Where were we?” I said. “You were looking at her butt,” he laughed in his barking style. “A momentary distraction.” “So you need to find the brother,” he said. “Right.” “That shouldn’t be too difficult.” “So far I’ve struck out.” He took my cheek between his fingers and pinched it. “You’ll find him.” “Stop it, I hate that,” I said, laughing, brushing his hand away. Maybe I didn’t completely hate it. He was like an annoying but endearing uncle. He’d also been there for me in a difficult time. In the weeks after Lou Ann left me, I was sunk in a self-pitying funk. One day he appeared at my door and insisted I come with him to a ball game. Afterward we sat in the half-empty apartment, drinking scotch until the late hours, and he spent the night on the couch. With other friends I had talked myself blue in the face about the breakup, but with Boyko, we didn’t need to talk. It was enough that he was just there. “I have a photo of the brother.” I pulled out my notebook but the snapshot wasn’t there. I searched through my bag. “Ha. She’s the Master Finder and she can’t find the photo.” “It’s not funny.”

“Where did you put it?” “In my notebook. It’s not there.” He sorted through my bag, flipped through an appointment book, and then pulled out my copy of The Journey. He held it by the binding and shook it. “It’s not in there, Boyko.” He flipped through and found the slender envelope lodged between the pages. He opened it and looked at Joey’s photo. “How is that possible?” I said, laughing. He looked at the photo, silently, then took out his laptop and hammered away. We went through a series of websites and found several characters and actors named Ramon, but none of them looked remotely like Joey Valdez. I asked if he thought I should go to Mexico City to look for Grace’s brother. “That’s a long way to go just for a book.” “There’s no such thing as ‘just’ a book. Books are important. You can curl up with a book, it can take your mind off things, it can be a comfort when you’re lonely. A book is a friend. And it can be your only link to someone you loved and lost.” He looked at me intently. “I’d rather escape into a movie, with a lot of action and some violence. At home, on my mega-screen. Now that’s what I call comforting.” Something out on the street caught my eye. A familiar face, looking in the window. “Rob. The troublemaker. Come on in,” Boyko said, motioning for him to us. My stomach did a little flip. Robbie Downs came in the door and made his way over to our table, with that light-on-his-feet, athlete’s way of moving. Half-Irish and half African-American, he had the kind of physical beauty that only the blending of genes across

continents can create. His curly hair and light brown skin often elicited the “Where are you from?” question. “Everywhere,” he’d answer. When he got to our table, he turned toward me with his killer green eyes, and I ed the same sparky feeling I always used to get around him. It’s a good feeling because it’s hot, and it’s an awful feeling because it’s hard to breathe. “Sadie.” “Hi, Robbie.” The blood rushed into my face. I tried to will myself to un-blush. “Sit down.” Boyko said. “I just came by for quick cup of coffee,” Robbie said. “Sit,” Boyko repeated. Robbie sat. “So Rob, how’s the latest battle?” Boyko asked. “They’re going to build a Walmart in the Mission. Can you believe it? We already ran a campaign to keep them out and we lost. But here’s the deal: if they want to come in to the neighborhood, destroy housing, put in a big-ass parking lot and bring in traffic jams and pollution, they’re gonna have to give something in return. They want to push out small, family businesses, and then turn around and give jobs to folks from outside the community? Then they’re going to have to put in affordable housing above the store, with units set aside for seniors and low-income residents.” And that’s another thing that always got to me about Robbie Downs. He was a man fighting for the rights of the people. Like my dad. He turned to me. “How’s your business going?” “How’d you know I have a business?” “Um, well. I hear things, from people… you know,” he said. “Business is fine. It’s good. I was just in Fresno on a job.”

Boyko got up abruptly. “I have to go meet a client. I’ll leave you two to catch up.” He winked. Shit. Why was he setting me up this way? “We still have to talk,” I said. “Call me.” He left some bills on the table. “Rob. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” After Boyko left, Robbie and I sat in awkward silence. “So how’s the rest of your life, besides work?” I said. “Oh, not much happening. Just work, work, and work. How about you?” I laughed. “Yeah, too much work.” “I was thinking—would you like to come over for dinner some time? I could make lasagna.” Robbie’s lasagna. I ed it well; a silky, layered affair, with homemade noodles, a delicate red sauce with Italian herbs, some sort of meat—sausage? And mushrooms, different kinds of cheese, and then a creamy sauce on the top that made the whole thing melt in my mouth. And the feeling of his hands gripping my waist, the way he pressed me up against the nearest wall for a kiss, and the sense of urgency between us, that each time might be the last. “That might… just might be good,” I said. “I love your lasagna.” But I was thinking the opposite: Get outta here. Now. People don’t change, and if we tried again it would be the same crazy thing. “I have to go.” “Oh. OK. How about if I call you sometime?” he said. “Yeah, maybe.” I smiled, grabbed my bag, and left. As I went through the door, out of the corner of my eye I caught his gaze, fastened firmly on my ass.

CHAPTER 8

On my way home I stopped at the Safeway at Thirtieth and Mission to pick up a copy of TV Y Novelas, and got some take-out from Good Frikin Chicken across the street, which has the best chicken on the planet. I was at my kitchen table, in the midst of savoring the sumac-marinated chicken, along with warm bread dipped in hummus, when my phone chirped. It was a text from Robbie. I texted him back with a yes. Then I thought— bad idea? After dinner I curled up on my couch with The Journey. The brief pseudosummer had ed, and my apartment was, as usual, cold. I wrapped a blanket around me and opened the book with the promise of escaping into another world. Even better, this book was a replica of Grace’s lost object, and I felt the thrill of getting closer to the Find.

Chapter 1

That night, when Alice Gold woke up and looked out her bedroom window at the full moon, it came to her: it was a lie. Her father was not on a trip to the East Coast. He was somewhere else—in another country, maybe even another world. But there were no other worlds, she said to herself. Father was a physicist, and he had said that so far there was no empirical evidence for life on other planets. But he had also told her one evening, on one of their twilight walks through the prairie, about his secret research. He was looking to find proof of another plane. “Do you mean a plain like a prairie,” she asked. “No,” he said, “This kind of plane is a level of existence.” She climbed out her bedroom window into the night, stepping first onto the wooden crate and then down to the ground, taking care not to make any noise. She walked to the edge of their yard, where it ended and the woods began. She sat down by Tor. She always came here to think, and to do what Father called problem-solving. “Hi, Tor,” she said to her sycamore tree. He never answered

back, of course, but it didn’t matter. What if there was another plane of existence, she thought to herself. A place that was parallel to our universe. She looked across the backyard to the cottage, Father’s laboratory. What if Father had been doing an experiment to find this parallel universe? He had said never to tell anyone else about it, not even Mother. But what if he had gone to that other plane? What if, even worse, he wanted to get back home, but was trapped there?

The next day she got in trouble at school. In English class, Mrs. Simplett said to her, “Stop fidgeting. You’re in junior high now, and you should act like it. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: Use your brain and you will gain.” Alice thought it was unfair. She was using her brain. She was problem-solving. She was thinking about how Father had said not to tell anyone. Maybe it was possible he had told Gilbert or Mother about the other plane. Should she talk to them? But first, she would look around his laboratory. What about his lab notebook? She would search his lab notes for clues. That night, after dinner, Gilbert tried to get out of doing the dishes. “Alice didn’t use to have to do them when she was my age,” he said. “So I shouldn’t have to do them until I’m older.” “I started doing the dishes when I was younger than you,” she said, stacking up the plates. “You’re nine and a half, surely you can handle dishwashing.” “Stop bickering, and work together to do the dishes,” Mrs. Gold said. In the kitchen, they worked in silence, her brother washing and Alice drying. “Gil,” she said. “What.” “Do you think it’s strange that we haven’t heard from Father?” He looked over his shoulder into the dining room. “Where’s Mother?” he whispered.

“In the den. She can’t hear us.” “She says he’s on the East Coast,” he said, “and so does Grandma. But when I asked them where on the East Coast, they looked at each other for a long time, and then Mother said, ‘Boston.’ Why did she take so long to answer? And it’s weird that he hasn’t written. Usually we get a letter after a couple of days, and then another. And sometimes he phones after about a week. It’s been almost ten days. I suspect something is awry.” Alice started to make fun of his elaborate way of speaking, but she decided not to this time. It was more important to keep the peace. Instead she asked, “Did father ever say anything to you about what he was working on? In his lab?” She pointed out the window to the cottage, which was dark and shuttered. “I figured it was stuff for his job at the University,” her brother said. “Oh.” “Do you know? Did he tell you?” Should she tell her brother, even though she had promised to keep it secret? But what if Father was in danger, wouldn’t breaking that promise be OK? She took a deep breath and then told him all about Father’s secret research. Gil’s eyes widened. “But that’s not possible, is it?” “It might be—he said he was investigating the physical laws of the universe to see if there was evidence for another plane of existence.” “Wow,” he said, impressed by the series of long words. “How can we find out?”

They crept out through the kitchen door, and looked into the den through the side windows, where their mother was reading. When she had that look on her face, nothing would take her from her book. They would be safe. The laboratory was locked. Alice felt for the key on the ledge above the door. Ordinarily, they wouldn’t be allowed to go in unless Father had given permission. She looked over at her brother, and he looked as nervous as she felt.

“Do you think we should do this?” she said. He nodded. “We have to.” They moved quietly through the lab, using only a flashlight. “Here it is!” Gil said. They opened up the lab notebook and saw their father’s neat printing. It made Alice want to cry. She saw that her brother’s lip was trembling. They thumbed through the book. “Wave particle duality, quantum tunneling—this is what he’s working on at the university. It’s not the right notebook. What about his other research?” Alice said, shutting the book. “Maybe he has a separate lab notebook. Hidden somewhere,” Gil said. “Yes. A secret one. Except maybe he took it with him.” They searched the lab, but there was no second notebook. Alice shined the flashlight onto the bulletin board where Father posted note cards with ideas, theories, and miniature drawings. “Look at this,” she said. On an index card, Father had sketched an open door. Next to it he’d written an address: 3182 Sycamore Lane. She felt a prickle of excitement. Maybe this was a map of sorts. “Sycamore Lane. That’s the street behind the library. Where the witches live,” Gil said. “That’s mean. They’re not witches. They’re just old and—eccentric,” she said. “No, I heard that they really are witches.” Alice removed the thumbtack and was putting the card in her pocket when they heard the lab door open. The light came on, blinding them. “What on earth?” their mother said. “We were just…,” Gil said.

Alice said nothing, just pressed her lips together. “Your father will be so angry. You know you are never to be in here without him.” Alice and Gil looked at each other. “Mother,” Alice said. “Where is father?” Mrs. Gold got a bright red spot in each cheek. “In Boston. I told you.” “But why hasn’t he written or called or anything?” Gil asked. “He’s busy, that’s all. He’ll write soon. Both of you, go to your rooms. I’m very disappointed in you.”

The next day, they left the library and walked the two blocks to the address. They had each checked out a book, just in case Mother asked. This morning Alice had told her they’d be stopping at the library after school, and then would walk home. “Fine, fine,” she’d said. She was already at her typewriter, the glasses slipping down her nose as usual, the two lines between her brows getting deeper as she peered at the words on the crinkly paper. They stopped in front of the house. “1382 Sycamore,” Gil said. “I know,” Alice snapped. “You don’t have to yell.” “I’m not yelling,” she said quietly. She fiddled with Father’s index card in her pocket. “If they try to put a spell on us, we can just—wave a cross at them,” he said. “They’re not vampires, Silly. Besides, we don’t have a cross. Maybe we can point a Star of David at them,” she said, pulling out her necklace, with the Jewish star at the end of the delicate chain. They laughed at the idea of it, but then their smiles faded and they got quiet again. “Let’s just stick to the plan, OK?” she said.

A short, plump lady with wispy blond hair turning gray and violet-blue eyes opened the door. “Hello, children, come in. We’ve been expecting you.” Alice opened her mouth, then closed it. She had prepared a speech, but now it was unnecessary. They were ushered into a warm parlor, where a fire blazed in an ornate tiled fireplace, and two slender, tall women with black hair and round glasses sat on a forest-green love seat. “I am Madame Possible,” said the plump lady who’d answered the door. “These are my sisters, Miss Probable and Mrs. However.” “How do you do,” Alice said. “Nice to meet you,” Gil said. “We’re here because—.” “Yes, we know, no need to show,” Mrs. However said from the couch. “We were not allowed to interfere, but now that you’re here….” “She always talks like that. She can’t help it,” Madame Possible said. “Would you like some tea and cookies?” Miss Probable asked. Brother and sister looked at each other. “Yes, thank you,” they said in unison. A plate of cookies and a teapot sat on a low table. Alice hoped this wasn’t like a bad fairytale, where they would be poisoned, or turned into small animals. But she didn’t think so. Alice balanced the teacup on its saucer, and took a sip. It tasted like sugared roses, even though she had never heard of tea made from roses. The cookie crumbled and melted in her mouth with a powdery, buttery sweetness. “These cookies are delicious,” Gil said. “Did you make them?” “Oh no, the fairies brought them over this morning. So considerate of them.” Gil’s eyes widened, but he didn’t say anything. “So now my dears,” Madame Possible said. “I know you don’t have much time. Your mother is expecting you home soon for dinner. You’re having….”

“Chicken pot pies,” Miss Probable said. Madame Possible continued, “Each of us has something to give you for your journey to find your father. I’m afraid the rules of our world won’t allow us to come with you or to come to your rescue if you call for assistance.” First, Miss Probable stood up and handed each of them a tiny package wrapped in wax paper. “For your journey, I give you each a square of transformative chocolate. When you unwrap it, it turns into whatever you need at the moment.” Then, Mrs. However handed each of them a card with what looked like a poem.

To begin your journey, I give you these instructions:

Find the tree that rhymes with door Climb to the fifth branch, no more Within it lies the power to take you to the tower

When you find the pipe The time is ripe Use your eyes, nose, and heart When you do this you will start Your journey to the other world To bring your father back unfurled

Lastly, Madame Possible turned to the children. “I give each of you a talisman for your journey, for whenever you need help. But only use it if you are in danger, or it will not work. Gilbert, this is your seeing-stone. If you need help, look into its surface, and you will see the solution to your problem. Alice, I give you this: your talisman is inside your very self. If ever you are in peril, place your hand on your heart, and you will find the way to safety.”

CHAPTER 9

The next morning, after a dose of coffee and oatmeal, I rode my bike to the gym on Third Street. When Grandpa first took me to the boxing club in Brooklyn, I was sixteen years old, and it was rare to see a girl or woman at the club. At first I had to put up with condescending looks and downright discrimination. But now there were lots of women boxers, and others like me who went to the boxing gym for the workout. This morning I jumped rope, shadow boxed, and did three rounds on the heavy bag. Back in my office, I’d just opened my laptop when the Tibetan bells resonated gently. Leaning to the left, I caught a glimpse of a figure through the slats in the blinds—a tallish, slender person, gender a toss-up, until he entered the office, and stood, smiling uncertainly. His long, straight blond hair hung around his shoulders and his gray eyes seemed friendly. “Hi,” he said. I stood and introduced myself. “I’m Canyon,” he said, closing the door behind him. I set up the chair and he sat. “What can I do for you?” “You find things, right?” “Yes—what have you lost?” He looked into the distance and his eyes glazed over. Then he blinked and looked directly at me. “It’s not me, it’s my friend.” I nodded, and waited. “I saw your website and I looked at the testimonials and all and you seem like a good person. Like a person who cares.” “Thank you. I believe in doing the right thing.”

“That’s what I have to do—the right thing.” His eyes filled with tears. I nodded in encouragement and gave him a tissue. “It’s embarrassing,” he said. Leaning forward slightly from my perch on the edge of the ball, I said, “I won’t judge you.” “I did a bad thing,” he blurted. “We’ve all done things we regret.” He straightened his spine and took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. I waited. He repeated the deep breathing sequence. I felt for him, and I also could use the business, but I was hoping we could cut to the chase soon. He opened his eyes. “I feel more centered now. Thanks for waiting.” Another pause. “I took something from a friend.” He added softly, “I guess you could say I stole it.” I tilted my head. Odd, that his case was the counterpoint to Grace’s. “What did you take?” “A conga drum.” “And you want to return it?” He hung his head. “Yes. I wanted to give it back, but I was afraid of getting caught.” “When did you take the drum?” “Ten months and three days ago.” “Canyon, I’d like to help you, but I don’t see how I fit in here. You see, I find lost things for my clients.” He bobbed his head and lifted his eyebrows excitedly— “Yes, that’s it—the drum’s lost. But I have it, so you don’t have to go looking for it. All you have to do is return it to my friend Peter.”

I took a breath and blew it out as I thought over his case. “All right. I’ll do it, on one condition. I will return the lost item if and only if you come clean with your friend Peter.” He bowed his head and sighed. Then he looked back up and nodded. We went over my contract, and he agreed to its , but asked if he could pay half the retainer now and half after the completion of the case. That was fine with me. He gave me all the information and then brought the drum in from his car. I put it in the back room, where it gave the space a more vibrant air, reminiscent of places faraway and resonant with rhythm.

CHAPTER 10

Robbie pulled the lasagna out of the oven and set it on the counter. There we were, back in his kitchen, in the family house on Potrero Hill. “When did you move in here?” I asked. “After my father died. I bought out my brothers and sisters.” “It’s strange to be back,” I said. He brought me a glass of wine and when I took it from him, our hands brushed. I felt something shift in the air and my stomach did a miniature flip. “It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other,” I said. “Just yesterday.” “I mean since we hung out.” “Yeah, I know, I was just joking. Stupid. Listen, Sadie, I’m sorry I was such an asshole back then.” “What do you mean?” “Before, when we were seeing each other a couple of years ago. I was such a workaholic flake.” “Oh. Yes. You were,” I laughed. “I’ve been working on that.” “Working on not working so much?” “Right.” He laughed. “How’s your work going?” I gave him a brief of the Grace Case, and he listened attentively.

“It reminds me of a novel I read recently,” he said. “A young man on a quest for a set of missing books. It’s kind of a story within a story. Shadow of the Wind, it’s called.” Reaching up to the cupboard, he brought down a couple of plates. I went to take the dishes from him, but he set them down instead, and turned to look at me. Time slowed down and sped up at the same moment, and he put his hand on the back of my neck. I touched his shoulder and ran my hand down the length of his arm. When I reached his hand, I squeezed it, hard. I started to kiss him but then it turned into not me kissing him, there was no me or him leading, it was both of us in a kind of mind-meld, only it wasn’t our minds, it was our bodies, jumping ahead with a familiar urgency. He moved his hands down to my waist, and that was it, that was one of those things you don’t forget. You might forget a lot of things about a person but one or two always linger. He lifted me up on the counter and leaned his stomach against my knees and kissed my neck and time was still jumping around, slowslow, quick-quick, and then his mouth reached mine, yes that’s what I was waiting for and we were kissing slow-slow, quick-quick, and I was thinking I’ve waited a long time for this, to be touched by another human being, but then I’ve waited two years to touch you again, to see your green eyes not cool green but hot green and to feel your lips on me, everywhere, not just on my mouth but all over my body. All this was going through my mind, not my mind exactly but this aching body-voice coaching me onward onward onward and then I heard a humming sound. Robbie heard it too. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve got to check that. I’ll be right back.” He went over and picked up his urgently vibrating cell phone. He looked at the display. “I have to take this, sorry… Hi Vicky… What…? But how is he doing now? Did you talk to the doctor…? I see… of course I can. I’ll be right there…. No, I’m free, no problem. Hang in there.” “What happened?” I said. “This kid from the Bayview Hunter’s Point community center, I’ve been mentoring him. He got shot—.” “What?—Christ! Is he OK?” “Yeah, he’s fine now—he was shot a few weeks ago, but he’s been recovering,

doing good, but now his mother says the wound isn’t healing, so she took him to down to General. They’ve been in the E.R. waiting room for hours, and they can’t seem to get a doctor to see him. I’m really sorry, Sadie, I’ve got to go down there.”

I sat in my truck and stared at the Potrero Hill houses rising steeply on either side. When my Dad and I used to come up to San Francisco to visit Aunt Miriam and my cousins, all us kids used to run back and forth between my cousin’s house and Robbie’s family’s house, stirring up trouble. I always had kind of a thing for Robbie—a boy who was forever getting in and out of trouble. After I moved to San Francisco, in my twenties, I’d periodically bump into him, and we’d promise to get together but wouldn’t. But when I ran into him the last time, Lou Ann and I had just split up and he’d recently gone through a divorce. We did finally get together then, ending up spending most of our time in bed or on some usable surface, vertical or horizontal. It was perfect, as long as we didn’t talk. We had so much trouble communicating that after a few months we agreed to not see each other for a while. That was two years ago. What I really needed was a cigarette. I looked through my bag and noticed my phone—there was a message. I lit a cigarette and listened to the voicemail. It was from Catherine. Her father-in-law had a heart attack and she and Matt had to fly to Arizona. She was calling to see if I could take care of Daniela for the weekend. I called and said of course I’d do it. I picked up some things from my apartment and headed over, my spirits picking up, knowing I’d be spending the weekend with my niece.

CHAPTER 11

I got home Sunday afternoon. I was tired. We had played endless games of Boggle, gone on outings to Ocean Beach and Café La Boheme, shot hoops in the backyard, watched a couple of movies, eaten macaroni and cheese and other basic meals from my cooking-challenged repertoire, and read an entire “chapter book” aloud to each other. I had also done my best to say no when necessary, and to answer questions, from “Why won’t you play video games with me?” to “Why does your truck make that noise?” to “Why do you smoke, if you know it’s bad for you?” I couldn’t believe how quickly she’d grown up—at ten she was essentially a pre-teen, and soon she’d be a teenager, full of hormonal rages and ions. When I walked in the door of my apartment, I was looking forward to some solitude. But instead, it just felt empty. I looked at my cell phone once again. Still no message or text from Robbie. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t called me after our lasagna interruptus. I had texted him to find out if his young friend was OK. I didn’t see why he couldn’t at least text or call. This is why I didn’t want to get involved with anyone. Why be disappointed again? I made a cup of tea, sat down at my kitchen table, and tried to get mentally organized. I’d done no work over the weekend, so I was behind on Grace’s case. There was no food in my apartment, I had to do my laundry, and if I didn’t work out soon I was going to go nuts. As for new work coming in, all I’d received over the weekend was a voice mail from someone named Lola, who’d seen my ad on Craigslist and wanted me to help her find her magic wand. I didn’t call back. I’d been so caught up with Daniela, I hadn’t had a chance to check my e-mail. I opened my inbox and scrolled down and there it was—a message from Robbie. It was from late Friday night, after he got home. He apologized for cutting our evening short and invited me over for lasagna Sunday night. Shit. As in right now? I stared at the screen. Why hadn’t he called instead? I reread it. Maybe it

wasn’t so bad that he wrote instead of calling. I felt a little bit of a melt around my heart area. Or was the heat located someplace deeper down? Oh-what-thehell, I decided. Robbie opened the door wearing a sweatshirt with the arms cut off, and jeans that hugged his killer thighs. We went into the kitchen and he served up the lasagna right away. No kissing on countertops tonight, apparently. Robbie was telling me about the young man he was mentoring, the saga at the hospital, and how everything had worked out. I was trying to listen. After dinner we moved into the living room. I sat on the couch while Robbie made tea in the kitchen. I stared at the empty fireplace, wishing there was a fire. Should I start one? I didn’t see any firewood, or even one of those fake logs. What was I doing here? Once again, being at Robbie’s family home brought back memories from my childhood visits, when I used to stand at the window and look out at the view. To my small-town eyes, San Francisco was not a city but a magical foreign country, where the fog enshrouded the landscape in the morning and then mysteriously lifted in the afternoon, revealing a toy city with pastel colors, dots of green, and sometimes even a slice of a miniature bridge over the glinting water, only to roll back in again, engulfing the city in mist. Later, when I moved to Brooklyn to live with Grandpa, I had to completely reinvent my idea of a city. New York: the barrage of noise, the tall, rust-colored buildings, the crush of people moving in and out of the subway, pushing past you in irritation if you should happen to stand still for one moment. Eventually I came to love New York too. But after Grandpa died, it became yet another place full of memories I had to leave behind. Robbie came in with mugs of green tea. He put a the fireplace, a fake one, all wrapped up in paper, and lit it. We watched the chemical blue flame as it tore through the paper. The lasagna sat heavy in my stomach. “Sadie.” My eyes were drawn to his full mouth. I wanted to kiss those soft lips. “I was thinking,” he said, “maybe we should try being friends. Last time we were seeing each other we sort of jumped headfirst into things. What if we tried

to go more slowly this time?” What the hell was he talking about? “But Robbie, I have friends already. What do you mean?” “I mean, let’s see what happens,” he said. “Really? The other night, we were seeing what happened just fine.” He laughed. “Look, I liked that too. But I thought maybe we could try something new.” It seemed crazy. But I knew that talking it to death would get us nowhere. “All right.” I tried to smile. “Let’s see what happens.” We ended up watching a 1940s Preston Sturges movie from his DVD collection: Sullivan’s Travels. I must’ve fallen asleep. I have a way of checking out like that when I don’t like what’s happening. When I woke up, the credits were rolling. Robbie offered me the bed in his guestroom but I like sleeping in my own bed. Unless I have a better offer, that is. This was not a better offer. He walked me down the thirty-two steps from his house to the sidewalk. I ed running up those steps as a child, with Dad. “Race you!” he’d say. But I would always beat him. Robbie walked me to my truck. No goodnight kiss. I guess he was serious about being “friends.” A familiar feeling settled on my shoulders as I sat in my truck, an unwelcome shawl of disappointment. I shook it off, and as I drove down the steep incline of DeHaro Street, my inner debate team held forth. What the hell? Why is he holding back? What’s wrong with sex? And then the other side: But aren’t you being too impatient? Isn’t Robbie simply asking for what a lot of women want, a chance to get to know one another outside of the sheets? And then another voice: This is all your problem—you’re just too sexual—people are threatened by it. Maybe it would be good for you to slow down and smell the roses. The opposition countered: What? There’s nothing wrong with me. It’s his fault. San Francisco shuts down pretty early, and late at night it sometimes feels like a small town. Until you start looking for a parking space, and then you know you

live in a city. I finally found a spot, and then walked the three blocks to my apartment. The fog had come in, and I shivered as I walked down Dolores Street. The street was lined with palm trees and looked like a Hollywood fantasy of California, but with an overlay of fog. I generally avoid smoking in my apartment, but tonight was a special occasion. I poured myself a shot of scotch (one of the tastes my grandpa instilled in me— single malt, not blended) with just a smidgeon of water. I ran the bath and put in a handful of scented bath salts. I lit a candle and a cigarette, and slid into the tub. I gave in to the luxury of steam and heat and candlelight, the scents of tobacco and jasmine mingling in their curious marriage. I lay my head back against the bath pillow and scooted down farther so the water reached all the way up to the top of my neck. I pushed down deeper into the water. The heat and steam smoothed some of the wrinkles out of my overstuffed brain. The current residents of my crowded mind jostled for attention: Grace and Joey, Canyon and his drum, Daniela’s school play on Wednesday, do the laundry, and last but not least, Robbie. I wanted to believe that there could be something good between us, if I could only slow down. I sighed. Relationships never seemed to work out for me, and maybe I should just accept that I’m better off alone. But I couldn’t chase away the emptiness, circling inside me, in spite of the numbing effects of the scotch. I have my work, my friends, and my family, I repeated to myself, like a mantra. Still, I felt left out in the cold—Robbie was pushing me away, I was sure of it. I added more hot water to the bath, and poured myself another scotch. My phone rang, but I didn’t answer it. Before I went to bed I checked my voice mail. “Hi, this is Robbie. I hope this isn’t too late… I mean I hope I didn’t wake you. Anyway, I wanted to say I had a really nice time with you. Wanted to—uh—tell you that. Goodnight, sweet Sadie.”

CHAPTER 12

The next morning I woke up feeling hung over. But it was only a few glasses of scotch. OK, maybe I overdid it. I gulped down some water, downed a cup of coffee, and drove to the boxing gym for a workout. Afterward, I headed to Al’s Good Food Cafe on Mission Street. By this time I had a pounding headache, but devouring a nice big high-fat, highcarb breakfast—bacon and eggs, hash browns and toast—was just the ticket. I parked my truck a couple of blocks away and walked to my office. The fog had lifted, the sun was out in full force, and it was a glorious morning. The top edges of the buildings, Victorian facades rimmed in gold leaf, were framed against the blue of the sky, and the luscious multicolored houses were a visual feast: cream, peach, lavender, and lemon. This was my city, my multicolored petit four confection, weird and lovely. Life was good, I told myself. Robbie was his crazy-ass self but that was OK. I had two interesting cases, and everything was looking up. On the other hand, maybe disaster loomed around the corner. When I opened my office door, Emma meowed in that specific, irritated tone that said, you’ve-been-away-for-more-than-one-day. I scratched her behind the ears and stroked her until she purred. Then she ambled off, found the broadest shaft of sunlight angling through the blinds and settled into it, curling up on the floor and yawning lazily before closing her eyes. I opened up my laptop. Holding Grace’s snapshot of Joey up to various online images, I finally found what looked like a match. His professional name was Ramon Luis Peña, and he had starred in Amor Perdido. That was the good part. The not-so-good part was the show finished airing a year ago. I couldn’t find any mention of him since then. Telemundo was listed as the show’s production company. I mulled this over, sitting on my ball. Bounce, bounce, bounce. Then I called the Telemundo offices. “Hello,” I said. “This is Ana Chavez, at Latino News, in

Fresno, California.” “Yes, what can I do for you?” “I’m doing an article on Ramon Luis Peña, from Amor Perdido, and I need his information.” “One moment, and I’ll connect you with our Public Affairs department.” The woman in Public Affairs, unimpressed by my alleged reporter status, said, “We don’t give out that kind of information.” “Would you give him my number and e-mail address, and ask him to me?” I said. What’s wrong with these people, I thought. Don’t they want publicity? There was a pause. “Ramon Luis Peña is no longer under contract with Telemundo.” “I see. Is there anyone you can refer me to? Do you have the name of his agent?” “I’m sorry, I’m not at liberty to discuss this further,” the not-so-public affairs representative said, and hung up on me. Great. So Joey wasn’t working for Telemundo anymore. But was he still in Mexico, or had he moved back? How was I going to find this guy? I did a backbend over my exercise ball, just to see the world from a different perspective. Upside down, my office looked like an art studio, one of those hip renovated warehouse spaces, with stark white walls. I sat up. A kind of lusty buzzing ran through my body. I thought of Robbie. Should I call? No. This feeling—it’s not libido. It means you’re onto something. That upside-down view. What if I was on the wrong track? What if Joey wasn’t even working as an actor anymore. Maybe he had changed careers. I called Grace. “Hey,” she said, sounding distracted. “Any progress?”

“Yes and no,” I said. “What does Joey do, besides acting? Does he have another job when he can’t find acting work? Like waiting tables or something?” “He used to wait tables on the side. I thought you said he had a part in a novela. That’s gotta be pretty good pay. He doesn’t need a day job now,” she said. “That show is finished, it turns out. I talked to Telemundo and they said he’s no longer under contract. Could he have stopped acting?” “Joey, stop acting?” She snorted. “Never. He’ll be acting until the day he dies. Even if it’s just community theater, or some performance art thing in a loft somewhere. He’s addicted.” “Do you think he’s in New York, or L.A.?” “Yeah, I always thought he’d end up in New York. He hated Los. But maybe it’s true. Joey might be in Los after all.” “What do you mean—maybe what’s true?” “My sister said he might be there.” “I thought you were out of touch with your sister,” I snapped. “We talk once in a while.” “This would have been helpful information. I wish you’d told me.” “I didn’t say anything because—Joey would never move to Los. I figured Teresita was lying.” “Why would she lie to you?” “She hates me. I don’t know what I ever did to her.” “I’d like to talk to Teresita—can I get her number? And would you call and let her know I’ll be in touch?” “Sure. But don’t call her Teresita, it’ll piss her off. Call her Teresa. She probably won’t want to talk to you anyway.”

“It’s worth a try. One more thing—does Joey have any hobbies, or does he play sports, or belong to a church, anything like that?” I was starting to get used to her silences. I waited. “Yeah,” she said. “Karate. Dad made him do it. “Why?” “Is this necessary?” “Yes, I believe it is. In order to find Joey, I need to know as much as possible about him.” “OK.” Grace sighed. “Dad said he wanted to make a man out of him—he always thought Joey was gay. Joey hated karate at first but then he really got into it, competitions and everything, and he still practices. At least he did last time I saw him.” “Is Joey gay?” Grace laughed. “No way. He loves women, and he always has a girlfriend or two.” “So why did your father think he was?” A big silence again. I waited, resisting the urge to jump in and ask if she was still there. “Because Joey used to like to dress up as a girl.”

CHAPTER 13

I paced the length of my office. Was Joey gay, or, as Grace said, a hetero who cross-dressed? Did that even matter? The revelation was intriguing, but the real gold was the introduction of her sister, who might just lead me to Joey and the lost book. I checked my e-mail to see if she’d sent me Teresa’s number. Not yet. I did a search for Teresa Valdez, but of the many online Teresas, none could be found where Grace’s offline sister lived, in Modesto, California. I got the conga drum out of the back room and walked to my truck. When I got there, I stopped short on the sidewalk, gaping. Someone had broadsided my truck, and there was no note. Crap! I got in and turned the key. It wouldn’t start.

Back at my office, I went into a flurry of activity. I called and rearranged my meeting with Canyon’s friend Peter, reported the accident to my insurance company, kicked the exercise ball around the room, and did some shadowboxing. Finally, sitting back down on the ball at my desk, I sighed. I knew I should get the truck towed, but I didn’t want to deal with it. Maybe if I ignored it, it would just go away. The bells signaled an arrival. Catherine Rosenbloom-Woo stood in the doorway. As usual, her hair was perfectly styled, her makeup flawless, her Italian leather briefcase slung over one shoulder, tote bag full of groceries on the other, everything under control. “I am so glad to see you,” I said to my cousin. She closed the door, and looked around, as usual, at my minimalist office. “When are you going to get some furniture?” “Is that all you have to say?” “I’m only thinking of you growing your business. God, Sadie, what’s the matter,

you look like a lost little waif.” She came over and gave me a hug. I filled her in on the Robbie fiasco and the smashed truck. “You poor thing. That sucks. Did you get your truck towed?” “No, not yet. I’m just… procrastinating.” “Come on, I’ll help you,” she said. “Let’s do it right now. Make the call. I’ll get Matt to pick up Daniela, and I’ll come with you.” Then she smiled, and the clenched feeling in my gut slowly loosened its grip.

CHAPTER 14

Grace

Grace stood in her office, looking out at the bullpen. What a stupid business idea, she thought. The large, open area, surrounded by glass-walled offices, was supposed to be for “transparency.” Instead it meant absolutely no privacy, unless you closed your blinds, and then everyone thought you were up to something. She pretended to be staring out toward the far windows, lost in thought, but actually she was watching Heath at the photocopier. She loved his outfit, the tight Seven jeans with the Calvin Klein shirt. Her assistant had a good body— chunky, but no flab. He had muscles over his bulk. Grace looked away quickly— she didn’t want him to catch her staring. That had happened once before and it was pinché embarrassing. Anyways, Grace thought, it was hopeless. She shouldn’t even think about it. She had seen him making out in the alley behind the office with the IT guy. She shook her head. You shouldn’t be fantasizing about someone so unavailable, she told herself. But the online dating thing wasn’t working for her. Sitting back at her desk, she stared at the computer screen. All I ever do is work, she thought. Maybe I should a book group, then I would read more. She thought of her book, with Alice on the cover, all by herself, looking up at the stars. I have to start connecting more with people, she thought. Maybe I should put something on the altar, like a pink quartz heart to bring healing and friendship. To put the message out to the Universe. Back at her desk, gazing at her spreadsheets, she clicked at her keyboard, thinking: what I really need is to get my talisman back. She silently recited today’s prayer:

Look around, look around

What is lost, must be found

CHAPTER 15

The next morning, coming back from my bank, I came up the stairs from the BART station to the plaza at 24th and Mission, a curious landscape where leathery-faced street people, grim commuters, enterprising tamale vendors, and self-employed laptop-carriers all crossed paths in random harmony. I started up 24th, back to my office. I’d been thinking about the Grace case, and was sure I was missing something. Frustrated, I threw a left-right combination at an invisible punching bag. A ing young woman in a motorcycle jacket and tight tee-shirt over ample curves smiled and said, “I know how you feel.” I turned and watched her go down the block and into Café La Boheme. Motorcycle Girl looked familiar. Where had I seen her before? Did I mention she was beautiful? I kept going, though, telling myself: no detours to cafés where almond-eyed women sat at tables, drinking espresso. Heading down Valencia, I lit a cigarette. The smoke was warm and comforting, and the nicotine gave me that needed edge. Cigarettes can be depended on to be there when you want them. Unlike people or events. When I got back to the office, Emma rubbed against my legs and communicated strongly that she expected to be fed. I complied. I turned my attention to the Grace Case, trying not to think about Robbie, my smashed truck, and my dwindling funds. When I checked my inbox, there was a message from Grace, with her sister Teresa’s information. There was also an e-mail from Robbie. I felt a flash of excitement before opening it. Maybe he’s realized he has to have me, body and soul. Or at least body, anyway. <Sadie, I’m in Washington for meetings and then I have to go to Boston for more work stuff. I’ll be back in town in a couple of weeks, and I’ll call you then. I hope you’re finding lots of lost things. –Rob>

I flicked the disappointment away. I should have known better than to start up with him again. He was never available before, and it was no different this time around. Even when he was here, he wasn’t here.

I called Grace’s sister and left a message. I spent so much of my time now leaving or retrieving messages, and some days I never talked to anyone at all. I returned to my case notes and reviewed them, looking for something I might have missed, some clue that would put me on the scent. With only a whisper of the Tibetan bells, he entered quietly. I looked up to see a middle-aged white guy in jeans and a windbreaker, with close-cut brown hair and a well-trimmed mustache. He was about 5’ 8”, 150 lbs. I could take him if I had to. His feet were firmly planted, his eyes fixed on me. They were a brilliant blue, and behind them there was something a little off. “Are you the lady who finds lost objects?” he said. “Yes, may I help you?” “I hope so.” “Have you lost something?” “My glasses,” he said, fingering the bottom edge of his windbreaker. “All right,” I said, thinking—your glasses? Oh come on. “My name is Sadie García Miller. What’s yours?” “Bob.” “Nice to meet you. Have a seat, please.” I pulled out the folding chair. “I prefer to stand,” he said. “Thank you.” He continued to rub the edge of his jacket. I took out a notepad. “I was working with this guy,” he said. I nodded encouragingly. “At your job?” “No, I mean, I was working with him on, like, N.L.P.” “Right. What’s N.L.P.?”

“Neurolinguistic programming.” “Oh, I see.” I didn’t really. “Anyway, I’d been working with him for a couple of months, once a week, at his office, you know? On this N.L.P. stuff. And then this is what happened, see. One night, he shrunk himself down to this big,” Bob said, and held up his thumb and forefinger, two inches apart, “and crawled into my apartment, through the crack under the door, and stole my glasses. This is why it’s important to put weather stripping around the door. Which I’ve now done.” He went back to playing with his windbreaker, which was frayed along the edge. I took a deep breath. “Bob, I’m afraid I can’t help you with that. That’s a police matter. Criminal.” “I’ve been to the police! They think I’m crazy! I’ve been to the FBI! They don’t believe me either.” “I wish I could help you, but it’s outside the realm of my expertise.” I hoped he hadn’t seen my ad on Craigslist, which announced to the world that I would help anyone find anything. “Have you tried a private investigator?” The light in his eyes shifted slightly. “A private investigator. I hadn’t thought of that. Do you know one?” “No,” I lied. “But there are loads of them in the phone book or online.” “I’ll look in the phone book,” he said. “Not online—you gotta watch out for those cookies. They can leave a trail you wouldn’t believe.” I nodded. There was more to his story, of course. There always is. A subterranean layer of sadness and isolation, sitting under his paranoia and fueling it. But I knew from experience not to over-empathize, that I can’t take care of everyone, and that business is business. “Thanks for coming by.” I opened the front door and stood beside it. As he left, he said, “Just , if you ever do N.L.P., be careful.” Assuring him I would, I locked the door behind him. I tried to shake off the

residue of his desolation, which had seeped into my sponge-like consciousness in spite of my resolve. I hyper-bounced on the ball, paced around the office, and attempted to pet Emma, though she was having none of it.

A few hours later there was still no word from Grace’s sister. I knew I should try her again, but I wasn’t looking forward to the conversation—I had a strong feeling that getting her to talk was going to be like pulling teeth. I needed fortification before I called her again. I locked up and went down the street to Muddy’s Cafe, the hangout of the aspiring screenwriter, the community activist, and the unemployed job applicant, each armed with a laptop. I got a double espresso to go, and meandered back to my office. I ed the thrift shop with its window display of teacups and dolls, then further down the block the mural on the brick wall that asked: Searching for something? Have faith in Christ alone! When I ed the tutoring center, I looked in the window and waved at Jorge. He came running out, asking if I’d come in and do some homework . I told him I’d be by in a few weeks, when I had more time. But I still felt guilty. Dad’s voice, in my head, said, “Those kids are our future.” Yeah, I know, you’re right, I told him in my mind. But there was no way I could help out until the Grace Case was over. I was ing by the Pilates studio, thinking I should try it sometime, when the door opened and out stepped Motorcycle Girl. “Hey,” she said. “You’re the shadow boxer, aren’t you?” I laughed. “I guess so. Yes, I am. I’m Sadie,” I stuck out my hand. “Do you work out here?” “Actually, I’m an instructor. I’m Molly.” She shook my hand. We stood there for a moment, looking. “I have an office down the street,” I said. “I know—I’ve seen it.” “Well. Stop by sometime if you like. To say hello.”

She laughed—a clear, full sound. “OK. See you around.” As I walked away I thought I heard her say, “I’ll let you know if I lose anything.” I whipped around, but she was already running across the street. She unlocked her motorcycle and put on her helmet. She wasn’t just dressing the part, she really was a motorcycle girl. Friendly or flirty? My radar was definitely picking up signals. I was almost at my office when my phone went off. “Hello, is this Cindy Miller?” the voice said. “This is Sadie García Miller.” “This is Teresa Valdez. I’m returning your call.” “Oh, yeah, thanks for calling back. Did Grace tell you I’d be calling?” I fumbled with my keys, set down my coffee on my desk, and pulled out my notebook. “Yeah,” she said, her tone flat. “But I don’t get it. Who are you, exactly? A private eye or what? Must be pretty important for her to hire you.” “I’m a professional, working with Grace on a confidential matter. She does need to get in touch with Joey, though. Do you have any idea where he is?” “Well. I heard he was in L.A.” “L.A. Where’d you hear that?” I wrote down ¡L.A.! in big, puffy letters. “It’s a ‘confidential matter,’” she mocked. “Look. Grace is desperate to find him. You and Joey are her only links to family.” Maybe that wasn’t the whole story. But I wasn’t about to mention Grace’s search for the book. “Ha!” Teresa said. “The only links. What about her parents?” “I thought your parents ed away.” “Not my parents. I mean hers.” I got a prickly feeling running down my arms. I took a breath and made a guess. “You mean her birth parents?”

“Yeah.” “I thought they died, or—abandoned her, or something,” I said, still making it up as I went along. “She told you that? She’s such a liar. She used to visit them sometimes. I mean, yeah, her Dad was in prison for awhile, and her Mom was kinda crazy. But anyways. Grace is like—our cousin. My parents took her in and then they adopted her.” “She didn’t mention her birth parents. She only talked about her mother—your mother. Sounds like Grace loved her very much.” “Yeah, well. Everybody loved my mom. She was that kind of person. When you were with her, you felt like you were the only person in the room.” Teresa’s voice had softened a bit. “I see. She was a special person. I’m sorry your mother died,” I said. No response. “Hello?” “Yeah, still here. Tell me something, what do you mean, Grace is ‘desperate’ to get in touch with Joey? What does she want?” “She misses him and wants to see him.” Teresa sighed. “She has that high-paying job and all. She must have a lot of friends. I didn’t think she needed us. I don’t get why she’s trying to reach him all of a sudden. Out of touch for a long time and now she starts trying to get all familia and all.” Cradling the phone against my shoulder, I went outside and lit up. “I see what you mean.” Then I tried my luck: “I’m wondering—can you tell me anything at all about Joey, about what he might be doing in L.A.? Is he pursuing his acting career?” “I shouldn’t really talk about… Look. You know what? I’ll find out if it’s OK with her to give you her information. If it is, I’ll get back with you.” “I’m sorry, I don’t understand—whose information?”

“No, I said, I meant… I’ll find out if it’s OK with Jul— with Joey. I’ll see if it’s OK with him and if it is, I’ll give you his info.” I thanked her profusely, hoping to get on her good side and stay there. Back at my desk, I looked through my notes. Something was tickling the back of my mind. I went over to the window. Across the street, standing around in the front of the mortuary, a group of family had gathered. They had that look about them, like when you’ve lost someone and your life has been turned inside out. I sat down on the ball and draped myself over it in a backbend. There was a whole collection of multicolored exercise balls in the Pilates studio down the street. Maybe I should go there sometime and take a class from the mysterious and sexy Molly. My thoughts turned to the phone conversation with Teresa. She’d almost called Joey “Jul”—or something like that—and then stopped. She’d said it with the English “J”, not the Spanish “h.” Julian or Julius? Another stage name? But would he take an Anglo name? And why would Teresa be using his professional name anyway, instead of Joey, the name she’d always called him? Hanging over the ball, I had an upside-down view of the world. What if the floor was the ceiling, and the ceiling was the floor? The desk would be sitting on the ceiling. Emma walked by and rubbed against me, her little paws on the ceiling. What if things were not as they appear? Teresa had said: “I’ll find out if it’s OK with her to give you her information.” I sat up abruptly. Her. What if Teresa had started to say Julia or Julie before she corrected herself? I got the prickly feeling in my solar plexus, then down my stomach and legs and through my whole body, and I saw it, as clear as day. How Grace had said her brother liked to dress up as a girl, how Joey seemed to have disappeared off the map of the known world. No wonder I couldn’t find Joey Valdez. I was looking for a man, a man who had just possibly ceased to exist. Julia or Julie Valdez was out there somewhere. And I was going to find her.

CHAPTER 16

Catherine opened the front door of her Noe Valley house and frowned at my bicycle. “Didn’t you rent a car yet?” “I don’t need it until tomorrow,” I said, coming inside and propping my bicycle against the kitchen wall. “Can’t you leave that outside?” Catherine said. “And get it stolen?” I said, “This is San Francisco, you know.” “It’s Noe Valley,” she said. I just looked at her. “OK, you can put it in the laundry room if you’re really worried about it,” she said, sighing. We came back to the living room and I sat down on a beige, slip-covered couch, overstuffed but uncomfortable. Catherine busied herself, straightening the magazines on the coffee table and picking a piece of lint off the couch. “Where’s Matt?” I said. “He’ll meet us there, he’s still at work.” “Sadie!” Daniela came halfway down the staircase. She was still wearing her school uniform, though she had put her own stamp on it: the wrinkled white blouse hung out of the plaid skirt, the blazer was tied around her waist, and red high-top sneakers completed the ensemble. “The play is going to be awful! We had the worst rehearsal ever, and my costume is ugly, and it doesn’t fit, and I hate drama! Mr. Dyer makes us do all this stupid stuff! Make sure you sit in the middle, do not sit on the sides, or you won’t be able to see me.” She flounced back up to her room.

Rolling her eyes at me, Catherine called after her, “Come on, honey, change your clothes, we have to get going.” “Just a minute, Mom, I have to get all my stuff together! I hate it when you rush me,” Daniela yelled. “You are so impatient.” Catherine stomped up the stairs, her large form radiating anger. “Don’t you talk to me in that tone of voice, young lady.” “Mom! I’m trying to concentrate! I’m getting in character! You’re breaking my focus!”

Our ride to Daniela’s school in the minivan was silent—my niece was either pouting or “getting in character,” and Catherine seemed distracted. In fact, I had never seen her like this before. When we got to the school auditorium, Daniela ran backstage to get ready. Catherine and I still had an hour to kill before the show started. I reached in my bag for my smokes. “I need a cigarette. I’ll be back in a few.” “I’ll come with you,” Catherine said. “What? Ms.-don’t-expose-me-to-second-hand-smoke and Ms.-you’re-killingyourself-with-those-cancer-sticks? I can’t believe it. You really want to come along?” “Yeah, why not? Let’s go over there,” she said, pointing to the swing set at the farthest edge of the playground. “I have to talk to you.” “Uh-oh. Are you mad at me?” “No, nothing like that.” We walked across the playground. “Sadie,” she said, “You have to swear you won’t tell anyone. Anyone at all. No one.”

“Sworn to secrecy.” “I… I’m….” I lit a cigarette and sat down in a swing, walking myself up and back. What could possibly be amiss in Catherine’s perfect world? Her successful career, her model husband, her darling daughter, their restored Victorian, and their adorable dog. I was starting to get an awful feeling in my stomach. “I’ve been seeing someone.” “What do you mean, seeing someone?” “You know, seeing someone. A man.” “As in, an affair? God, I am so relieved.” “Relieved? Why? It’s a disaster. And it’s not an ‘affair,’ I hate that word.” “I’m relieved because I thought you were going to tell me something horrible. Like you had cancer.” She laughed. “Give me a cigarette.” “What? No. Years of lectures from you about my smoking? No, I’m not giving you a cigarette. Forget it. Who is this guy?” “I can’t tell you.” She pushed an empty swing and it moved back and forth in the air. “Why not?” “You’ll laugh.” “I swear, I won’t.” “He’s—well, you know my building, where I have my practice?” “Yeah, 450 Sutter, very fancy.” “Uh-huh, well—he works in the building.”

“Right. He’s a doctor—or another dentist? “No, no. Au contraire. He’s a dental hygienist.” “No shit!” I burst out laughing. “See, I said you would. Laugh.” “I’m not!” Which wasn’t true, of course. “We kept running into each other. In the elevator. At the coffee shop. And then we started meeting for coffee, and then, you know. Sadie, he is so hot.” She tried to sit down in the swing but her hips wouldn’t fit. “I’m sure he is,” I said. “Hot.” The ceiling was the floor, and the floor was the ceiling. “So it’s a sex thing, right?” “Well, it started out that way—physically ionate— and it still is—but now, I don’t know. I have—feelings.” “Yeah. Those feelings, they just keep getting in the way. So how long has this been going on?” “A couple of months.” “OK, two months, that’s not too bad.” “God, Sadie, do you have some kind of rule book for these things? Two months —not too bad? What would be bad?” She pushed the empty swing again, and it gyrated in space. “I’m just glad you didn’t say ‘a year.’” She colored. “OK, six months.” “Six months. Wow. How old is this guy?” She paused. “Twenty-eight.” “He’s thirteen years younger than you. Is this like—are you having a midlife crisis?”

“God! You know what? I think you’re being judgmental. I thought I could talk to you, of all people.” “No really, you can talk to me. It’s just that—OK—on the one hand, ion is a rare and wonderful thing, so I’m happy for you. But on the other.” I paused. What was the right thing to say? “The thing is, there’s only so long you can do it before the truth comes out. People always find out, one way or another. But even if—let’s say Matt doesn’t find out—secrets have a way of poisoning the atmosphere, know what I mean? It’s not fair to Matt and Daniela, and to yourself, to be living a lie. It erodes the foundations of the family.” I hadn’t meant to rant. Something about the whole situation was freaking me out. “What? I can’t believe I’m getting this from you—my promiscuous bisexual cousin is lecturing me about family values.” She pounded the swing set with her fist. The swings trembled and swung. “I am not promiscuous,” I yelled, throwing my cigarette down, stamping it out, and walking away. “I didn’t mean it, Sadie, come back. What I mean was— you’re—you have an alternative lifestyle—you know.” I came back, reluctantly. I picked up my cigarette stub and pocketed it. “Are you thinking of leaving Matt?” At that moment I realized how attached I was to their little nuclear family, especially to the safe haven it provided Daniela. “No, no, no. Of course not… I mean, I fantasize about it, but I couldn’t do that to Daniela. Or to Matt.” I lit another cigarette. “What do you like about this guy?” She sighed. “He’s the only person I’ve ever known who actually loves my body just the way it is. He doesn’t think I’m fat, he says I’m voluptuous. Do you have any idea how that feels? I’ve always been ashamed of my body.” This was a night of revelations. “Cat, I have to tell you, I think you have a nice body. You’re big and curvy. I think you look good.” “Thanks, Sadie. But I know I should lose some weight.” She laughed glumly.

“What about Matt? Doesn’t he love your curves?” “Not really—he’s always appreciated me more for my mind, and for being a good wife and mother, all of that. But I’ve never felt like he loved my body. We’ve never been that ionate. Maybe at the beginning. But in the last ten years— we just work all the time. And he always asks me—did you go to the gym? He doesn’t say ‘you’re fat,’ nothing like that, but you just know, Sadie, you know it in your heart. Oh crap, look—there he is, waving at us to come back.” She looked at her watch. “The play starts in five minutes.”

As I’d expected, the play was cheesy, though Daniela was great—she had an amazing stage presence. True, I was biased. But as I sat between Matt and Catherine, holding my cousin’s secret, I felt guilty. Like I was an accomplice. And maybe I was.

CHAPTER 17

The next day, I borrowed Boyko’s big-ass Cadillac and drove to Marin County to return the conga drum. Boyko drove his SUV most of the time, but kept his 1985 Cadillac around for emergencies. I hated to drive the thing, a gas-hog dinosaur of a car, but my truck was in the shop, and it would be difficult to get to Kentfield on the bus. This was a county that had, after all, voted to exclude BART trains from coming to their pristine, affluent community. But still, driving over the Golden Gate Bridge and then through the sun-dappled, tree-lined streets of Marin, I couldn’t help but ire how beautiful and peaceful it was. Of course, that’s what money buys. Beauty and peace, or the semblance of it. I drove up to the gate of Peter Tinker’s house and spoke into the intercom. A Latina-inflected voice told me to come on up, and the gate opened. I maneuvered up the steep driveway to the house, where a Porsche and a BMW sat smugly. I parked and came up the steps, leaving the drum in the car. A short, fit man with a fashionably shaved head, wearing a polished-cotton shirt that hung over perfectly molded jeans, opened the door. “I must say I’m curious,” he said. “Canyon told me you were coming, but he wouldn’t say why—in fact, he was unusually mysterious about the whole thing.” The man looked me up and down. I was wearing cutoffs over leggings and a red bowling shirt with Mitch embroidered on the pocket. “I assume you’re not Mitch,” he said. “Sadie García Miller,” I said, putting out my hand. He shook my hand. “Peter Tinker. Come in.” We stepped into the foyer of the Spanish Colonial house, which emitted elegance, from the terra-cotta flooring—the rich earthy tiles interspersed with delicately painted Italian tiles—to the cathedral ceilings. We went through wide French doors to a patio, where he offered me a seat. “Drink?” He motioned to a tray. There was a pitcher of something red, and another of a green beverage. “We have sangria, and we have iced green tea.”

“I’ll take some green tea, thanks.” He poured. “Let me guess,” he said. “Canyon sent you here for free legal advice. I don’t mind, I mostly do consulting now, I have the time. What’s your legal problem?” My legal problem. It was so long ago. I’d told myself that I’d let go of it, but somewhere inside me, there was still a voice that said, yes, I need your help. Instead I said, “No, actually, that’s not what this is about. I’m here to return something you lost.” Even though I hadn’t actually found the drum, I still felt a ping of pride in returning a missing object. He raised his eyebrows and a flash of sadness crossed his face. “Something I’ve lost? Like what?” “Canyon borrowed something from you. About six months ago. And he never returned it. He wants to set things right, and he asked me to help him with it.” He laughed. “You mean the conga drum? Oh yeah. I knew he took it. The fucker, I couldn’t believe it at first. But then I thought—he can have it. He doesn’t have the money, and he loved that drum. I have others. Would you like to see my drum collection?” “I….” I was floored. “OK.” After a tour of Peter’s collection, an entire room full of percussion instruments from all over the world, I headed to the car to get the conga drum. He followed me out to the car. “I mean it, you can tell Canyon he can keep it,” he said. “I don’t need it.” “But it’s important. It wasn’t the ethical thing for him to do. He wants to set things right.” Peter nodded. “OK, I get it.” He took the drum from me and I followed him as he carried it into the house. “But let me tell you something. Material possessions —all this. The house, the cars, everything. I told my ex-wife she could have it all if I could have custody. But she took the girls away, as far away as she could. New Zealand. I get to see them three times a year. That’s what I’ve lost.”

Driving back through the leafy streets of Marin, I mused on Peter Tinker. Unlike most of my clients, he had all the material possessions he needed. What he’d lost —family—I would never be able to get back for him. He seemed nice, even if he was a lawyer. It all came back to me, my last visit to an attorney, a couple of decades ago, when I was twenty.

I paced the law office of Murray Stein, my dad’s former colleague and friend. “Why not? He left instructions for you to investigate his death.” “Yes,” the lawyer said, “and one of those instructions was that under no circumstances should his daughter, Sadie, be involved in the investigation, and that if you were to come to me, I should close the investigation. You said you read the letter.” I nodded. “And didn’t that letter request that you honor his wishes, and not investigate his death? ” Here it was again, the door closed in my face. Why was it OK for Grandpa and the cousins to be involved, but not me? “I’m sorry,” he said, straightening the papers on his desk. “Look—I understand your position. But my dad might have been murdered—it’s a justice issue—and a political issue—you don’t have to do it for me, do it for the UFW.” He shook his head sadly. “I’ve done a lot of pro bono work for the Union over the years. We all took this seriously, believe me. Josh—your father—was a friend. I have to honor his wishes.” “But if he’d known—.” “No. I’m sorry.” He moved his pile of papers to the other side of the desk. I turned to go.

“Sadie.” “Yes?” My heart beat faster. Would he change his mind? “Your father was—and is—only trying to protect you.”

CHAPTER 18

Grace

Grace stared out the window at the rooftop garden of the neighboring building, where, from time to time, smokers smoked, sneaky lovers met, and disgruntled office workers waved their arms as they told stories of mistreatment. The drama was a welcome distraction from her world of tight deadlines, massive workloads, and demanding clients. I must be a voyeur, she said to herself. Today only one person was on the rooftop, smoking and talking on her cell phone. Grace squinted. The woman was carrying an L.V. bag and wearing red Manolos. Could be knock-offs. Or maybe she got them on eBay. A sales rep with aspirations? The rooftop figure was now waving around her L.V.-branded arm as she talked, cigarette in hand. Maybe, Grace thought, she was an with a trust fund. Taking the elevator down for her own smoke break, she lit up as soon as she came out of the building. She took in the first, welcoming drag and paced in front of the building, staring at the pigeons. So Joey’s in Los, she thought. Trying to make it in the big time. He’d been so secretive about why he needed the money. Was he in trouble of some kind? She’d lent it to him anyway. Because they were familia. And he’d never paid her back, even after he got the part in the novela and was making good money. But she didn’t care about the money. She just wanted her book. Sadie had called and said she was going to Los, that Teresita had said Joey was living there. Grace couldn’t believe it—she always thought if he went anywhere for his acting career it would be New York. But she had prayed to San Antonio and to Nuestra Señora, and they both said to trust Sadie. So if she was going to L.A. to look for him, then he must be there. If only she could talk to Joey, she could use her leverage to get the book back. So far she’d kept his dirty little secret. But surely he wouldn’t want his Hollywood people and the whole familia knowing about his night-time outings in makeup and heels.

CHAPTER 19

Daniela and I were blasting along at seventy-five miles an hour on Interstate 5, securely fastened into a rental car, more than halfway to L.A. We’d just ed Lost Hills. Did someone get lost there or were the hills themselves lost? Catherine had balked at first when I suggested Daniela come with me to L.A. for the weekend. I assured her I was simply on a search for a book, and besides, we’d be staying with Daniela’s grandmother. How dangerous could that be? Laughing, Catherine said that staying with her mother could be pretty dangerous. But then she said, “Oh, wait a minute.” It turned out Matt was leaving town for an electrical engineering conference, and Friday was one of those random school closure days for Daniela. All of a sudden my care was deemed safe enough. And behold! Catherine could have a three-day weekend with her paramour. Was I aiding and abetting her in adultery? Sure. But who was I to judge? It was hot as hell on I-5, but we had all the windows open and the radio blaring to keep me awake. Earbuds in place, Daniela was listening to music and reading a book at the same time. Her multi-tasking made me feel old. My eyes were on the road, but my mind was elsewhere. I had reported back to Canyon and sent him my invoice. My time and expenses hadn’t added up to much, and I reduced the amount of his balance due, but he said wanted to pay me the full balance of the retainer like we agreed, that it was worth it to him. He promised he’d do the work of reconciling with Peter, and thanked me, saying that a great burden had been lifted off his shoulders. This was a first. The return of the conga drum, rather than bringing joy to its owner, had brought relief to the returning party. I focused my thoughts on the Grace Case. I’d told Grace I was going to L.A. to search for her brother, but hadn’t said anything about my theory that Joey had morphed into a woman. It seemed way too big a bomb to drop until I knew for sure.

I zoned out for a while, and Molly the Motorcycle Girl floated into my mind. She had starred in my dream the night before. One image and then the next came back to me. We were in a white bed in a white room in a big house. The sun was coming in the window and I was sipping Molly’s skin like cream, a little at a time. I circled my palms over her nipples, and traveled down her silky length to kiss her belly. She moaned as I inched my way down and tongued and fingered my way in. I was in a tunnel, and it was magnificently dark and wet. All of a sudden I came back to the present. I was sweating, and it wasn’t just the hot weather. I glanced at Daniela guiltily. Was it creepy to have a sexual fantasy, even if you were only ing a dream, with your niece sitting right next to you in the enger seat? Could Daniela feel my energy at some subliminal level? Fortunately, she was oblivious, lost in her tunes and the all-engrossing world of her book. I pulled off at the Buttonwillow rest stop. It was 102 degrees in the shade, so we poured water on each other and tried to cool off. I lit a cigarette and Daniela went back and sat in the car. I finished smoking and got back in the car. “Eww, you smell like hecka smoke. You should quit.” “Thanks.” “You know what? Everyone but us has the A.C. on. It’s like 200 degrees. Can’t we turn on the A.C.?” “Not everyone. Look at them.” A multi-generational Asian-American family had set up a meal on the picnic tables, taking food from coolers and eating with gusto. “They seem to be having a good time. I leave the A.C. off to prevent global warming. Besides, I don’t like getting cold and then going out into the hot air.” “A.C. doesn’t affect global warming, Tía. And anyway, you were complaining about how hot it is.” I looked around. An elderly white couple sat in their R.V. with the windows rolled up and the motor running. And two light-brown-skinned young women in cutoffs and tank tops got Cokes from the vending machine and rushed back to their car, where they also sat with the windows rolled up and the motor running.

“OK.” I conceded defeat. “But just until we get to L.A. I don’t want to use it around town while we’re there.” “Cool!” Daniela said, and flipped on the A.C. like she was born to it, adjusting and fine-tuning the controls until the air was just exactly right.

We walked up the steps to Aunt Miriam’s house and Pookie started barking before we even rang the bell. “Pookie,” Daniela crooned. “We’re here, Baby!” My aunt opened the door and wrapped her arms around her granddaughter and squeezed. “My baby girl is growing up! Still the math whiz?” Then she circled an arm around me and pulled me into the hug. “And you, lovely? How’s the bounty hunter business?” I pulled away, exasperated. “I’m not a bounty hunter.” “Just joking,” she said. “You know me.” “Yeah, I know you,” I laughed, and came back into the circle of her hug. Miriam Rosenbloom (née Miller) had moved to the Echo Park neighborhood in L.A. twenty years ago, newly divorced and drawn by a job opportunity to work with high-risk youth in the juvenile justice system. Now, at seventy, she still worked part-time, read voraciously, wrote a column for a neighborhood newspaper, and was active in the antiwar movement. She’d been arrested seven or eight times for various civil disobedience actions. Last but not least, she took Aikido classes a few times a week, and never missed one. Whenever I was around her, I felt feeble. Daniela picked up Pookie. “How’s my baby girl?” she crooned. The dog responded with an indeterminate whine. “Are you hungry?” Miriam asked. “Yes!” I said, at the same time as Daniela said, “No.”

“I made Moroccan chicken.” “Oh my god, I’m going to have a religious experience,” I said. An hour later, we sat down to dinner. The Moroccan chicken, accompanied by fluffy rice and one of Miriam’s unique green salads, was exquisite. “What’s in this salad? It’s outrageous,” I asked, between bites. “It’s the sexy salad,” she said. “Eww!” Daniela giggled. “What makes it sexy?” I asked. “It has feta cheese, olives, dates, and walnuts. I got the recipe off the Internet.” “And is it called ‘The Sexy Salad’ on the Internet?” I asked. “No, I named it myself.” “Oh, Grandma.” Daniela rolled her eyes. She was sneaking tidbits to Pookie under the table, strictly against the rules in Miriam’s household. I didn’t tell.

After Miriam and Daniela went to bed, I sat in the living room with my laptop, doing search after search. I tried Julia Ruiz Valdez, Julia Valdez, Julie Ruiz Valdez, and Julie Valdez. I found doctors, church committee , teachers, plaintiffs, defendants, and all manner of Julia Valdezes, but so far no actors. I picked up my phone to call Boyko and saw Robbie had called. “Sadie, turns out I’m back in town for a couple of days. Have to leave again on Sunday night. Do you want to meet for lunch, or take a walk, maybe shoot some hoops?” “Aargh!” I said aloud. We were continually crossing signals. I called him back, but it went right to voice mail. “It’s Sadie. I’m in L.A. Unfortunately I’ll be getting back Sunday night, just when you’re leaving.” Then, thinking this sounded grumpy, I added, “But I’m glad you got in touch. Call me back if you want.”

When I called Boyko he wasn’t answering either. Everyone was calling or texting or e-mailing, but not really there. I tried a more focused search online: Julia or Julie Ruiz, plus “theater.” Bingo. Julia Ruiz had appeared at the Town Hall Theater in Hollywood just six months ago, in Beyond Therapy. It was a long shot. But it was my long shot. I crept into the guest room, doing my best not to wake Daniela, but there was no danger of that, she was out like a light. Her earbuds emanated a faint buzz of music and one hand was stuck in her book to hold her place. Beside her lay Mitzi, the fuzzy surrogate dog she’d slept with since she was a toddler. What a dear, sweet girl, I thought, gently disengaging her from her paraphernalia. Setting the book on the night table, I noticed the author’s name. I froze. Out in the hallway I turned on the light to get a better look. The Tunnel through Time, the second book in the series that began with The Journey. On the cover, Alice rode alone on a white bird, flying through a starry night. With a shiver of excitement, I scanned the back cover. I was curious, yet I didn’t want to jump ahead of the story before I’d even finished the first book. I set The Tunnel on the night table, went back to the living room, and rummaged through my bag until I found The Journey. Settling into the couch, I began reading where I’d left off.

Alice was annoyed. Why did her brother get a magical stone for a talisman but she was supposed to depend on her heart, which she had always been taught was unreliable. Starting with her first-grade teacher, who had said, “Alice, your problem is you think with your heart, not your head,” she had been told again and again not to rely on her feelings. They made their way home in the dusk, kicking at the fallen leaves as they walked. “Everyone calls them witches. I don’t think anyone knows who they really are,” Alice said. They walked in silence, each thinking about the Possible sisters, and the path that lay ahead of them. “What does unfurled mean?” Gil asked. “When you have a blanket all folded up and you shake it out, you’re unfurling

it.” “Like unrolling?” She nodded. “Does that mean father is all rolled up?” he asked, a note of fear in his voice. She sighed. “I don’t know. I was wondering the same thing. To unfurl something it would have to be furled.” “My stomach hurts,” he said.

Mother greeted each of them with a kiss. She didn’t look angry anymore. “I made chicken pot pies, your favorite,” she said. Gil and Alice looked at each other, wide-eyed, but didn’t say anything. “I thought you’d be excited. You’re always asking me to make them.” “I am excited. I love your chicken pot pies,” Gil said. “Me too,” Alice added. “Mmm. Can’t wait.”

Alice stayed up, reading with a flashlight, until she heard her mother go to bed. After a while, she tiptoed down the hall and stood outside her parents’ bedroom. Mother was making soft snoring noises. Alice moved quietly down the hall to Gil’s room. She came up to his bed, where a shaft of moonlight fell across the quilt. He was asleep, holding his flashlight in his hand. She woke him, and he got right out of bed, already dressed. He put on his shoes and they went back to Alice’s room and climbed out the window. “Do you have your stone and your chocolate?” she asked him. “Yes. Do you have your chocolate?” “I do. I wish I had a touchstone like you.”

“It’s a seeing-stone, actually.” They stood at the base of Tor. “Are you sure this is the right tree?” he said. “Yes—the poem says it rhymes with door. Sycamore.” “I know,” he said. “But those are sycamore trees too, over there, by the fence.” Alice didn’t want to tell him her secret name for this tree, or how special it was to her, or that it rhymed with door. “Let’s try this one, and if we don’t find anything, we can look at the other sycamores.” Mrs. However’s words echoed in her mind: “Climb to the fifth branch, no more.” When they reached the fourth branch, Alice looked above them to the fifth. It didn’t look very strong. Balancing on the fourth branch, she reached up to the limb above, to test its strength. She felt something hard, like a seed pod. She wrapped her hand around the object, brought her hand down, and slowly opened her hand. “Gil, your flashlight.” He pointed the light at the thing in her hand. A pipe. She breathed in the familiar smell of her father. A smell she so missed. Maybe Father had been here before them.

When you smell the pipe The time is ripe Use your eyes, ears, and heart When you do this you will start

She felt something, a space opening, in her chest. Gil was trembling and pointing to the tree trunk, which a moment ago had been solid, but now was glowing and parting to reveal an opening. She put her hand in his and started to

say something to reassure him, but before she could they were both sucked into the tunnel.

CHAPTER 20

The morning sun poured into the guest room window. Yes, definitely, I was in L.A. No fog in sight. Daniela was still fast asleep, covers pulled up over her head, so I dressed quietly and tiptoed into the kitchen, where I found freshly brewed coffee. Whispering a silent prayer to the gods of caffeine, I poured myself a cup. Miriam was in the living room, her hands moving over her head and slowly down, as if she were pushing down on a solid block of air. “Tai Chi?” I whispered as I hurried toward the front door. What was the protocol for talking to someone while they were doing slow-motion exercises? “Qi Gong. Chinese health exercise. What about break-fast?” she said, still moving steadily. “I’ll get some at a coffee shop. Gotta get to work.” As she shook her head, Miriam switched the direction and rhythm of her arm movements. Now they swung up and down, up and down. “I have bagels and lox. Cream cheese, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers. More healthy and less expensive.” “Thanks, that’s sweet of you, Miriam, but I gotta go. See you around five or so.” I felt vaguely guilty, but—screw guilt, I told myself. I had work to do. It was nine a.m. when I pulled up in front of the Town Hall Theater. No selfrespecting theater person would be at work yet, but it was a chance for me to check the place out before I got some breakfast. To the uninitiated, Hollywood sounds like a glamorous place. But except for some fabulous houses in the hills and a few renovated pockets, it was run-down and seedy. Hollywood proper, anyway, not West Hollywood, or WeHo to the locals. Gentrified over a slow flame by an influx of gay men with good taste and money to spend, WeHo was an upscale neighborhood full of colorful boutiques, restaurants, and cafés. The Town Hall Theater had a nicely lettered marquee and a box office, but the pink stucco building hadn’t been painted for many years, and one of the upstairs

windows was boarded-up. According to the website, it was once a burlesque theater. You could say it had an air of old-Hollywood glamour except it didn’t. The marquee announced: “Coming Soon: Irina’s Waltz—One Woman’s Search for Self in a World Gone Awry.” I’d like a rye myself right now, I thought, straight up. With a side of eggs and toast. I started to climb out of the car to walk to the nearest diner, but got right back in behind the wheel. Nobody walks in L.A. Just after ten a.m., I returned, caffeinated and fed. Was it still too early for the theater workers? They might be sleeping in or at their day jobs. But a theater this size had to have one or two staff to manage the place and write grant proposals, and maybe even a trust fund baby who subsidized the place with family money. The theater looked closed, but I tried the door anyway. Locked. I got back in the car and waited. I’d done some surveillance during my brief stint as a process server, and Boyko had instructed me: keep your eyes on the building and everything surrounding it; no reading, no talking on the phone, no texting, just sit and watch. About a half hour later, a vintage Honda Civic, circa 1980s, the paint oxidized to a dull red, pulled up and parked in front of me. The driver was out of the car in a shot. She was a white woman in her thirties, short brown hair, about 5’ 5,’’ chunky physique, wearing baggy beige shorts, an oversized tee-shirt, and a yellow baseball cap, worn backwards. She strode up to the theater door, unlocked it, and disappeared inside. I figured I’d wait until she got settled before I knocked on the door. Minutes later, a gray Chevy pickup truck pulled up—a big American creature from the 1950s, with rounded fenders and a massive bed you could use for hauling around farm equipment or—more likely—theater sets. The driver got out. He glanced at me briefly and I saw him take a mental note, but he didn’t let on that he’d seen me. Tall and rangy, in his 40s, he was prematurely gray-haired, with wire-rimmed glasses and a kind face. He looked preoccupied, but unlike his comrade in the red Honda, moved slowly and methodically. He put his key in the theater door, then realized it was unlocked. It looked like his lips formed the word “shit.” He shook his head, then disappeared inside. I waited a few minutes before trying the door. It was locked. I knocked and waited. No answer. Then I banged on it. From my right, I heard a voice, saying “May I help you?” I turned. The gray-haired man was behind the box office

window, a friendly smile on his face. “I’m looking for an actor named Julia Ruiz. She was in your show Beyond Therapy?” The man’s smile dropped away. “And you are…?” he asked politely, but I felt the chill in the air. I had planned on using the pretext that I was an indie director looking to cast Julia Ruiz in a new film project. But this guy’s face, so open, despite the hint of coolness, and his eyes so completely without guile, told me not to. I couldn’t lie to him. “My name’s Sadie García Miller. I’m helping Julia’s sister look for her. She’s missing and her sister wants to reconnect.” Maybe it wasn’t one hundred percent the truth. But then, most of the time people don’t want the whole truth. “Oh,” he said. “You’re not from the police?” “No. Should I be?” “I guess if you were a cop you wouldn’t be asking for Julia.” He looked me up and down. “Besides, you don’t look like a cop.” Maybe my effort to look like an indie film director— tight jeans, femme lacey top, and cowboy boots—had paid off. I smiled in the most unthreatening manner possible. “I’m definitely not a cop.” He paused and took a breath. “OK. I’ll let you in. Wait a moment.” I heard the door unlock, and I stepped into a lobby that smelled faintly of incense and cigarette smoke. “Thanks,” I said. “The way it smells in here makes me want a cigarette.” He laughed. “I thought we got rid of it with the incense and the fans. I guess not. I could use one myself. Let’s go to the designated smoking room.” I smiled, happy as always to find a kindred nicotine addict, and followed him into a room filled with a jumble of café tables and other furniture. “I appreciate your taking the time to talk with me. Why did you ask if I was a

police officer?” “They keep coming by. It’s been really stressful. I’m Brick Paxton, by the way.” “Brick?” “Yeah, like brick wall.” I offered him a cigarette but he shook his head and took out his own. He lit our cigarettes, mine first, both of us inhaling at the same moment. I let the smoke out slowly and it formed a soft curl, lit by a ray of sun coming through the window. “Why do the police keep coming by?” He looked at me quizzically, and then his eyes narrowed slightly. He looked away, and for a moment I caught a flicker of pain on his face. “You seriously don’t know?” he said. “I don’t get it. If her sister sent you—she must know by now.” He ed my confusion. “I guess not,” he said. “You should probably sit down.” We sank into a lumpy red velvet couch that looked like it had been through one show too many. I was getting a bad feeling in my gut about Julia. I hoped I was wrong. He confirmed my fears in the next moment: “I’m sorry to tell you that Julia is dead. The cops think she was murdered.” “Murdered? I’m… so sorry.” I shivered. I pushed away the disoriented sensation and the series of memories, and closed that door in my mind. I concentrated on asking the necessary questions. “It must be awfully hard, when you worked so closely with her. Were you—friends?” “You do a show and you become—closer than friends— more like family. And then you don’t see each other for a while but it doesn’t matter, because you’re still close… I hadn’t seen her since Beyond Therapy but then she came to see a show here about a month ago. It was so great to see her. She had this—this quality, when she looked at you, you felt like you were the only person in the room.” Where had I heard that recently? Teresa. She’d said the same thing about their

mother. Brick went on. “Julia was part of the Town Hall family. I was sure we’d cast her again in another show, and that we’d always be friends. But it turned out that was the last time I saw her, when she was here to see Streetcar.” “Streetcar Named Desire?” “Yeah,” he said. He finished his cigarette and lit a new one with it. “When did she—when was she killed?” “A little over a week ago.” “My god. It just happened?” I shuddered, and Brick looked at me curiously. It was hot in the airless room. “I wonder why my—friend wasn’t ed.” “They were in the process of finding her relatives.” “But why haven’t the police located her family?” “I don’t know. They’re clueless, if you ask me. They said they thought she was using an alias. But you’d think they’d have learned her real name and ed her family by now.” “This is unbelievable.” I felt lightheaded, and full of dread at the thought of making the phone call to Grace. “The thing is,” he said, “I’m not convinced the person you’re looking for is this Julia. Our Julia.” “You might be right. But I’d like to find out for sure.” Brick looked at me closely. I hoped I was ing the test, whatever it was. He took a deep breath and then blew it out. “Julia swore me to secrecy, but I guess —I guess it doesn’t matter now. And you seem like you’re on the up-and-up. She was using an alias. In a way. She’d recently transitioned from being a man to a woman. Post-op. She told me everything one night over drinks. She was afraid if people knew, it would interfere with her career. If they found out she wasn’t a genetic woman.”

His story confirmed what I’d suspected, but I still felt like I was in a dream. I’d started out looking for a book, then for a missing man, then a missing woman, and now it turned out, for a dead person. If Julia Ruiz really was the former Joey Valdez, this was true transformation. “I don’t know how familiar you are with trans people,” he said. “I’m from San Francisco.” “Right. San Francisco.” “I think your Julia is the person I’m looking for,” I said. “I have a strong feeling. Do you have a picture of her?” “We have some photos from the show. She’s in character— I mean all made up and wigged, but you’ll at least get an idea. No, wait, I think we have some rehearsal shots too. Come on up to the office.” I followed him up the stairs, which were carpeted in a faded red-and-yellow art deco print, frayed in places and showing signs of frequent repair. The place reeked of history. “How long have you been in this theater?” “Only a few years. We’re lucky, we just got the space next door too, so we’re expanding. We run the theater on a shoestring, you know. Grants and private donations. It’s always a struggle. But you get used to it after a while and you don’t stress as much. Theater is like an addiction.” He half-smiled. The office was cluttered with tables, folding chairs, and piles of paper, its walls lined with bookshelves full of binders and scripts. The woman I had seen earlier was working at a computer. She didn’t look up. Brick pulled out a couple of black binders, thumbed through them, and put them back. “Kim, where’s the binder with the Beyond Therapy photos?” Not bothering to hide her irritation, Kim looked away from her computer long enough to yank a binder off the shelf above her desk and hand it to him. She went right back to peering at her computer, her neck jutting forward as she examined something on the screen. “There should be a few shots of Julia in this one,” he said to me.

Kim whipped her head around to look at us when she heard Julia’s name and a flicker of something crossed her face—fear? Anger? Her head stayed motionless but she took a quick up-and-down inventory of me, then went back to her trusty computer screen. Brick headed out and I followed. In the hallway he rolled his eyes, and when we went back downstairs to the smoking room he pointed upstairs and said, “She has no social skills.” “What does she do here?” “She runs the business side. She can be a bit difficult, but she’s a great and a hard worker. I don’t know what I’d do without her. She pulled this place together when it was about to go down the tubes. I mean she saved the theater, literally.” “That’s quite something. So what’s your job here?” “I’m the artistic director and the technical director.” “Pretty impressive—two full-time jobs. How do you do it?” He laughed. “I have no choice. If you’re in theater, you’re crazy, that’s a given.” He thumbed through pages of photos. “Here,” he said, pointing at a few photos of actors in rehearsal. “Julia’s in all of these. Oh god, I haven’t looked at these, since—since it happened.” He handed me the binder, went over to the window, and lit a cigarette. Sitting down on the couch, I examined the rehearsal shots. In one photo, Julia faced the audience and the camera. A man stood behind her, a look of unfulfilled longing on his face. Even in her tight tee-shirt and jeans, Julia looked glamorous, with large dark eyes, shoulder-length black hair, substantial breasts, slim hips, and a vulnerable aura. I rummaged through my bag and found the photo of Joey. I held it next to the rehearsal photo of Julia. You had to squint your eyes a little, but there it was. The stance, the facial features, the angle of the head: a certain essence of the person, one and the same. Even the body, except for the boob job, was strangely similar. I heard a soft, low whistle. Brick stood over me, looking back and forth between

the two photos, nodding. “So you knew,” he said. “Why didn’t you say?” I put the snapshot away. “I didn’t know for sure. Just had a hunch.” “How did your ‘hunch’ happen?” “Hard to explain. An intuition.” I shook my head. “This is so sad. Here was a person who was following her dreams in every way. Was it a hate crime?” “They think so,” he said. “The cops think it was a guy she brought home to have sex with, who discovered the truth and killed her in a rage. But there are no witnesses and besides— the cops—they just don’t get it.” He shook his head. “They assume that a man who gets a sex change does it because he’s gay and wants to become the woman who gets the man. They have it all wrong. Julia wouldn’t have brought a guy home. She was hetero when she was a guy and when she became a woman she still loved women, dated women, everything. She was looking for a long-term relationship.” “So, essentially—Julia was a lesbian?” He shook his head. “She didn’t identify as one, but she made it clear she only wanted to date women, not men. I tried to tell that to the cops. They wouldn’t listen.” He took out his cigarettes, offering me one. I took it and he lit them both. “So her sister was worried and asked you to look for her?” he asked. “Why didn’t she hire a private investigator?” “I don’t know. I just know she wanted to find Joey—Julia. Also Julia had something of my client’s. A book.” “A book?” His eyes flicked over to the side. “Yeah.” “I don’t know about that.” Stubbing out my cigarette, I stood up. “I appreciate your taking the time to talk with me. I should be going.” I paused. “It’ll be hard when Grace hears the news

about Julia, but it’s always better to know the truth.” “Grace?” he said, with a look of surprise. “Yeah, her sister Grace, my friend.” He frowned and shook his head. “Julia said she never wanted to see Grace again. The reason she took the job in Mexico was to get away from her.”

On the street, I leaned against the car and smoked a cigarette. Death has a way of putting everything else in perspective. Now that I was alone, I let the full weight of Julia’s murder come into my mind. With that thought, the past slid into the present, and a wall of ice closed in on me. I pushed it away, tried to bring myself back by feeling the surface of the car against my hips, the smoke coming into my throat and going out. Brick’s reaction to hearing Grace’s name was new information. What had happened between my client and her brother/sister, and what else was she keeping from me? I was facing away from the theater so I didn’t see her coming, but I felt a presence and turned around. “Hi,” the theater said. “I’m Sadie,” I said, and put out my hand. “I’m Kim.” We shook hands. Hers was clammy, and I resisted the urge to wipe mine off on my jeans. I ed Brick’s comment about her lack of social skills, and made a move to get the conversation going. “Would you like to ask me something?” “Yeah,” she said. “How did you know Julia?” “I didn’t. I was helping my friend look for her.”

“So you’re not—like—a friend of Julia’s?” “No.” “Oh. What are you looking for?” She held herself still, her arms close to her sides. I wondered if she was breathing. “Like I said—for Julia.” I tried not to show my impatience. Kim might prove to be a source of information, and I didn’t want to alienate her. “But I thought you were looking for something that Julia has. Had.” She looked at me out of pale blue eyes, so pale you almost wondered how the light got in there. My stomach felt funny. This woman was creeping me out. “Yeah. I’m looking for something for her sister. Why?” “What is it? The thing you’re looking for?” “A book.” “The book. I thought so. Where is it?” she said, cracking her knuckles. Her persistent questions had a rational format, but with a scary underpinning. What did she mean by the book? “What book are you referring to?” “No book,” she said. She started to walk away. “Kim.” She flinched and turned back to me. “Did you know Julia?” I asked. “Yeah, I knew her. Did you? Were you seeing her?” A prickly sensation ran down my spine, and with it an instinct to get away from this person as quickly as possible. Instead I held my ground. “No, I never met

her. Were you friends? I heard she was quite a special person.” “She was my friend.” Kim looked into the distance, her eyes scanning the Hollywood Hills. “My only friend.” “You seem interested in the book I’m looking for,” I said. “No,” she said, stepping back. Somewhere inside her a steel door clanked shut. As she turned to leave, her eyes darkened. “Goodbye.”

CHAPTER 21

When I got back to Miriam’s I called out. No one was there but Pookie, who was running a circuit from me to the kitchen and back again. By the kitchen door, she paused for a pantomime, a jumping action to show me, the stupid human, where her leash was hanging. Sighing with resignation, I attached it and she pulled me out to the sidewalk. One death brings up another, and another. I found myself in a spiraling train of thought. It was just before I moved to Brooklyn to live with Grandpa. I was staring down at the boxes of Dad’s things, and Gloria was pulling me away, saying, I’ll put them in storage, M’ija, don’t worry about it. I stopped in the middle of the Echo Park sidewalk, tears running down my face. Look, I told myself. You didn’t even know Julia. Or Joey. But you still have to do your job. You have to tell Grace her brother is dead. That her brother, now her sister, was murdered. And you have to find her talisman. Something was nagging at the corners of my mind. What was it? Again, the picture of my Dad’s things swam into view, all packed up. This time I saw the image clearly—cartons full of books. Right. Where were Joey/Julia’s things? Were they still in her old apartment? Was Grace’s book sitting in a box, waiting for me? Brick had given me the address of Julia’s old apartment in West Hollywood, along with the name of the neighbor friend. Maybe I’d go there tonight, just to check it out. Then I was walking again, down an incline, a warm breeze blowing softly on my bare arms. Pookie pulled me into a neighborhood park. A few kids, no more than fifteen years old, were sitting around, smoking and laughing. They turned to look, then ignored me. I pulled back on the leash and led the way to the next street, where the houses were smaller and showed more signs of wear but were surrounded by lots of thick foliage in big ceramic pots. Bright splashes of magenta bougainvillea climbed the walls. In front of one house, I stopped, noticing a statue of the Virgen de Guadalupe. She smiled down at me, knowingly, from a

thicket of cactus. What should I do, I asked silently. It was starting to get dark. I must’ve been standing, staring at the Guadalupe, for quite a while. Pookie was whining and pulling on the leash, dragging me from my trancelike state. As we headed back to the house, the thought of my missing earring came to me. I had repeatedly kept myself from thinking about it, but occasionally I felt its absence. Would I ever find it?

Daniela greeted me in the kitchen with a hug. “Did you solve any mysteries today? Like Nancy Drew?” She giggled. “No.” How much could I share with a ten-year-old? Murder? Transgender issues? Struggling actress struck down by a hate crime? None of the above. “How was your day, Sweetie?” “OK, I guess. I’m a little stressed,” Daniela said. “Why?” She used the word so casually—a word I hadn’t even known at her age. “We have this super big book report I’m working on.” Her papers and books were spread out on the carpet. “I can help you with it, if you want.” “No, that’s OK. My Mom was supposed to help me with it, but she’s been so weird lately. Then Dad was gonna help me, but he’s so impatient. I’m good just doing it myself.” I looked more closely at my niece. Something was bothering her. “How has your Mom been weird?” “She’s just.” Daniela looked out the window and stopped talking. “You don’t need to know about it.” “I don’t need to know about it, true. But if you feel like talking, I’m up for it. Anytime.”

She kept staring out the window. “It’s OK, Tía. Really. I’m fine.” Whenever someone insists they’re fine, it usually means just the opposite. But it seemed more important to back off and respect her boundaries. “Yes, you are. Fine. I’m going to see if your grandma needs any help with dinner. Let me know if you change your mind about the book report.” I gave her a hug. In the kitchen, Miriam was slapping a grayish-brown mixture into a loaf shape. “What is that?” I said. Miriam caught my expression and smiled. “Lentil loaf. You’ll see, it’s delicious.” She put me to work chopping carrots, onions, and celery. It was comforting to have a straightforward task to complete. “How are you?” she asked. “We haven’t talked for a long time.” “Not so good.” “Yeah, you look stressed. Man trouble? Woman trouble?” “Neither. It’s this case I’m working on.” “You’re kidding. You usually won’t talk about your work. How exciting!” She was right, I rarely talked about my work, especially with family. But this case was getting to me. I took a deep breath and told her everything. “Murder! For crying out loud. Sadie, I want you off this case. Right now.” Her cheeks flushed, and her dark eyes drilled into me. “We’ve had enough trouble in our family,” she said. We stared at each other. It had been so long since I tried talking to her about Dad’s death. Like Grandpa and Gloria, whenever I brought it up, she would retreat into herself, her face closed, her lips pursed, insisting it was a car accident. I waited for her to say something more. Nothing. Finally, I spoke. “Julia’s murder—it’s tragic. But it has no connection to what I’m working on, I swear. I’m thinking if I can look through her stuff, maybe I’ll

find the book. But if I don’t, I don’t. At least I will have done the best I can for my client.” “What does the woman who died have to do with your client?” “I told you. It was my client’s brother who was murdered.” Miriam frowned. “I thought it was a woman.” “It was—he was—he became a woman.” “Oh.” She nodded sagely. “A transgender person.” “Right.” “Well then. The murder—it was a hate crime, wasn’t it?” “The cops think so.” She squared her shoulders and her eyes burned with purpose. “This is important —what you’re working on. Hate crimes against transgender people—it’s a civil rights issue.”

We dropped the work conversation during dinner. The lentil loaf turned out to be surprisingly good, and Daniela was back to her bubbly self, but I was preoccupied. After dinner, Miriam went to bed early, and Daniela fell asleep on the couch, earbuds in place. I covered her with a quilt. I went over my case notes, promising myself that I’d call Grace the next day. In the guest room, I tried to go to sleep but couldn’t. I turned on the light and opened The Journey.

The last thing Alice ed was being whooshed through a tunnel. She found herself in a tiny, round room, with no windows or doors. The walls seemed to be made of light, but when she ran her hands along the surface, they were

hard as steel. “Gil, where are you?” she called out. In response, there was only silence. The tears fell down her face, and she brushed them off. Putting her face in her hands, she thought: this is all my fault. She had brought her brother into this, and now they were imprisoned. She had to find Gil, to protect him. She thought back to the tunnel, the fifth branch and the Possible Sisters. Surely this was the other plane of existence, and Father was here, somewhere. “Father,” she cried out. All she heard was a soft hum. Nothing else. Then, into her mind came a voice, “But only use it if you are in danger.” Madame Possible’s gift. Surely, Alice thought, she was in danger now, and she could use her talisman. She put her hand on her heart. Nothing happened. She waited. But nothing came to her. Of course it didn’t. So they were right, all the adults who had said, “Think with your head, not your heart.” Why couldn’t she have been given a magic stone for a talisman, like her brother? It wasn’t fair. Why did she have to rely on her heart, which had always proved unreliable? She punched the wall, angrily, and then braced herself for the pain in her hand, but none came. She had made a crack in the wall, and light seeped through. In and around the crack were strands that reminded her of the fiberglass insulation she and Father had stuffed between the walls when they renovated the house. How had the wall turned from the steely surface she had touched moments ago to these airy filaments? She touched the edges of the hole, and then bent down to look through it. What she saw made her breath catch. Hundreds of pods like the one that held her captive. Pushing, she tried to stretch the edges of the hole. It only opened slightly, not enough for her to escape through it. Was it possible, she thought, that her heart had led her to pound the wall and create this opening? Maybe it was truly her talisman. Once again she placed her hand on her heart. This time she waited. And heard a single word: furl. What kind of word was that? To unfurl was to unroll something. She examined the gap in the wall, and found if she pressed against it with her whole body, it opened slightly. Leaning into the wall, she brought her knees up, furled herself into a ball, and pushed herself into the space. A brief sensation of falling, and she was out.

I found myself falling asleep. As I turned out the light and slid under the covers, an image of Robbie, his green eyes flecked with ion, flashed through my mind. It felt good to be touched by those eyes. The night was endless: I woke up again and again, dreading the next day, when I would have to break the unbearable news to Grace.

CHAPTER 22

Grace

Stepping off the elliptical, Grace moved on to the weight machines. She liked the feeling of pushing against something. Something with resistance. The more she thought about it, the more it pissed her off. Even if Sadie hadn’t found Joey yet, she should at least have called. Why hadn’t she? Grace pushed the bar up, held it, and brought it down slowly. So he had stayed in touch with Teresita, but not her. Even if he was mad, he still could’ve told Grace he was going to Mexico. Could’ve told her when he moved to L.A. He’d changed his cell number, his e-mail address, everything. She moved on to the next machine. Pushing against the pedals with her feet, she extended her legs, then brought them back slowly. She’d apologized to him a million times, told him it would never happen again. After all the times she’d invited him, he finally came up to the City to see her two Christmases ago. He said he forgave her, and she believed him. He was such a good actor, so convincing. She should have known— the only time he came to her house was to steal the one thing most precious to her. At this point, all she just wanted was the pinché book back and that’s it—forget being friends, or brother and sister, or even cousins. But then she heard Mamá’s voice in her head, “Be honest, M’ija.” Grace thought, OK, the truth—she did want to see him. She missed him. She thought about the good times, how they used to walk to the neighborhood pool on hot days and play in the water for hours, keeping a running score for who could stay underwater the longest. She had a strange feeling in her third chakra. Something was not right with the universe. All morning, she’d felt it. She moved on to the next machine. After the gym, she’d grab a sandwich and go to the office. It was always so nice and quiet in the office on Saturdays, so much easier to get your work done. She chanted

silently in rhythm each time she lifted the bar:

Something’s lost and can’t be found Please, St. Anthony, look around

CHAPTER 23

The next morning I woke early, after a night of restless dreams. I wandered into the living room. Half-buried under the quilt, Daniela lay with one arm flung over her head, the other dangling off the edge of the couch. I sat down in the armchair, musing at the wonder of cross-pollination—her straight jet-black hair, Asian eyelids, and Jewish nose—thinking she was probably the most beautiful human being I’d ever seen. As always, I felt a low-level anxiety. She was OK now, but could I protect her from some unknown danger that could pop up anywhere, anytime? I saw faint rings under her eyes, and wondered about the “stress” she mentioned yesterday. I’d never heard her talk like that. “Don’t you just want to eat her up?” Miriam said. I hadn’t noticed her standing there. “Absolutely.” I stood up and stretched. “I have to get dressed. I’m going to go check something out.” “This early?” Miriam said. “It’s seven a.m.” “I have to drive over to Julia’s old apartment building.” “Where is it?” “West Hollywood.” “It’s going to take you about twenty minutes to get there, depending on the traffic.” She started rattling off freeway numbers: you take the blah to the blahblah and then get on the blah-blah and get off at blah. Then I heard her say, “And I’ll come with you.” “Not a good idea.” “I’m coming too,” Daniela said, her eyes still closed.

“You little sneak! How long have you been awake?” I said. “About an hour.” Miriam and I looked at each other. Daniela had been breathing audibly and twitching in the unmistakable depths of sleep a few minutes ago. Now she sat up and took out her earbuds, a true sign she wanted to communicate. “I want to go with you, Aunt Sadie. You always say you’ll take me with you sometime on one of your investigations and you never do.” “They’re not investigations, they’re—searches. And I said I would take you when you’re older. And besides, this is not the one.” “Because of the murder? And a man changing into a lady?” “What?” I gasped. “I heard you and Grandma talking last night,” she said. I looked at Miriam, thinking, what else did we say? Daniela continued: “And who’s Julia? Is she your client? I thought you were looking for someone named Joey.” Note to self: do not share any information about cases with Daniela. Ever. Again. “Joey decided he wanted to be a woman and made the transition to Julia,” Miriam explained. I glared at her. “Thanks, Miriam. That was supposed to be confidential. And is this an age-appropriate discussion?” “I know all about that stuff,” Daniela said. “About what stuff?” I asked. “About people changing from boy to girl. Like Samantha’s Dad.” “Who’s Samantha?” “A friend from drama camp. It was weird, you know, like, for her to introduce

him? He looks like a lady now. She would go, ‘This was my dad.’Not this is my dad.” Flinging off the quilt, she stretched her arms up and yawned. “Grandma, are there any bagels?” “On the kitchen table.” She left the room, and Miriam and I shared a conspiratorial laugh. So much for shielding our little girl from confusing transgender issues. All through breakfast, the two of them continued on their campaign to come with me, attempting to convince me with their lawyer-like arguments. When that didn’t work, Daniela resorted to begging. “Please, Aunt Sadie?” “No.” “It’s just to talk to the building manager, right?” Miriam said. “That’s no big deal.” “Actually, to talk to Julia’s neighbor.” “So it’s no big thing. We’re coming with you,” Miriam said. “Absolutely not.” “We’re coming,” Daniela said. “No, and that’s final.”

CHAPTER 24

I was at the wheel, Miriam in the front and Daniela in the back. When we got there, I made one last attempt to salvage the situation. “Why don’t you two take the car and go hang out somewhere—like at a park— while I do this thing?” “Park, schmark,” Miriam said. “We’re coming with you. Stop worrying.” I shook my head in resignation. Miriam was a formidable opponent, even without Aikido moves. I pulled into a parking spot right in front of the building. L.A. is a paradise for cars. Just not for humans. The apartment building, a large cement structure, looked like it had been thrown up in the 1970s along with so much other low-grade construction. Trees and shrubbery, probably once manicured, were now overgrown and dusty. “Are we going to talk to the neighbor?” Miriam asked. “No. Listen. Both of you. I’m talking. You are listening. No talking while I’m conducting my interview.” “Interview? Like on tv?” Daniela had put together a special outfit for the occasion, including a hip-hop cap and sunglasses. “No. I do interviews to get information, to find lost objects.” I grimaced inwardly. Why oh why had I brought them? The building directory was the old-fashioned kind, with a list of names and actual buzzers you pressed manually. Brick had given me the name of Julia’s neighbor—Wanda Stevenson. I found a B. Stevenson on the directory and pressed the buzzer. A voice crackled through the speaker: “Yes?” “I’m looking for Wanda Stevenson.” There was a pause and I thought maybe the person had hung up. “Who is it, please?” the voice said.

“I’m Sadie García Miller, and I’m a friend-of-a-friend of Julia’s.” There was no answer, just the sound of the buzzer in response. We stepped inside. “It says “B. Stevenson, and not W. Stevenson,” Daniela said. “Maybe B. stands for her husband’s initial, like… Bill. Or no—wait, wait, I know—maybe Wanda’s her middle name, and her first name is…Barbie.” We got off the elevator at the third floor. Wanda was standing in the hall waiting for us. She was taller than me, even: I pegged her at about 6 ft., 150 pounds. Not pretty, but there was something striking about her, with her shoulder-length auburn hair and expertly applied makeup. A fitted tunic top in a flowered turquoise print framed her large, possibly fake, breasts. Wanda looked us over and fastened her eyes on me, asking, “Are you Sadie, then, with your entourage?” I liked her right away. “This is my Aunt Miriam and my niece Daniela.” “Any friend-of-a-friend of Julia’s is a friend of mine. Who do you have in common with Julia?” She ushered us in before I could answer. “I’ll put the kettle on. I had to make sure you weren’t another cop, but I can tell you’re not.” I laughed. “That’s the second time I’ve heard that. What makes me not seem like a cop?” “No cop would bring a child along on an investigation.” At that I felt a pang of guilt, and glanced at Daniela. Yes, if Catherine ever found out about this, she was going to kill me. We trooped into the kitchen, and I marveled at how Miriam and Daniela were actually keeping quiet. “I’m so sorry about Julia,” Miriam said. I gave her a dirty look. Huh. You can take the girl out of social work but you can’t take the social worker out of the girl. Wanda sighed. “I’ve already cried my eyes out. Now I’m just mad. Pissed off at the cops for not knowing what the hell they’re doing. Assholes. So, which friend

are you a friend of?” I hesitated, ing Brick’s reaction to my client’s name, but went for it anyway. “Grace.” Wanda set the teapot down on the table with a jolt. “Grace? You mean her sister?” She gave me a long, hard look. Oh boy, I thought. Here we go again. “Yes.” “Right.” “How the hell did Grace even know how to find her or that she was—” Wanda broke off and gave me a squinty-eyed look that seemed to suck all the warmth out of the room. “Who are you really?” I showed her my driver’s license. “I’m Sadie García Miller. Grace asked me to find her brother Joey Valdez. In my search for Joey, I found Julia Ruiz and put two and two together. I haven’t broken the news to Grace yet. I mean, about Joey being Julia, and about Julia’s death. Any of it.” Wanda stood with a tin of tea in one hand, her eyes fixed on me. She looked over at Miriam and Daniela and then turned her attention back to me. “OK,” she said. “If she’s gone to all the trouble of getting you to look for Julia— you’re a private investigator, right?” I started to say no, but Wanda continued: “If she’s gone to all this trouble and expense, maybe she deserves to know the truth. But if she’s just looking to get her money back, I don’t want anything to do with her.” “Money?” I said. Great. Another surprise. Wanda laughed. “Yeah. For the boob job. Julia didn’t tell Grace what the loan was for, she made up some story.” The kettle made an unearthly keening sound, and Wanda turned off the flame, poured the water into a delicately flowered teapot, and dumped it out. She measured tea leaves into the pot, poured in more water, and put the teapot lid in place. Then she set out milk, sugar, and some brightly colored mugs, and sat down. The room had gone quiet with tension.

Daniela said in a small voice, “That’s a beautiful teapot.” “Thank you, dear. I got it in Stoke-on-Trent. That’s in Staffordshire, England.” “Cool.” I could see the subtle movement of Daniela’s lips, as she silently repeated the place names to herself, filing them away for future reference. Before Miriam tried to jump in, I had to take charge of the conversation. “Grace isn’t interested in the money. She only wanted to reconnect with Julia. And there’s also something that Julia—borrowed—that Grace wants back.” “Ha,” Wanda smiled. “Just like Julia said. ‘They always want something.’ What is this thing she wants?” I hesitated. But what did I have to lose? “A book. Grace’s mother—their mother —gave it to her, so it has a lot of sentimental value. Do you, by any chance, have any of Julia’s things?” Wanda sighed. “I took three days off work to clear out her place. I donated most of it to Out of the Closet, but I have a few boxes of her stuff, yeah. Not many books, though, just a few plays, and some crossword puzzle books. She was always so good at those crossword things.” Wanda’s eyes filled up and spilled over. She angrily swiped at her face with one hand and picked up the teapot with the other. We sat in silence as she poured the tea. I took a deep breath. “Wanda, I’m sorry to be intruding on your grief. I know close friendships are like family, and it seems you two were close.” “We were. And being neighbors, and both being actresses, and M.T.F.’s,” Wanda said. I mentally translated: Male-to-female, M.T.F. Click. That explained the makeup, high heels, and mega-breasts. “What’s an M.T.F.?” Daniela asked. “Most Thoroughly Female,” Wanda answered quickly, and winked at me. Daniela looked unconvinced. “I realize how painful it is,” I said, “my coming in and asking you questions and all. It’s just that Grace was looking for a lost connection to family—to Joey— Julia. She missed her and wanted to heal whatever wound caused her to break off

their relationship.” This was partly bullshit but I hoped it contained a grain of truth. I put milk and sugar in my tea and took a sip. Wanda sat for a moment, drinking her tea, then closed her eyes briefly. She opened them and looked straight at me. “How did you know Joey became Julia? She said no one in her family knew except Teresa.” “I had a hunch and I followed it. That’s all.” “What about the homicide detective—didn’t she get in touch with Grace?” “No. What’s the detective’s name?” “Rozelle Flores—L.A.P.D.” I made a note of the detective’s name. Wanda looked like she was losing her patience, and I knew I was pushing the envelope, but it was now or never. “May I look through Julia’s stuff for the book—just in case?” She pursed her lips and said with irritation, “Well. I guess. We can look through it together.” She led the way into what looked like a combination sewing room and office. The antique sewing cabinet, with its vintage, faded black machine, the gold leaf letters spelling out Singer, reminded me of my mother’s. After she died, the Singer had sat in our house, untouched, all those years. When anyone had gently urged Dad to give some of her things away, to “move on,” he refused. I wondered what ever happened to my mother’s sewing machine. Wanda went directly to two boxes neatly stacked in a corner and took off the top one. “I only saved her special things,” she said. “I thought someone might want them. Maybe Teresa.” She pulled out the few books that were there. “See, it’s just plays. Beyond Therapy—ha, do we ever get beyond therapy? Here’s Hamlet, and what’s this one— Death of a Salesman. It seemed like the right thing to save these, to on to her family, whenever they get in touch. If they ever do.” “May I look through them?” “No!” Wanda snapped. “It just doesn’t feel right, letting a stranger paw through her things.” She stopped, and her eyes moved to the side and down. “Oh… all right, I suppose. If you want to look, just be careful how you handle them. Her things.”

She watched closely as I looked through each box. But Grace’s book wasn’t there—of course not. When I finished, she led me out of the room, and my niece and aunt followed along silently, like a pair of baby ducks trailing behind their mother. Wanda walked us directly to the door, opened it, and stood there waiting. It was clear our little visit was over.

We stepped out of the dark building into the bright sunlight. “Thank you both for being quiet, I really appreciate it.” “I only said that thing because it really was a pretty teapot,” Daniela said. As soon as we drove away, Miriam reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, dark blue notebook. “For you, my dear,” she said. “I lifted it from the box of Julia’s things when Wanda wasn’t looking. Sleight of hand. I guess she didn’t think a harmless old lady was worth watching.” Grinning, she flicked it open and ed it to me. I realized what I had in my hand. It wasn’t a notebook. It was a port. Joey Valdez’s port.

CHAPTER 25

I sequestered myself in the guest room at Miriam’s with my notes from the case. First, I looked at the photo on the port, and the stamps that showed he’d gone to Mexico. If nothing else, it was tangible proof that Julia really was Joey. Then, I looked up Rozelle Flores on the L.A.P.D. website, called, and left a message. Finally, there was nothing left to do but call Grace. I had already put it off too long. My stomach twisted. Telling someone a loved one has died is handing them a piece of news that will irrevocably change their life. I knew this all too well. Of course I had to call her. But once I told her about Joey/Julia’s death, what then? Should I say I was going to leave the investigation to the police and I couldn’t find her book? Didn’t I owe it to her to find out more? No. My job was to find the book, not solve the murder. But what if looking into the murder led me to the book? Do it now, Sadie. Call her. I counted the rings, expecting—hoping—to get her voice mail, but instead it was Grace’s real voice on the line. “Hi, Sadie. Finally. I thought I’d hear from you earlier. Are you still in L.A.? Have you found Joey?” There was an edge of irritation in her voice. “I’m still in L.A.” I took a deep breath. No small talk. Just tell her. “I have some difficult news. I’m really sorry to have to tell you that… Joey is… dead. I know this is a terrible—.” “What?” she said. “What did you say? Is this some kind of joke?” “I’m so sorry.” “Wait—I don’t think I heard you right. What are you talking about?” “Joey died. He ed away.” “Are you sure? When did this happen? How did he die? How did you—,” her

words choked her. I told her about talking to Brick at the Town Hall, then said, “Apparently Joey had been living in L.A. for awhile and—he had become a woman—a transgender woman. His name was Julia.” Grace gasped. “Julia? Dios mio.” “Does that name mean something to you?” “Yes.” I waited for her to say something else. “That was the name,” she said finally, “he used when he—when he dressed up. How can you be sure this Julia is actually Joey? How can you be sure?” Her voice rose in pitch. “And why didn’t you call me?” “I wasn’t entirely sure—but now I am. I have the evidence.” “What evidence?” “Look. I know this is the worst possible news. I have the feeling you wanted me to find Joey, not just the book.” “No. Yes. I wanted the book. And I wanted to find Joey too,” she said, in a littlegirl voice that reminded me of myself the night Dad died, kicking my bedroom door. “How did he die?” she said. “He was—murdered.” I wasn’t going to lie to her, like they did to me, so many years ago. “What? I don’t believe this. It might not even be Joey. It could be someone else.” She asked me question after question, and the sounds of her inhaling and exhaling smoke sent me out to the backyard, where I lit up. I took a deep, satisfying drag, and told her everything I knew, ending with the final bit of proof: Joey’s port. Then I gave her Rozelle Flores’s information. “I don’t trust the police,” she said. “I’ll pay you to find out who killed Joey.”

“I’m not qualified to investigate a murder… I told you from the beginning I don’t do missing persons, but I made an exception because it seemed the search for Joey would lead to your book. And now a murder—it’s out of my league. I find lost things.” “I know. I know. But I…,” and then Grace started sobbing. And she didn’t stop. “OK. I’ll see what I can do. Of course I will.”

CHAPTER 26

Grace

Grace sat at the kitchen table. Maybe she was dreaming—it was just a nightmare, and she would wake up, and everything would be OK. She walked around the room, touching things. Table, chair, sink, counter, microwave, curtain, refrigerator, stove. Everything felt real. Not dreaming. Is this the world without Joey in it? Before, even if she didn’t see him, she knew he was out there, somewhere. But now, she thought, he’s nowhere. She went into the utility room. Washer, dryer, broom, mop, bucket. Filling up the bucket with hot water and cleaning liquid, she was hit with the smell of ammonia and a sharp memory of Mamá mopping the kitchen floor. She moved the kitchen chairs into the living room, dipped the mop into the bucket, and started cleaning the floor. If only she could be like Alice, and go into a parallel universe to rescue Joey. But she was not Alice, and had no magical powers to bring him back. It was just like when Mamá died. Except this time Grace had no talisman to keep her strong. She squeezed out the mop and moved on to the next patch of floor. More than ever, she had to get the book back. It was all she had left of Mamá, and now—of Joey. She saw him all made up with his Clinique and his wig and his trashy outfit, splashing himself with Opium. They were going out on the town as two chicas. “Call me Julia,” he said, and set his lips into a beautiful-girl-pout. And now she would never see that beautiful girl again.

CHAPTER 27

“I just have a couple of errands and then we’ll head home.” “Can’t I come?” Daniela said. “No. I’ll be back in an hour or so. Pack up your stuff and we’ll leave as soon as I get back.” I opened the door to Out of the Closet, the thrift store Wanda had mentioned. She said she’d donated Julia’s things, and maybe the book was there, waiting for me. Sometimes the simplest thing leads to the found object. I went straight to the books section. The Journey wasn’t there, but another title jumped out at me: Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Robbie had said it was a story about a young man on a quest. I picked it off the shelf and skimmed the first page, until my eye fell on a sentence—“Six years later my mother’s absence remained in the air around us, a deafening silence that I had not yet learned to stifle with words.” A wash of sadness swept through me. How well I understood the story’s narrator. My father and I, too, had kept a pact of silence about my mother’s death, yet her shadow stayed with us all the time. The young man who rang me up at the counter had on a polo shirt and khakis. His short blond hair was gelled to the max, with black roots deliberately showing. He was also wearing eyeliner. “Quick question for you,” I said. “If someone donated some stuff here—dropped it off—would it wind up on your shelves or would it go to a processing warehouse or something like that?” “Depends on the stuff,” he said in a deep, rich baritone. “Some things we put out on the floor right away. Other things we send on to be sorted and distributed. Why do you ask?” His beautifully made-up eyes were warm. I took a breath. “I’m looking for a book a friend donated here.”

“We usually put the books right on the shelf—we don’t get that many books, and we have the shelf space.” “Did you see a Young Adult book recently—The Journey?” “Nope. Did you check the shelf?” “Yeah. It’s not there. Well, thanks, anyway.” Deflated, I took my package and turned to go. “Everything OK? You look like you’re having a bad day.” He touched my arm. My eyes teared up. “Yes, fine. Thank you.”

I sat in the rental car, wiping my face and blowing my nose. I had seen random kindness promoted on bumper stickers, but usually didn’t experience it firsthand. I wished I could just go back to Miriam’s, pick up Daniela, and go home. Then I heard Dad’s voice—“Don’t give up the fight. One foot in front of the other. Deal?” I started up the car. I still had an appointment to keep before I left L.A.

I sat in an interview room with Rozelle Flores. She looked like a kid, in her sneakers and gray hoodie, her straight black hair in a ponytail. But she talked like a middle-aged guy from Brooklyn who smokes two packs a day. “Let me get this straight,” she said. “You’re not a private investigator.” “Right.” “You find things for people.” “Yes. Lost things.” “And now you found this. You found a murder in the course of looking for this alleged book for your—what’s-it— client.” “That’s right.”

“Your client is the sister of the victim, is that right?” “Yes,” I said. “Do you have any suspects?” I wanted to turn the conversation around. “I’m not discussing the details of this case with you. The sister, what’s her name?” “Graciela Valdez.” Flores looked through her file. “Does she know Julia Ruiz is deceased?” “I just told her. She didn’t know his whereabouts, that’s why I was looking for him.” “Him?” Flores frowned. “Yeah,” I said, “My client still knew Julia as Joey Valdez.” Flores’s face was expressionless. After a few moments she said, “We are… aware that Julia Ruiz was a transgender person. But we have yet to find any identification from her former identity.” I kept my mouth shut. Flores was looking at me closely. “Do you have any information on Joey Valdez?” I filled her in on everything I knew. Except the port. How could they possibly have missed it? Apparently, without the police’s knowledge, Wanda had snuck her friend’s personal stuff out of the apartment. “One last thing, Ms. García Miller.” “Yes?” My heart picked up its pace. Could detectives read minds? Flores enunciated each word: “I respectfully ask you to stay out of my investigation.”

CHAPTER 28

We started the drive back to San Francisco around four in the afternoon, hours later than I’d intended. I left a message for Catherine that we were running late. When we pulled into the driveway it was just after eleven, and I knew I was in deep shit with my cousin for bringing Daniela home so late. Especially on a school night. As we walked up the stairs to the door, Daniela said, “She’s going to be hecka mad.” “Yeah, I know.” I braced myself for a blast of my cousin’s ive-aggressive resentment. But Catherine was all smiles and hugs when she opened the door. “Hi Sweetie, hi Sadie. I made brownies!” She turned and headed to the kitchen. At first Daniela looked shocked and then her face fell, and a look of resentment took over. In the kitchen, we chatted over brownies about our visit with Miriam. I didn’t tell Catherine much about the case, and she didn’t ask. My niece was silent, inhaling a couple of brownies and then putting her arms around her mother and hanging there. Catherine gave her a hug. “Get in your pajamas, Sweetie,” she said, but her daughter still clung. Finally she went upstairs and my cousin whispered, “I had an awesome weekend. Awesome.”

When I got home, an envelope was taped to the door of my apartment, addressed to “Sweet Sadie.” Dumping my bags, I ripped open the letter. Inside was a card with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the iridescent beams radiating from her form. I opened it.

Sadie, Let’s spend some time together when I get back. Sorry I missed you.

Love, Rob

What the hell. Was he a friend or a lover? I poured myself a finger of scotch. Robbie was driving me crazy. I didn’t want to think about him, or miss him, or have to figure him out. Instead I pulled my book out of my bag and burrowed into the couch, hoping to lose myself in its pages and escape my jangling thoughts.

An alarm sounded, and Alice’s heart raced. Did she escape only to be caught again? She had to find Gil. That was all that mattered now. She would give her life for him. She ran down row after row of pods, looking for some sign of her brother, all the while wondering when she would be swooped up by the residents of this other world. When she rounded the next bend, she came upon a large boxlike structure and ducked behind it. Breathing hard, she placed her hand on her chest. Would the talisman work a second time? She heard a garbled, buzzing sound coming closer and closer. The small package of chocolate from Miss Probable flew out of her pocket and into her hand. She unwrapped it and the square slowly lifted into the air, turned into a bat, and hovered. A swarm of gray waspy-looking drones came buzzing into view and froze, midair, before the bat. The creatures turned away as one, speeding away in flight, but the bat engulfed and swallowed them all. The bat grew smaller and smaller as it flew back and, transforming itself into a square of chocolate, returned to the wax paper in Alice’s hand and wrapped itself up. She breathed out a sigh of relief. But the alarms still rang out. She had to find Gil. This time, she had no doubt her heart would come to her aid, and when she put her hand on her chest she felt a sensation of being lifted off the ground. An invisible force carried her forward until she saw a huge white bird coming toward her. Her heart raced in fear, but when the bird gently swooped underneath her and carried her away, a feeling of comfort settled in her heart. After flying over a mountain, the bird headed toward a golden metropolis. It

landed near the edge of the city, on the rooftop of a pod like the one Alice had just left. The bird scratched the roof with its beak. A gap opened and Alice found herself falling.

I put the book down, thinking about Alice’s newfound trust in her heart. Did I trust my heart? Not really. It had got me into trouble time and time again, but unlike Alice, I had no Madame Possible to teach me to once again rely on that precious organ. I poured myself another shot. Staring into the glass, I swirled the scotch around and around. The amber color was so beautiful. Even though with its warmth spreading through me, it hadn’t done the trick. Hadn’t proved to blot out my feelings. Shit. Robbie’s card had thrown me for a loop. His mixed messages were driving me crazy. The thing was, it would never be any good between us. An endless cycle of missed connections and disappointments. I stared at the phone. Was it too late to call? He wouldn’t pick up anyway, and I could just leave a message. But when I called, it was his real voice. “Hi, Sadie.” “Oh. Hi. You knew it was me. I guess you have me in your phone.” “I do.” “You sound… did I wake you?” “Yeah, but that’s OK. How are you?” “We can talk later.” “No, now is good. What’s up?” “I’ve been thinking.” He laughed. “Uh-oh. Thinking. Not good. Wait—have you been drinking?” “Just a couple. But that’s not the point. What I want to say—maybe we shouldn’t see each other.” My stomach squeezed up into a ball. There, it’s done. “How can we break up when we’re not going steady?” he said. The words were

jokey but his voice was tight. I didn’t say anything. “Sadie?” “Funny, ha ha.” “No, seriously—we’re just getting to know each other again.” “We already know each other. Look—you don’t get me, and I don’t get you.” “But I want to get you more, that’s why I thought we could be friends, and….” “I don’t want to be just friends.” There—I said it. It was embarrassing but it was out. “I didn’t mean ‘just’ friends—I meant that we could start more like friends and then see what happens. I want to do things with you—go to a ball game, or take a walk, or go to the movies.” “Yeah, but—you’re never in town, and it just—.” “I’ll be back in town soon. Why not give it a chance? “I don’t think it will ever work.” “Look,” he said, “I’m not so good at talking about this stuff. Especially on the phone. And not when you’ve been drinking. When I get back, we can get together, and… see what happens.” “No.” “Why?” His voice was edged with anger. “Just don’t fucking call me and leave me the fuck alone!” I disconnected and burst into tears. Boyko’s voice echoed in my head: Never drink and dial. Maybe it was a mistake. But I had to do it. I knew how it always turned out with relationships, and I didn’t want to be let down again. This was the way to go, I was sure of it.

CHAPTER 29

Grace

Sitting in the Monday Morning Marketing Meeting, dubbed M-quad, Grace was there but not there. “OK, guys. Here’s the M-quad agenda,” her boss James said. Everyone else gazed at the giant screen with its PowerPoint list of agenda items. Grace looked, but she didn’t see. She thought about the empty space where Joey had been. He was still alive in her mind, talking to her, but he wasn’t here, in the waking world. This made his presence in her mind different, less real. She wanted to feel his spirit was with her, and even though she’d created an altar in his honor he still hadn’t appeared. Her prayers were left unanswered. Talking to Detective Flores hadn’t helped at all. It just made it worse. The woman had the nerve to ask all those questions, Grace thought, as if even I might be a suspect. And the way the detective had hinted around about her and Joey, like maybe they had been—whatever—sexually involved. “Intimate,” that was the word the detective had used. Why do people always think that? Just because Joey and me are so close. Were so close.

* * *

They’d first started playing dress-up when they were little. He was five, she was six, and Teresita was eight. At first Teresita went along with it, but she soon lost interest, and then it was just Grace and Joey. Pulling clothes out of the big trunk

in the basement, they would put together costumes, then make up stories and act them out. By the time they were in their early teens, the dress-up game had turned into something more complex. Grace carefully applied his makeup and showed him tricks, like how to stuff a bra. But they still used the basement, where, over the years, they had acquired a collection of outfits and added clothing racks and dressing tables. It was on one Saturday, when Papa was away and their aunt was staying with them, that they got in trouble. Or rather, Grace got in trouble. They heard steps on the basement stairs. She was applying blush to Joey’s cheekbones, just a quick swipe, when they heard Tía Pilar’s voice: “Graciela! What are you doing?” “Just getting all in costume, you know, like for a play,” Grace lied. “Verguenza,” their aunt said. “It’s not her fault, Tía. We’re working on a show, really. Rehearsing,” Joey said, his red-lipsticked mouth in a glossy pout, his mascara-covered lashes long and luxurious. “ Ay, sure you are. Claro que si. Why are you letting your cousin dress you up like a girl?” she said, shaking her head and going back up the stairs. In the kitchen, at the top of the stairs, they heard their aunt say to Teresita, “Your cousin, she’s always been a bad influence on him.” Grace pushed back the tears and slammed the makeup brush on the dressing table. If Mama were still alive, she would never let anyone say that, she always corrected them—“She’s his sister, she’s our daughter.”

After she moved to San Francisco, she was the one who always kept in touch. She’d leave messages but he wouldn’t call back. And when she finally reached him, he’d say, sorry, I meant to call, I want to see you, really. But I’m just so busy. Eventually they’d get together. Like the time she’d gone to Fresno for his birthday, and done the thing she regretted to this day.

“What do you think, Graciela?” James asked. Grace came back to the room. She had no idea how long she’d zoned out or what was being discussed. On the screen, a color-coded Venn diagram showed market segments. “That sounds good. As long as our strategic initiative maintains a missioncritical focus on branding,” she said, then held her breath, hoping it would work. James nodded sagely, and a moment later every head in the room bobbed in unison.

CHAPTER 30

Sitting in a booth at the Chat with Boyko the next morning, hung over and staring down at my huevos rancheros, I tried to listen to his lecture. “No, you absolutely do not investigate a murder case. You tell your client you’ve gone as far as you can, and you’re sorry you didn’t find her book. I’ve told you before, Sadie, you have to learn to say no to cases that are beyond your purview.” He was right. I should just tell Grace that this was it. But something held me back. I looked out the window. It was raining, the first rain of the fall. I stepped out for a smoke. There was a car parked across the street. It looked familiar. A beat-up red Honda Civic. I looked down at my barely touched huevos. No way I could finish them. “I’m going to have to get going,” I said. “Wait,” Boyko said. “We’re just getting started here. So you’re gonna tell your client you’re done with the case, right?” “Yeah.” Maybe, I added silently. He could tell I was lying. He pulled his pastry into little pieces. I had never seen him not eat a bear claw. “I’m just thinking about your safety.” He pushed his plate away. “Promise me you’ll be careful, whatever you do.”

* * *

By the time I got back to my office, the rain had stopped. I dropped my bag on my desk and went outside again to breathe in the after-rain air. Oh, you miserable girl. Now fix what you have screwed up. I braced myself and called him. This time I got his voice mail. “Robbie, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean it. It

was stupid and I don’t know why I did that. If you’re still willing to talk to me, then—call me. Or—maybe when you get back, or something. I apologize. OK?” I disconnected and stared at the scene across the street. A group of mourners gathered in front of the mortuary, smoking and talking. Some wore oversized white tee-shirts with a photo. Another young person had been killed. I punched an invisible heavy bag, with equal parts anger and sadness at the whole fucking cycle of violence. The irony didn’t escape me—punching my fist wasn’t going to stop the violence. A tiredness came over me, and the nagging thought—not for the first time— maybe I should’ve followed in my Dad’s footsteps—done something to fight injustice—been an organizer like him, or a social activist. Something caught my eye down the block from the mortuary. Another vintage red Honda Civic was parked on the street. Weird. Must be a popular car in the Mission. Or maybe it belonged to someone who worked or lived around here, and I’d just never noticed it. And then I ed why it was familiar—it looked just like the Town Hall Theater ’s car. It probably belonged to her San Francisco doppelganger, someone else working for substandard wages at a local arts organization. Opening my office door, I heard someone calling me. It was Grace, hurrying up the street, in a black sheath dress and knee-high boots. When she arrived, slightly breathless, we stood, looking at each other. I touched her arm. “I am so sorry about Joey. When someone dies, a whole world dies with them.” Grace tilted her head and scanned my face with her eyes. “True,” she said, her tears pooling and falling. She didn’t brush them away. In my office, I set up the chair for her and we sat down. She offered me a cigarette and I took it. She lit them both. Pulling out the ashtray from the drawer, I was reminded of the first time she came to see me. So much had happened since then. “I still want you to find my book, more than ever,” she said. “I’m still on the case.” “What’s your next step?” “There’s something I want to ask you about. And I’m sorry if it’s painful, but I do feel that it might lead me to find your book, in some intangible way.”

“OK,” she said. “Did something happen that made Joey disappear out of your life?” Grace inhaled and then blew the smoke out with a sound of resignation. “OK,” she said. She stood up and went to the window. Playing with the cord that opened and closed the blinds, causing the light to brighten and then darken, she said, “I’ve never told anyone this. It was a few years ago. I went down to Fresno to see him in a play at the local theater—Grease. After the show, we went to the cast party, and Joey introduced me to this girl Linda and said she was his girlfriend. I was shocked—he’d never told me had a girlfriend. But I was polite and all. He told her I worked in San Francisco in marketing, and the way he said it—I realized he was actually proud of me. It made me feel good.” Grace opened the slats and, pulling up the blinds completely, she stared out at the street. I waited. “The girl—Linda—she had this long, bleached blond hair, so pin-straight she must use a flat iron on it. They asked me if I liked the show and I said yeah, it was great. But really it was boring—all of a sudden people start singing, out of the blue, you know?” “Yeah, I feel the same way.” “So when Linda went off to get a beer, he told me: ‘I’m in love with her.’I wanted to be happy for him, I really tried, you know what I mean? But inside, I didn’t think she was right for him. She wasn’t smart enough. “Anyway, a few weeks later, I drove down to Fresno to surprise Joey. It was his birthday, and I had a special gift for him. Just as I drove up to the house, I saw him leaving with Linda. They had the top down on Joey’s convertible and the music cranked loud, and she was laughing and tossing her hair around. She had on a low-cut bustier and kept pushing her boobs together. They didn’t see me, and I followed along in my car, keeping my distance, still thinking I’d surprise him. They drove to the other side of town, and pulled up to a rundown house with chickens in a coop in the front yard. Chickens. Can you believe it? So trashy. I parked a block away, and then walked over. Now that I’m telling you, it sounds so sneaky, but—it seemed to make sense at the time.” “Believe me,” I said. “I understand. I’ve done worse.”

Grace shook her head. “I doubt it. So anyway, I looked through the windows to the front room but they weren’t there. I went around to the side of the house and checked each window until I saw them. Linda was putting eye shadow on Joey’s lids. Then he pulled her in and kissed her. I’d never seen Joey kiss anyone, not like that. They were climbing all over each other and jamming their bodies together. It gave me the creeps. Then Linda went back to putting the eye shadow on, and then they repeated the whole thing. “I knew I shouldn’t be watching, but I couldn’t stop. It wasn’t that I’d ever wanted that with Joey. He was my brother, and that would be—disgusting, to kiss him like that. I did feel a different kind of jealous, though—I guess for the closeness. I was the one who taught him how to dress like a girl, I was the one who should be applying the blue to his eyelids, not this skanky girl. “So anyway. When Joey turned to look at himself in the dressing table mirror he saw me in the reflection. He ran over and lifted up the window and started yelling at me. ‘What the fuck. You’re spying on me now?’And then Linda jumped in and screamed at me too, calling me a bitch, saying I was perverted. And that’s when Joey told me he never wanted to see me again.” Grace let the blinds down and then opened the slats. She came back and sat down across from me, putting out her cigarette, pressing the stub into the ashtray over and over until it crumbled. After a moment, I said, “What you did was not so bad. Not unforgivable. We all do things that we don’t mean to do and then—it’s hard to deal with the consequences. But you did see Joey again, right? At Christmas a couple of years ago?” She nodded. “He came to visit me, acted like everything was fine, he forgave me, all that. But I guess he was just pretending. I think he came because he needed money, and of course I gave it to him. And then he stole my book.”

CHAPTER 31

A couple of hours later, I was outside on a smoke break. Striding down the block toward me was the beautiful Motorcycle Girl, waving like we were long-lost friends. I waved back. She had on skin-tight leggings, accentuating her muscular legs, and a sparkly, low-cut blue tunic. Above it all was her smiling face. “Molly. It’s nice to see you again. So soon.” “I was just coming by to see you.” Her smiled faded as she took in the cigarette and smoke emanating from my hand. “Oh. You’re a smoker?” “I keep quitting. But I guess the answer to your question is yes. You don’t. Smoke. Right?” “Never, no,” she said. “Vile habit.” Then she grinned and the whole street beamed with a hundred watts, and my spirits rose, too, in that reflected light. “Wanna go for coffee?” she asked. “At Mission Pie?” “Definitely. Brilliant idea.” A piece of Mission Pie floated in to my mind and senses: the flaky crust, the tender peaches on my tongue—not too sweet but not too tart.

We got our pie and coffee at the counter and sat down at a table by the window. The open space was airy, with its floor-to-ceiling windows, yet the dark wooden tables gave it a cozy, farm-to-table feeling. I had ordered pear-ginger—it sounded too good to up. But still, I eyed her banana cream pie jealously. She laughed. “You’re looking at my pie with lust in your eye.” “You’re a poet and you don’t know it.” “Actually I do,” she said, “I mean I am a poet and I do know it.” A bittersweet

smile transformed her face and I felt a sweeping sense of longing. There was something about her, that sense of mystery and vulnerability that always draws me in like a magnet. “Did you know,” she sighed, “that artists as a group tend to suffer more depression than other people?” She grinned. “And poets are the most depressed subgroup?” “I had no idea. Are you depressed?” Uh-oh. I was a magnet for this kind of thing. “Not at the moment. But at some level, isn’t everyone? Unless you’re in denial.” I was pretty sure I was in denial most of the time. She took a bite of her pie. When she closed her eyes, savoring the taste, a sliver of sunlight fell across her face, and in that instant she was so luminous, and in her banana-cream-pleasure she inhabited the moment so fully, I felt myself falling—into love or lust or both. She opened her eyes and saw my look, and a faint blush colored her skin. “So… are you seeing anyone?” she asked. “Not exactly. How about you?” “I’m in a primary relationship, but we see other people. When you say ‘not exactly,’ what does that mean?” “I have a possible something.” “That’s intriguing. How far along?” “Let’s see. On-again, off-again. Mostly off.” “Is she hot?” Molly said, taking another bite. “He’s hot, yeah.” “Oh. Fuckety-fuck. I thought you were a dyke.” I hesitated. I’ve tried to explain it so many times, but most people just don’t get

it. They want to know—are you gay or are you straight? “Men or women. I’m open,” I said, sure she’d be disappointed. But I had to be honest. “That’s cool. You’re bi.” “It is? Cool?” “Yeah.” “I don’t call myself bi, though. It sounds—bifurcated.” She rolled her eyes. “OK, but the prefix ‘bi’ actually means double, not divided.” I grinned. “All right then, wordsmith, I’m doubly amorous.” She shrugged. “That’s cool. I’m polyamorous. All women, all the time.” I had found that people who had open relationships still got jealous, but—maybe Molly’s relationship was different. We talked some more, mostly about her work and mine. I told her a bit about the missing book, but didn’t mention the murder. Molly listened attentively. “A stolen book. A struggle between brother and sister for the legacy from their mother. It’s operatic. Would you say the book is a talisman of sorts?” I was floored. She had captured the emotional underpinnings of the case. “That’s true, yes.” She gazed off in the distance and languorously licked the whipped cream from her spoon. My dream of several nights ago came back to me, when I had lapped up her skin like cream. She shifted her eyes back to me, and this time a wordless message ed between us. “I live right up the street,” she said in a low voice. We just kept looking. Neither of us made a move. “Let’s go.”

Molly’s apartment was a typical railroad flat—front room with big bay windows, bedrooms off a hallway, kitchen in the back. We walked down the long hall and stood, awkwardly, in the kitchen. “My roommates are all at work,” she said. I pulled her in to me and kissed her. She smelled like freshly laundered sheets hanging in the sun, blowing around like crazy, with an undercurrent of sandalwood and banana cream pie. She kissed me back so hard she was almost biting me. Then she yanked my hair and pulled my hips to hers. I felt her soft, wide body, with solid muscles underneath. I slipped my hands under her blouse and bra and played with her nipples. “Maybe we should go to my room,” she whispered. “But it’s so nice here.” I pulled her down to the floor. We were halfway under the kitchen table, and the floor was cold. I fastened my mouth around one nipple and pinched the other with my fingers. She was moaning, helping me pull down her leggings and then I traveled down the length of her, just like in my dream. I licked and sucked, and she panted and moaned. She stuck her hand down my pants and I moved against her fingers, but I was so focused on her pleasure, nothing else mattered. She came, breathing hard and pulsating, and for a few moments she was still. But soon she fastened her mouth on my nipple and her fingers circled, teasing me until I was just at the edge, hovering for what seemed like hours, until she pushed her fingers inside. I forgot everything except for the river of sensation from my breasts to my core, until the current pushed me over the edge, and everything I’d been holding back came loose. We held each other for a while in the big silence, and then Molly pulled back to see my face. “You OK?” she said. “More than OK.” She offered to make tea, which sounded quite civilized, and I accepted. While she was putting the kettle on, I dressed and took a look around the place. The living room was classic San Francisco shared-apartment style, with its mismatched furniture and Tibetan flags strung above the mantel. Glancing out the wide bay windows to the street below, my breath caught. Was it the same red Honda? It kept showing up. Wherever I was, it magically appeared. Was someone following me?

In the kitchen, Molly was pouring the tea. She pulled me to her and bit my neck. I kissed her lightly on the lips. “I hate to do this, but—this case, the lost book case? It’s heating up. There’s something I have to go check out.” “Too bad. Time for tea, though?” “No, have to go now. Sorry.” “You mean now now?” “I know it’s rude. But this thing—it’s time-sensitive.” She tilted her head and examined me. “You’re obsessed, aren’t you? With your work?” “I guess I am. But that doesn’t take away from this. I was—am—entranced with you.” She smiled. “And me with you. I get it about being obsessed, though. When I’m working on a poem, I get lost in it.” She leaned in close. “Just tell me you want to get obsessed with me again sometime soon.” I told her, with and without words.

I crossed the street, my eyes on the Honda. Someone was sitting in the driver’s seat. I’d almost reached the car when it pulled away, but I’d already imprinted the license number on my brain.

CHAPTER 32

Boyko grumbled at first, but agreed to look up the license plate number. As a licensed PI, he has the use of databases we ordinary mortals can never access. I read him the number off the palm of my hand. Pacing my office, I tried to find something to do besides have another cigarette —too many already, even for me—or chew on the licorice vines I’d discovered in my desk. I was gnawing the last red vine when I spotted The Journey, sticking out of my bag. I opened it to where I’d left off.

She landed on the soft floor of the pod. Her brother kneeled beside her, his face streaked with tears. Hugging him, she said, “Gil, I’m so glad you’re OK.” His eyes looked so sad, but she told him how her talisman had helped her three times, and assured him that they could escape from the pod right now, and go find Father. “It’s going to be fine. It’s possible, just like the Possible Sisters told us.” But the look on her brother’s face grew more and more despairing. “Don’t you see? We can do it,” she said. He shook his head. “No. We can’t. I called on my talisman, too. Here’s what I found out.” He took the seeing-stone from his pocket and it grew to the size of a television screen. An image portrayed the waspy creatures forming a central drone figure, hovering in the air. Above them, a luminous white circular object floated, radiating lines of magenta and blue. The drone and sphere communicated with buzzing and humming. At the bottom of the seeing-stone, a series of subtitles appeared, like the ones in the French movies Mother watched. As they read, the old words faded away and new ones appeared:

The Greatness: The Emperor of the Other Universe refuses to reveal his plot to overthrow our world. But now that we have kidnapped his kidlets, we can

force him to talk. He said he will do anything to save them. Even if it meant lie-ing. We are not certain why this lie-ing down is so malfactored to the Lord of the Other Universe. He closes his eyes for the lie-ing down regularly.

The Underwing: The offspring have brought magic technology with them. The femlet has now ed the kidlet.

The Greatness: The offspring, like the Emperor, have the strange attachment of the lineage. We will tell them that if they try to escape, we will destroy their patriarch. The offspringlets will not risk this. Then the Lord of the Other Universe will have to reveal his strategy, and we will have the power to strike first, while his universe is lie-ing down with eyes closed.

Alice slumped down on the pod floor and hung her head. She couldn’t pretend to have courage when she didn’t have any. “Now do you see?” Gil said. “It’s hopeless. You know how Father is about telling the truth—he never lies. But even if he comes up with some crazy story for the wasp-drones, and pretends that our universe is plotting to overthrow this one, it still wouldn’t mean they’d believe him. Or that they’d let us go. They’ll keep on holding us like—” he searched for the right word. “Hostages,” she said. He nodded, his eyes wide. She wanted to say something hopeful, but she had nothing to counter the bleak vision looming ahead. “Let’s say they did believe him, though. It wouldn’t matter anyway, because they would attack our whole universe and destroy it.” Gil’s lip trembled, but he didn’t cry. She put her arms around him and they huddled together in the vast silence.

CHAPTER 33

The phone rang. It was Catherine. “Sadie, thank god you picked up.” “What’s wrong?” “Is Daniela there with you?” “No, is she supposed to be?” Catherine’s voice was panicky. “I went to pick her up at school and she wasn’t there. She doesn’t have any after-school activities today. She’s not at any of her friends’ houses. I’ve called everywhere. I’m racking my brain.” “I’m sure it’s OK,” I said. But my heart was pounding. “She’s probably at….” I couldn’t think of anything. My cousin had her daughter’s schedule down to a T. “Look, I’ll come over there and we’ll figure this out. Did you talk to her teacher, or the school secretary, or—.” “Yes, of course I talked to them. I’ve talked to everyone,” she snapped. And then in a softer voice: “Oh god. I hoped she might be with you.” Sobbing, she told me that yesterday Daniela had found a text on Catherine’s phone from her lover and confronted her mother about the affair. “She was angry, even though she didn’t really understand it. But then she clammed up and refused to talk about it. I think maybe she’s run away. But where would she go? Sadie, what have I done?” For a moment I couldn’t breathe. I told myself to inhale and then exhale. “It’s OK. Don’t worry, I’ll be there soon.”

* * *

I was lifting my bike up the steps of Catherine’s house when Boyko called. “I got the info,” he said. “The car’s ed to Kim Leff. In Los Angeles.” “Shit. Kim!” So it was the freaky Town Hall Theater after all. An image flashed through my mind of the driver, wearing a cap turned backward, pulling away from the curb. “I gotta go, I’m in the middle of a case,” Boyko said. “Call me later and we can talk about it.” “Wait, I have something imp—.” “Sadie. We’ll talk later. Call me.” He hung up. I pounded my hand on the handlebars. I needed Boyko’s help, now. The red Honda, Grace’s case—it was no longer important. Finding Daniela was all that mattered. I called back but got his voice mail. “Boyko, my niece is missing. Call me. Now. It’s urgent. Please. As soon as you get this.” Then I texted him, and emailed him. My cousin opened the door before I rang the bell, and I knew from her face that nothing had changed. Wheeling my bike into the back room, I asked her the question that had been on my mind since we spoke. “When you talked to her teacher, did she confirm that Daniela had been in school all day?” “Yes. The whole day.” “And school’s out at 3:30. So she’s been missing two hours?” “Right.” Matt was on the phone. “Yes, I know. But this is a very responsible girl we’re talking about. She’d never… Yes, of course we’ve called all her friends…Yes, she has a cell,” he yelled, “but it’s obviously turned off, it goes right to voice mail!” I had never heard him raise his voice before. “His co-worker’s husband is with the police department,” Catherine choked out. Putting my arms around her, I said, “It’s going to be OK. We’ll find her.” Her

body was stiff in my arms. Matt got off the phone and filled us in on the steps for the police report. “There are also a number of missing children websites where we can post her photo,” he said. “What?” Catherine said, shrugging out of my embrace, “Blast her photo out all over the Internet? Don’t you think we should wait?” “No. We’ve already waited too long. This isn’t like Daniela. I’m going to go post.” Matt stormed down the hall to their office. Catherine looked white. I wanted to do something— anything for her. “Let me make you some tea, OK? And then we’ll start on the phone calls,” I said. “Coffee,” she said. She followed me into the kitchen. “Oh Sadie, what have I done?” she whispered. I started to answer, but she just shook her head, pointed down the hall to Matt and put her finger to her lips in a gesture of secrecy. Then she took a deep breath and, making an effort to pull herself up, she stuck out her chest, lifted her chin, and went to her husband. Filling the electronic coffeemaker with water, I felt a disconnect. What was I doing making coffee? I should be out searching for Daniela. After I got the coffee going, I’d borrow their car and look for her. I put the coffee into the filter and turned on the coffeemaker. Gazing out the window, I automatically scanned the street for a red Honda Civic. None. But then a feeling started up in my chest, gathered force, and hit me with a resounding punch in the gut. Could there be a connection between this weird Kim-person stalking me and Daniela disappearing? Not possible—how could she know that Daniela was my niece, or where she lived? Unless… unless… she had followed us home from L.A., and seen me drop Daniela off? But what could she possibly get out of kidnapping my niece? Matt and Catherine weren’t wealthy, just comfortable, and it must be obvious that I had no money. There was probably no connection. But what if there was a connection? Then this was all my fault. What was I thinking, bringing Daniela along on a case? No. I shook my head. Don’t do that. Just stay focused.

My phone rang, and when I saw it was Boyko I let out the breath I’d been holding, it seemed, since I first heard the news. I went into the kitchen and told him about Daniela going missing, about Kim Leff following me around, and about the possibility that the two events might be connected. “I’ll come over right now,” he said. “Thanks. I know you’re on a case. But—this is—.” “Yes, of course. This is more important. Just sit tight. I’ll be there soon.” I called Rozelle Flores and left her a message that I had a situation that might be related to the case. When I went back down the hall to their home office, Catherine was on the phone and Matt was looking over missing children websites, his forehead knotted in concentration. I handed each of them a mug of hot coffee. Catherine got off the phone, and I told them Boyko was on his way. “Your P.I. friend?” Matt said. “Good, we need his help with these listings and websites.” “Can I borrow your car? I’m going to drive around looking for her. I can check some of her favorite places, ask around, and cover all the routes between home and school.” “I’ll come with you,” my cousin said. “No, stay here,” Matt said, “We have to do as much posting and calling around as we can.” Catherine opened her mouth to say something, then shut it. “OK,” she said. She gave me the keys to their Volvo and squeezed my hand.

Walking the two blocks to where the car was parked, I smoked a cigarette, but it didn’t provide its usual calming influence. The thoughts and images kept coming in helter-skelter.

The first time I babysat Daniela, she was three months old. Leaning over her crib, after I finally got her to sleep, I tried to —should she be on her stomach or her back? One of those was supposed to be bad—she could choke— which position was the wrong one? Watching her sleep, with her perfect little curled-up simian hands and squashed face, I thought she was completely perfect. I already loved her to pieces. She slept for about ten minutes, and then cried for the next two hours, while I held, bounced, and walked her about, singing Beatles songs, lullabies, and portions of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. I went through my entire musical repertory, but it was only when I sang her Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces” that she finally fell asleep.

It was 5:45 p.m. I parked the Volvo in the lot and went to the office, hoping the school secretary would still be in. The custodian, dressed in khakis and a starched white shirt, was sweeping the floors. “Excuse me. I’m Sadie García Miller. My niece is missing, and—” the breath seemed to go out of me, and I couldn’t finish my sentence. He stopped sweeping and when he looked up, his face creased with concern, I recognized him. “Hi—I think I know you—you’re Fred, right?” “Yeah. You’re Daniela’s aunt.” I nodded. “You me, good. I’m on the approved list, to pick her up and all, if you want to check.” “That’s OK, I don’t need to check it. You’re one of the few who actually says hello to me. I heard about Daniela—but I was hoping she’d turn up—they usually do. Her parents talk to the police yet?” “Yes. Is there anything you’ve noticed lately—anyone hanging around the school who looked suspicious? Anything like that?” “Can’t say that I’ve seen anything like that. But you know who might’ve? Ms. Beatrice. The librarian.”

The door of the school library was locked. I knocked, then banged. A woman’s

voice came from behind the door: “Who is it?” “Sadie García Miller. My niece Daniela is missing, and I’d like to talk to you.” The door opened. A tall woman stood in the doorway. Her many braids were studded with beads, and her burnt-orange dress set off her dark skin. “Are you on the list?” she asked. “I am—you can check it.” She appraised me, then let me in. She checked her computer and found my name and thumbnail photo on the approved guardian list before saying, “I’m Beatrice Williams, nice to meet you. I heard the news, but I was hoping it would be a false alarm and she’d turn up. This is awful, just terrible.” “Did you see her today, by any chance?” “She was just in here, after school.” “She was?” My pulse quickened. “Yes, checking out a book.” “What book did she borrow?” “Door of the Bird. It’s a book by—.” “Renata Holland? The last book in the trilogy?” I said. “Yes.” She lifted an eyebrow. “I’m surprised you know it.” “I know it.” There was no time to talk about books or coincidences. “Ms. Williams, did Daniela seem upset—or did she talk to you? Did she say anything at all?” “Let’s see. After she checked out the book she said she had to run, her mother would be picking her up. That was it. Sometimes we chat, so she was being polite, letting me know she couldn’t talk.” “When you chat, has she ever said anything about… being unhappy?”

“Oh, honey.” The librarian shook her head. “Just between you and me? The kids at this school—they’re all unhappy. Grades, sports, music—they stress over it all. I’m not saying it’s the pressure from their parents. I didn’t say that.” Closing the door of the library behind me, I wondered: what had happened between the time Daniela left here and went to the corner, the spot where her parents always picked her up? I had met her there many times. Now that she was older, she was sometimes allowed to ride her bicycle to and from school. But she had told Miss Williams she was meeting her mother, which seemed to rule out her wandering off or going to a friend’s. I traced Daniela’s steps from the library to the pickup spot. Halfway there, I stopped. I felt a ping in the center of my back. On my mental screen, an image of the red Honda came into view. I turned around—was there something behind me? But there was nothing. I wanted to believe that Catherine’s theory was right, and that Daniela had run off, trying to get back at her mother. And if my niece had taken off, I knew where she would go. I drove to Ocean Beach, one of her favorite spots, a place she could easily get to on the streetcar. I parked at the end of Judah Street. Crossing the Great Highway, I trekked up the dunes, to our usual picnic spot, then scanned the foggy beach for a young girl with braids, a backpack, and long skinny legs. I made my way down to the shoreline, my heart heavy. Listening to the waves crashing, I peered through the fog at the ocean. If only I could, like Alice, put my hand on my heart, and know exactly what to do.

When I got back to the car, it was almost 7:00 p.m. and Daniela had been missing three and a half hours. I called Catherine, got her voice mail, then texted Boyko, asking if there was any news. He responded: “Nothing to report.” As I drove back to Noe Valley, a call came in. It was Detective Flores. I told her about Daniela’s disappearance and said a woman named Kim Leff was stalking me. “Kim Leff,” she said. “You know who she is?” I said, pulling over to the nearest curb. “She worked at the theater with the victim,” Flores said. “How do you know it’s her?”

“I checked the license plate.” “How did you access that information? You’re not a P.I.” “I have a connection.” “Give me the license plate number.” I read it off to her, and then filled her in on the details of Daniela’s disappearance. Flores said nothing. The only sound was the clicking of her keyboard. Finally, she said, “You’re right. It’s ed to Kim Leff. Shit.” “Why are you saying ‘shit’?” “She’s a person of interest in this case.” My breath caught. “A suspect?” “Not a suspect, a person of interest,” Flores said. “But.” It was like someone had kicked the breath out of me. I struggled to speak but nothing came out. “Did you say you took the kid with you to L.A.?” “Yeah.” “That was… not a good idea,” she said. I told her what I knew and she said she’d look into it and would talk to Detective Holden. We were about to hang up when she added: “OK, I mentioned this once before, but I want to make sure you get it. It’s a terrible thing your niece is missing and of course you’ll be helping to find her. But as far as my case goes— the investigation into the murder of Julia Ruiz—let us handle it.”

When I got back to the house, Matt and Boyko were huddled over the computer and Catherine was just getting off the phone. “I have to talk to you,” I said.

“OK, after we finish this.” Matt didn’t take his eyes from the screen. His voice was calm, but his shoulders were tense, and his shirt was stuck to his back. “It’s important. I think there might be a connection between Daniela’s disappearance and this—”I hesitated— “this case I’m working on.” Matt and Catherine both turned around to look at me. Boyko lifted his eyebrows but didn’t say anything. “Case? What do you mean, ‘case’? I thought you found things for people,” Matt’s voice was quiet but tinged with anger. “Right. But the thing I was looking for in L.A.—it turns out that the person who was supposed to have it was murdered.” Catherine exploded. “What? You didn’t tell me you were working on a murder case. I’d never have let her go with you to L.A.! You have no—no—training, or backup, nothing! How dare you take that risk?” “When I went down there I didn’t know someone had been murdered. It was just a search for a lost book. And then it turned out, in the course of looking—I found out about the murder. But I’m not involved, I mean—a homicide detective in L.A. is handling it. And it might have nothing to do with Daniela, but—.” Matt cut in. “Look, let’s all just take a step back and calm down. Catherine—it may or may not be related, but right now we all need to be level-headed. Sadie, go on.” I filled them in about Kim Leff, the possible connection, and my conversation with Detective Flores. Boyko said, “I don’t think she’s been kidnapped by the red Honda woman. OK? I have a lot of experience with this stuff, and I don’t think this is what’s happening.” The room was silent. It was the first time someone had said “kidnapped” aloud. My cousin gave me her ive-aggressive-laser-beam look. “I can’t believe this.” She left the room and I heard her making a racket in the kitchen, opening and closing drawers.

Matt examined me quietly. “You think there’s a connection, don’t you?” “Yes. But I don’t see what Kim could get out of it. I’m wracking my brain.” “OK, I’ll call Detective Holden.” Matt phoned and was put on hold. He looked at me and swallowed. “We just have to keep going. And keep her in our prayers, and trust that our prayers will be answered.” My head was pounding, a dull headache that wouldn’t go away. Matt reached Detective Holden and while he talked, I jotted down Rozelle Flores’s information and gave it to him. He ed on the information I’d given him, keeping true to the details with an engineer’s accuracy. Hanging up the phone, he said, “Holden doesn’t think it’s connected, but he’ll give it a try. He says if it is an…” he paused and swallowed…, “abduction, the FBI will get involved. It’s already been reported as a possibility.” I hoped like crazy the detective was right and there was no link. But my intuition told me otherwise. Shaking my head, I told Matt it was my fault, I should never have taken Daniela to L.A. “In hindsight you shouldn’t have,” he said. “But I tend to agree with Holden… I doubt the two cases are related….” His eyes seemed to glaze over. “But what if they are, Sadie?” Catherine had come back from the kitchen and stood in the doorway glaring at me. “What do we do then?”

CHAPTER 34

It was one in the morning, and I was back at my apartment. Daniela had been missing for nine and a half hours. Even though I wouldn’t be able to sleep, I still needed to be in my own space. Boyko was still at Catherine’s when I left, and I made him promise he’d me with any news or if they had a job for me. I made some coffee and paced around my two-room apartment. My cell phone was blinking at me. Molly and Robbie had each called, and I had let the calls go straight to voice mail. Closing my eyes, I tried to form a picture of Daniela in my mind. Where was she? Nothing came up on my mental screen. What was I missing? Who was I missing? And then an image came into focus. A warm, open face, brown eyes with wire-rimmed glasses, and gray hair. I got out my laptop and looked up the phone number for the Town Hall Theater. Probably no one would answer, but at least I could leave a message. “Town Hall Theater.” It was a real person, not a recorded message. “Hello, this is Sadie García Miller. I’m sorry to be calling so late. May I speak to Brick, please?” “This is Brick. It’s not late for us theater folk.” “We met a few days ago. I was looking for Julia Ruiz, and we talked.” “Oh yeah, I .” He sounded aloof. “What can I do for you?” “I wanted to talk to you about your associate, Kim Leff.” “What about her?” I had to make a judgment call. How much should I tell him? He seemed like an open person, and I knew he was devastated by Julia’s death. All that mattered now was finding Daniela.

“I thought I saw her in San Francisco, and I wondered if you knew why she was up here.” “She called in sick yesterday, and she was out today. What’s this all about?” “I noticed someone following me around in an old red Honda, and I got worried I was being stalked. I asked a friend to run a check on the license plate. Turns out it’s ed to Kim Leff.” “Are you sure?” “Positive.” “Christ.” I heard the sound of a lighter and then his deep inhale. Lighting up a cigarette, I inhaled, opened the window, and blew the smoke out into the fog. “When she called in today to say she wasn’t feeling well—she sounded strange,” he said, then added, “She has some issues.” “What kind of issues?” “You know, mental health issues.” “Julia’s death—hit her hard?” I prompted. “She kind of had a thing for Julia.” “A thing? Like a crush?” “I think Kim was in love with her.” “Was it mutual?” I asked, though from what I knew about Julia, I doubted it. Brick snorted. “No way.” I took a drag and shook my head. I still didn’t see how I fit into this picture. “She’s having a hard time—that’s understandable. But why would she be following me around, of all people?”

Brick was quiet. After a moment, he said, “There is something.” I kept my mouth shut. Let him talk. “After you came by here the other day, she asked me a lot of questions about you. How you knew Julia, where you were from, why you were looking for her, was there something in particular you were looking for, stuff like that.” “And did she say why? What she was worried about?” “No, but she spent a long time on the Internet after we talked, looking things up and typing, and then all of a sudden she left in a big rush. The next day, she called in sick, and the next day too, and today I didn’t hear from her at all. I thought maybe she just needed some time to chill. She’s seemed kind of obsessed with something lately.” “Any idea what she’s obsessed with?” Brick paused. “I might as well tell you. The theater is about to go under. One of the grants we’ve depended on for years fell through. It was a big blow. Kim and I both went without a paycheck last month, and if we don’t find some funding soon, we’ll have to close the theater. I’m stressed, but I’m OK. My wife has a decent job. And I’ll find another theater to work at. But Kim—this place is her whole life. If the theater closes, it’s like, I’m afraid she’ll go off the deep end. I’m kinda worried about her.” “Sure, you put a lot into a place, throw your whole life into it, plus it’s your livelihood, of course she’d be stressed about possibly losing it. But what does that have to do with me?” He took an audible drag on his cigarette. “When Kim was asking all those questions about you, I told her you were looking for a book. She got all keyed up and kept grilling me, going around and around. Finally I said I didn’t see why it was so important. She blew up at me and yelled, ‘Julia promised me!’”

CHAPTER 35

I stood on my back porch in the fog, smoking.

Money makes the world go around the world go around the world go around

Dad used to sing that, grinning, usually right after a tricky labor negotiation. I found out much later the lines were from a song from Cabaret. His voice sang in my head. What was he telling me? Money. Maybe the book was a first edition, like the one I saw online that sold at auction. Maybe Grace didn’t know it was a first edition, but Julia did? Wouldn’t Julia have sold it herself if she knew? Maybe she had, and that’s why it wasn’t in her box of things at Wanda’s. Or did she promise it to Kim to save the theater? My phone rang. I pounced on it, my heart racing, fearing the worst. It was Boyko. There was nothing new, he was calling to touch base. I told him about the talk with Brick, and asked him what I should do next. “First: stop blaming yourself. Your case—that woman who’s tailing you—it’s probably unconnected. But if it turns out it is, I gotta say, Sadie—don’t go off on your own to solve this. Keep me in the loop, and keep the police involved—keep in communication. Don’t go solo.” “Why do I keep hearing this from everyone?” “Because you’re like that, leaping before you look, gotta do everything by yourself, never asking for help.”

“Ugh,” I said. I knew he was right. “What do you mean, ‘ugh?’” “Nothing. Look, What can I do for the search? I can come back over there, or….” “Why don’t you start on the flyer?” he said. “You mean like a poster?” My heart sank at the prospect. “I thought Catherine didn’t want to do that yet. Wanted to wait until tomorrow.” “I know that, but I’m saying Daniela’s been missing for ten hours. We have to get going with a poster,” he said. “OK, I’ll start on it.” I made some more coffee and steeled myself for the task. A missing child poster with Daniela’s face on it was the most horrific thing I could imagine. I understood why Catherine didn’t want to do it yet—it meant acknowledging that Daniela really was missing, that she hadn’t just run away for several hours, or even a whole night, in a fit of preteen anger. There were several photos of my niece on my computer. Picking one that seemed to capture her best, I inserted it onto a blank page and faced the looming dread of writing the description. I came up with one sentence, and then stopped. I felt so tired. Bone-tired. I started on the second sentence.

I was hurrying up the street, carrying a hockey stick, going to meet with Kim at Mission Pie. When I got there, Kim was sitting at a long, polished wooden table with Julia, Grace, Robbie, and Dad. They were all drinking coffee and eating pie. “Come on, Sadie, we’re at the bargaining table,” my dad grinned. “We’re negotiating.” I sat down beside him. They kept talking about who was responsible. Responsible for what? I wanted a piece of pie but the display case was empty and there was no one behind the counter. A loud knocking was coming from the back. I went into the Mission Pie kitchen but it too was empty. The sound turned into banging. I opened my eyes and tried to lift my head up off the table. How could I have fallen asleep in the middle of making the poster?

The laptop screen had gone dark. The banging sound from my dream, I realized, was coming from my front door. “Sadie, are you there? It’s Robbie, open the door.”

CHAPTER 36

Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I let him in. “I thought you were in Boston, or someplace. ” “Seattle. Didn’t you get my message? Boyko called and told me what was happening, so I flew down.” “I saw you called, but sorry—I was so focused on what’s happening with Daniela that I didn’t listen to your message. I had no idea you were coming to help out. Especially after what a jerk I was on the phone. I’m sorry.” I touched his arm. “It’s OK, really,” he said, setting his laptop on the kitchen table. I looked at the clock. It was almost six o’clock in the morning. She’d been missing for fourteen and a half hours. Robbie had the Amber Alert website up. “I worked on this on the plane. Let’s see if her picture is up yet.” He clicked and the photo came up slowly. “Yup, there it is.” My stomach twisted. I took that picture—it was from her last birthday party. She was grinning and getting ready to blow out the candles on her cake, saying, “Sadie, don’t take a picture of me!” I guess they picked it because it was a closeup so you can see her features clearly. “Boyko said you were working on the poster. Is it done?” I sighed and hit a key to wake up my computer. A different photo of Daniela, this one more serious, was in the center of the page. I had only written one sentence. “Look—I’ll draft this and then you can edit it. It’s always easier to revise what someone else has written. How does that sound?” he said, sitting down at my computer. “Thanks. I’ll make coffee.” I put the kettle on, brushed my teeth, and changed

my clothes. Pouring the boiling water into the cone, I inhaled the magic smell. I brought our mugs to the table—ing to add milk and sugar for him. The smell brought back a memory of Dad, sitting at the kitchen table in the morning, still wearing his clothes from the night before, pecking at the typewriter, with stacks of papers around him, the coffee pot percolating on the stove. “I’ve got it, I figured it out,” he’d say. “Cracked the code.” After the first few sips, I felt the neurons in my brain starting to fire. “Robbie. Thank you—you have no idea how—.” “It’s the least I can do.” Checking over Robbie’s draft, I revised the poster. We went to Kinko’s to run off copies, dropped some off at Catherine’s, and spent the morning putting up flyers. Robbie had to go back to Seattle, so I continued on my own. Daniela had been missing for twenty hours. I’d been out and about all morning but hadn’t seen Kim’s car. Maybe she’d given up on me and was back in L.A. Maybe she had nothing at all to do with Daniela’s disappearance. My phone chirped. It was a text message from a 323 area code—L.A. My heart hammered.



CHAPTER 37

It was 1:30 in the afternoon. I had fourteen and a half hours to find the book. My world had all the earmarks of a nightmare. Except it was real. Kim was holding Daniela ransom for a crazy book. What I held in my hands was a precious bit of knowledge. No cops or I wll hrt hr. I was in my seat on the plane to L.A. when the debate began in my brain. –You should call the cops. Tell them. –But she said no cops. –Come on, it’s a bluff. –You don’t know that. –What are you afraid of? –Making the wrong move. It’s safer to find the book, give it to Kim, and then get Daniela back. That’s all that matters. –Are you insane? It’s too big a risk. Kim won’t even know the cops are there— they’ll do their undercover thing. She’ll never see them. –But what if she does? And on it went, a dialogue in a continuous loop.

When I got off the plane, I called Boyko and asked him to pick me up at the airport in a few hours. He was floored that I was in L.A., and reminded me that Daniela had been missing for twenty-three hours. He asked me what the fuck I was doing. I told him I’d explain later.

Wanda didn’t answer when I rang the buzzer. Maybe she was at work. Or she was at home and wasn’t answering— she’d looked out the window and seen me. I went back and sat in the car, watching the front door. She’d said she was an actor, but maybe she had a day job. Who knows when she’d get back. 5:30? Midnight? I might be here a long time. I was thinking I should probably be waiting for her in the parking lot—this was L.A., after all, and that’s where people leave their cars, when who did I see coming out of the front door but Wanda. I jumped out of the car. “Hello, Wanda, me? Sadie García Miller?” I tried not to bark at her, but she flinched and stepped back. “Of course, Dear, how are you?” She seemed to recover, and smiled brightly. She had an Auntie Mame look today: big sunglasses and a low-cut dress in a burgundy Indian print. She took off, high heels clicking, and I followed. “I’m sorry, but something extremely important has come up,” I said. “It’s a matter of life and death.” She stopped. “What are you talking about?” “Kim Leff, the woman Julia worked with at the theater? She’s kidnapped my niece.” Wanda’s eyes were unreadable behind her sunglasses, but her mouth twitched and her face went a shade paler. “What? The adorable child who came over with you? Kidnapped? Whatever for? That’s shocking.” “Do you know Kim Leff?” “I think Julia mentioned her.” “Kim wants that book of Julia’s—the one I was looking for. She thinks it’s valuable. Maybe Julia told her that—I don’t know. But she’s desperate to get that book and sell it. I need to find the book to get my niece back. It’s ransom.” Wanda seemed to be doing some kind of deep breathing exercise, with slow inhales and exhales, holding her breath in between. Finally she said, “Are you

sure? Is she—Kim—is she bluffing?” “It doesn’t matter if she’s bluffing or not—she has Daniela and she won’t—.” Wanda had moved away from me and I realized I was yelling at the top of my lungs. I swallowed and brought my voice down a notch. “So if there’s anything that we haven’t tried—someplace we can check to find the book, or if you have more of Julia’s stuff, or—” “Such a sweet girl, your niece.” Wanda seemed on the verge of tears, but then she started again with the deep breathing and, straightening her spine, she slid an invisible mask over her features, and she was back to Auntie Mame again. “I told you. I donated Julia’s stuff. Besides, I don’t a children’s book.” A chill went down my spine. “Oh,” I said. “Look—I have to get to a very important audition.” She resumed her clicking, picking up the pace, and I followed. We reached her car, a black Cabriolet. “Well, good luck,” she said. “Ta ta, gotta go ace my audition.” She got in the convertible and slammed the door. She sat for a moment, motionless, staring straight ahead. Then she started the car and drove away. The prickly feeling radiated out from my spine and through my whole body. I deliberately hadn’t told her anything specific about the book—not before and not now— and certainly not that it was a children’s story. Yet she knew. Had Julia promised the book to her, too? Or had Wanda known about its value and taken it for herself after Julia died? I managed to get into the building through the front door by tailgating a dog walker. I got on the elevator like I was a regular. When I got off at the third floor, I checked out the hallway. All clear. Wanda would be gone for while. This was L.A., after all—it was a forty-five-minute drive to get anywhere. I tried to stay calm as I took out Grandpa’s lock-pick set. It didn’t take long to get in. Wanda’s apartment was excessively neat. First I stood in the center of her apartment, took a breath, and closed my eyes. I glimpsed a hidden space, and with it came the sensation of a musty smell. In the bedroom, I checked under the mattress and went through the dresser drawers. The closet smelled of perfume and sweat, but I didn’t find the musty odor anywhere. Was it possible I was offbase, and the book was hiding in plain sight? I went on to explore the visible realm: bookshelves, tabletops, and dresser-tops. I moved onto the kitchen, then

the bathroom, and finally, the sewing room. I checked the drawers in the sewing cabinet and desk, and looked inside and under the sleeper couch. Time was running out, and I had to get back. How was I going to save Daniela without finding the book? As I left the apartment, I had the nagging sense there was one place I had overlooked. I went back to the sewing room for one more sweep but found nothing.

On the plane, I continued reading The Journey:

It was hopeless. The wasp-drones had swarmed in and, as the seeing-stone had predicted, delivered their dire threats. After they left, Alice called on her talisman, but all she received was a message, coming into her mind like a whisper: Be patient. In the hours that followed, she tried her talisman again and again, and got the same stupid message.

Alice sat up and rubbed her eyes. She must have fallen asleep. She looked over at Gil, sleeping on his side, his legs curled up so that he was almost in a ball. It reminded her of something. Furling. This time, when she placed her hand on her heart, she asked her talisman a question. She waited. And waited. When she finally got the answer she felt a spark of excitement. She put her hand on Gil’s shoulder. “Wake up.” He opened his eyes with a look of confusion and fear, and sat up. “I’ve got it. It’s possible,” she said. When they took out the seeing-stone, he came into view. He was dressed like he was going to work, in his corduroy tros, white shirt, and tie. He looked almost the same, except thinner, and with the beginnings of a beard. He seemed to be fiddling with dials and buttons on a small round object. “Father,” Alice cried. But he could not hear or see them. “If only we could communicate with him,” Alice said.

“Why don’t we try?” “How?” They slumped back down on the pod floor. She heard a whooshing sound, outside the pod. Then a tap-tap-tap. “The bird,” she said, jumping to her feet. The filaments above them frayed slightly, and a folded note dropped down into the pod. Don’t try to rescue me. I want to get you home and safe. Did you come here via the tree? If you still have my pipe, use it to get home. I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me. Love, Father

Alice shook her head. “We’re not going back without him, I don’t care what he says.” Gil nodded. “But they warned us: if we try to escape, they’ll hurt him.

CHAPTER 38

Boyko picked me up at the San Francisco airport. He was pissed off. “Did you find it?” “No.” The tension in the car was making my stomach hurt. He navigated through the traffic, chewing gum and cursing at the cab drivers. “What were you doing working on your case, instead of looking for Daniela? We’re at twenty-seven hours now.” “I know that. I told you, I am searching for Daniela. It’s all connected. I just can’t talk about it.” “What the fuck are you doing?” he yelled. “If you have new information, you have to tell me, and you have to tell the police. This is too big for you to go off on your own.” “Don’t you think I know that?” “You’re not acting like you know that. What’s the big secret? Look, I’ve put aside everything to find Daniela—I’m not complaining, I would do it anyway— but if you’re not going to work with me on this, then—.” He didn’t finish the sentence. I wanted to tell him. But Kim said she’d hurt Daniela if I brought the cops, and I believed her. I couldn’t forget what I’d sensed from Kim when I met her. She lived on a planet tilted so far out of orbit that only her rules applied. In the end, I told him everything. As I suspected, he said we had to report it to the police. I insisted I didn’t want to risk Kim hurting Daniela if she spotted the cops. But he convinced me that at least we had to tell Catherine and Matt. I gave in, knowing how unfair it would be to keep it from them. But I was still afraid they would tell the police, they were such by-the-book people.

CHAPTER 39

“I cannot even stand to look at you. Out. Out of my house. Now.” Catherine held open the door, her face red, beads of sweat on her upper lip. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. “Come on, Sadie, I’ll walk you out,” Boyko said. To Catherine he added, “I’ll be right back.” I was shaking as he walked me down the steps to the sidewalk. “You’ll keep looking, right?” I said. “Yes of course. I’m not going anywhere. Let me give you a ride home.” “No, I’ll walk. I’m going to my office. I understand she’s angry. But she can’t keep me from looking. Let me know if you find something new, and I’ll do the same.”

Back in my office, I fed Emma and sat down on the red ball. I closed my eyes. Think. The image of Union Square came into focus, the many-leveled plaza, surrounded by palm trees, department stores, and hotels. Hotels. Pushing off the ball, I stood up and paced the room. But Kim couldn’t afford Union Square prices. Where were the cheap hotels in San Francisco? The Tenderloin.

I took BART downtown and walked up to the Tenderloin. Ordinarily I liked visiting the gritty side of San Francisco, at least in the daytime. At night, I wouldn’t come down here. But today I was here for a specific purpose. “Meth? Weed?” a skinny white guy murmured to me. The Loin was known for its mix of strip clubs, Vietnamese immigrant families, and people involved in the sex and drug trades. If Kim was looking for a cheap hotel room in San Francisco, this would be the place. My first stop was the Gray Hotel, a dingy residential hotel on Leavenworth. I rang the buzzer and stated my name and

someone buzzed me in. The lobby smelled like cigarette smoke and B.O. The man at the front desk looked at me suspiciously. But when I showed him Daniela’s photo, asking if he’d seen her with a white woman in her thirties, his face softened, and it was like a door opened. “Missing?” he asked. I nodded. “That’s terrible. No. Haven’t seen her.” I went from hotel to hotel, and each time repeated a similar ritual: initial suspicion at the sight of me, followed by the showing of the photo, and then the kindness of the hotel clerk seeping through. But no one had seen a lanky young Asian girl with a chunky white woman.

CHAPTER 40

It was 4:29 a.m. I crossed Geary and approached Union Square. The wide bank of cement steps rose up out of the fog to meet me. The sky was a milky dark canopy, the square dimly lit by streetlamps. Even the neighboring lights of the St. Francis Hotel, Macy’s, and Saks seemed gray. The sounds of the precommute were faint: a traffic hum, the creaky sound of the 38 Geary bus, and tires on fog-wet pavement. The only people I’d seen on the surrounding streets were a few early commuters and one sleepless tourist. I covered every inch of the plaza. Kim was nowhere to be seen. I checked my watch for the tenth time. Only two minutes had ed. The knot in my stomach twisted. The recurring voice in my head: I promise I will never, ever again put anyone I love at risk. A foggy overlay screened the surreal scene before me: the palm trees, the giant heart sculpture, and the post-modern kiosks. The square had been renovated several years ago, and was still new and slick, with its shiny metal benches and cubist landscaping. I liked it better before, when it was shabby and run-down, but still had the graceful patina of the old world. This upscale version of San Francisco didn’t ring true, and the few homeless souls huddled in sleeping bags seemed to confirm my thoughts. This was still our city too, and not reserved exclusively for tourists and the affluent. I looked at my watch. It was 4:33. Then I saw her. She was all puffed up in a down parka, standing a few feet away from me. She pulled something from her pocket. A pistol. A terrified chord ran through my body, my reptilian brain urged me to run, get out. I steadied myself, and a wave of steely calm followed. I shifted my weight onto my back foot. “Don’t try anything,” Kim said, her voice shaky. “Here it is.” I held up the book. “Now—where’s Daniela?” Kim came closer and tried to grab it, but I held on. “I’ll give it to you when you hand her over.”

“Hey!” Kim yelled. “That’s not it! Look at the cover. It’s the wrong edition! What is this bullshit? She said you had it.” “Who said?” “Wanda. She said she gave it to you.” “She did. This is it—Julia’s book,” I lied. Her eyes glittered. “Are you trying to mess with me?” I got a good look at her—the way she held the gun loosely, with an uncertain grip, her shoulders raised up. Something clicked in my mind, and I knew: she’s never held a gun before in her life. And then I was not-thinking, I was moving, coming from the inside, driving the heel of my hand into her forearm. Her arm swung to the side and the gun flew out of her hand, clattering on the pavement. She turned slowly to look at where the pistol had landed, a quizzical frown on her face— “My—.” she said. I grabbed her jacket with both hands, pulled her in, and tripped her at the knee. She hit the ground and I thought I had her but she came back at me and we grappled clumsily on the pavement until I managed to flip her onto her stomach and straddle her. I pinned her hands behind her back and pulled up on her wrists. “Ow! You’re hurting me.” I heard footsteps. A man was running toward us in a wide arc. He scooped up the gun and trained it on Kim. It was Boyko. “Where is she?” I said. “Where is Daniela? Fucking tell me the fuck right now.” “Stop—you’re going to break—.” “Tell me where!” “Birch Hotel.” “Where is that?” Grabbing her wrists with one hand, I cocked my fist and was ready to drive it straight into her kidney when a bunch of things happened all at

once. A man appeared out of nowhere, trained his gun on Kim, and took the pistol from Boyko. A homeless woman kneeled beside me. “FBI,” she said, handcuffing Kim. “No need for that,” she said, gesturing at my cocked fist. I relaxed my fist but still held on to Kim’s wrists with the other hand. “You can let go,” the agent said. I wasn’t done. “Where’s the hotel?” I asked Kim. “Eddy Street,” she gasped. “Let go of her wrists,” the agent said. I released my grip.

CHAPTER 41

I rode in the van with Special Agent Patricia Quan, who had cast off her homeless garb; under it she was wearing a smart black pantsuit. The other agents were talking quietly, and Quan was on her cell phone, making a report. Even though one part of the battle was done, and Kim was in custody, there was still no guarantee that Daniela was safe. Kim might have lied—about the hotel, about not hurting Daniela. I felt as if the top of my head had been taken off and replaced with a helmet of fears. Some of the adrenaline had worn off, but now I was facing a still worse fear. Was my niece OK?

We stood in the dingy hallway, in front of Room 201. I heard the muffled sound of a tv. Please, let her be safe. I knocked. “Daniela? It’s me. Your Aunt Sadie.” There was no response. “Really, Dani, it’s me. You’re safe. The police have arrested Kim. I’m here with the FBI.” “Sadie?” Her small voice was audible from behind the door. “Say something else.” “Hi, Punkamonk.” She opened the door, pale and shaken, but all in one piece. The room smelled like stale pizza and felt like fear. I clasped her in my arms, shaking with relief, stroking her hair. “It’s OK, now Sweetie, everything is OK.” The agents moved past us and began searching the room. “I’m sorry, Aunt Sadie. I shouldn’t have got in the car with her, I know I shouldn’t have, but she said she was your friend. I believed her.” “Not your fault, baby. You did fine, you’re good.” I heard voices coming down the hall—Catherine and Matt’s. I let go and Daniela flew into her parents’ arms. I backed out of the room and into the dusty hallway

with the agents. The smell of nicotine was like an old friend. The nightmare was over.

I spent most of the day giving statements to the feds and the cops. Catherine, now that the crisis was over and it was clear she herself was not to blame for her daughter’s disappearance, took the opportunity to fully unleash her fury on me. At home that night, I collapsed into bed after a couple of glasses of scotch. But all the thoughts came crowding back in. On the one hand: Daniela was safe and unharmed—that was all that mattered. But on the other: Catherine had informed me I was forbidden from seeing my niece. The memory of her words cut into me and made my chest hurt. I didn’t think I could face what life would be like without Daniela. Sleepless, I turned on the light. I’d tried reading The Journey earlier in the night, but put it down after several pages. I just couldn’t focus. Now I got up, found the book on the couch, and brought it back to bed. I was almost finished.

Unwrapping the chocolate, Gil and Alice each took a bite. “Furl,” she said. As she uttered the word, each of them curled into a tiny ball and rolled out the fissure. They tumbled down the path the talisman had told her to take, and made their way to Father’s pod. Gil used the seeing-stone to cut through the fibers, and they unfurled into the room. The alarms were sounding now, and there was no time to waste. “What?” Father sputtered as he saw them. “No— go back—they’ll kill you.” “Quick, Father, furl,” Alice said. She unwrapped the chocolate and threw it at the ceiling. As they each curled in and up, a flapping sound came from above, and they were sucked up through the roof. Straddling the white bird, Father and Gil behind her, Alice shivered in fear and hung on tight. The wasp-drones were closing in behind them. Was it possible, would they make it home to their world? The bird hovered above the mountain top and dropped them into the swirling funnel.

She didn’t know how long they were racing through the darkness, but when she saw a light and the roaring sound got louder and louder, she closed her eyes in dread. And then all was still. She heard a familiar sound. Birdsong. Was she still on the bird’s back, in the other world? When she opened her eyes, she saw brown bark, and reddish-golden leaves. She was sitting astride the fifth branch of Tor. She held her father’s pipe in her hand. Gil was on the branch below, and Father was on the ground at the foot of the tree, dusting himself off. Mother came running out of the house. “Joshua, you’re home.” She hugged him for a long time, and whispered something in his ear. Then Mother and Father just looked at each other without saying anything, like they do. Mother turned her gaze up to Gil and Alice. “What are you two doing in that tree? I was wondering when you would get back from the library. I made chicken pot pies, your favorite.” She started back to the house. Father looked up at them and put his finger to his lips.

CHAPTER 42

The next morning I woke up at 6:00 a.m. with a start, shivering, the icy feeling in my gut. But then I ed: Daniela is safe. It’s OK. I had fallen asleep reading The Journey and it sat beside me on the bed. I looked at it; it would be so nice to just lie in bed and read. But I had to get back to work. I dragged myself out of bed and made coffee. I found some oatmeal and cooked it with brown sugar. I ate it slowly. At the gym, I took out some of my anger on the heavy bag. Yes, it had turned out OK, but that didn’t make up for what Daniela had gone through. After working out, I went to my office and checked my messages. For the last couple of days, I hadn’t listened to any voice mails that didn’t have to do with finding Daniela. “Hi, Sadie, it’s Molly. I had such a good time with you and I absolutely want to see you again—and also—just so you know—if you want to see me again too, the thing is: my primary relationship is with my girlfriend, and that won’t change. I want to be really clear about that. So anyway, I hope you’ve found your lost book. Call me. Or text me.” Sitting on my ball, I played her message once more. I wondered—if the girlfriend was primary, what was I? Chopped liver? Turning my attention to the Grace Case, I went through all my notes and jotted down everything that had happened in the last few days. Bounce, bounce, bounce. I hung upside down on the ball and felt a prickly sensation in my body. The thing that had been lurking in the depths of my subconscious rose into view. As if I too had a seeing-stone, the image was reflected on my mind’s surface. I knew where Grace’s book was. I picked up my truck from the shop and got on the freeway. It took me seven hours to get there, only stopping for gas and bathroom breaks. I stood outside her building in the hot sun and pressed the buzzer. I didn’t know if she’d even be

home, but I was in luck. Her voice came over the intercom. “Yes?” “It’s Sadie García Miller. I really need to talk to you.” There was a pause, and then the buzzer sounded. I took the elevator to the third floor. When she opened the door, she looked resigned. “I figured you’d be back. The cops came around again too. You might as well come in,” Wanda said. Things were askew in her usually neat apartment—shoes in the middle of the floor, magazines flung across the couch, and half-drunk mugs of tea everywhere. “Have a seat.” “I’m here because—” “I know why you’re here,” she said, with a sad smile. “One moment.” She disappeared into the sewing room and came back with a book in her hand. A shiver of excitement snaked through me. It was The Journey. She handed it to me. I opened it, looking for the inscription, heart pounding. There it was—“To Graciela.” I read her mother’s words carefully. No wonder the book held such power, and had become her talisman. It took me a moment to speak. “Thank you.” I ran my hands over the surface of the book. “What made you change your mind?” “It turns out it isn’t valuable after all. Julia said a first edition like this would go for ten thousand. It was a Millhouse Award winner and all that. She wanted me to have it, said I could sell it on eBay, and put the money toward my surgery. She said it was the least she could do, because I was the only person who had ever really been there for her.” She sighed and blinked the tears from her eyes. “This whole thing—I want you to know, I would never have done what I did if I wasn’t desperate for the money to get my surgery. You have no idea. It’s so expensive, and I’ve been saving for so long. I felt like—what kind of person have I become, that I wouldn’t just give you the book when you came back last time, and

Daniela was in danger, wasn’t that more important than my transition? I just—I was holding out for my dream. But it was on my conscience and then when I heard your niece was OK, I—I was too ashamed to you about the book.” “How did you find out it wasn’t valuable?” “I got it appraised. They said even though it was a first edition, the inscription on the flyleaf devalued it.” I shook my head at the irony. The very thing that degraded the book in the world of commerce was what made it priceless for Grace. Bracing myself, I asked her. “I hope you don’t mind my asking—where did you hide the book?” Wanda pulled her head back and looked at me like I was nuts. “I do mind your asking. Why should I tell you?” “The oddest thing,” I said, “this morning I had a flash of an old-fashioned sewing cabinet, the kind where the machine folds back into the table, out of sight, but when the machine is upright, the space underneath it is empty. Like a compartment. I wondered….” Wanda’s eyes widened, and she shook her head. She glanced over in the direction of her sewing room and put her hand on her throat. “I don’t know where you ever got that idea,” she said, standing up. “Listen, Dear, I’d offer you tea, but I have some things to do.” “Of course. I don’t want to take up any more of your time.”

* * *

Wanda walked me to the door. “One more quick question,” I said. “Did Kim Leff come to see you?” “Oh, don’t get me started. Yeah, she came over, with her bullshit story that Julia

promised the book to her. You know what? That book has caused so much grief, I just want to get it off my hands. And after Kim told the police about it, Detective Flores called me down to the station, asking if I had it, implying that maybe I killed Julia to get the book. What a bunch of crap. I didn’t tell her anything and I didn’t tell that Brick guy from the theater, either. I figured you should have the book and give it back to Grace. It’s inscribed to her, after all.” A prickling sensation ran up and down my arms. “So Brick called you?” “Yeah, but I just blew him off. He was obsessed with Julia. He used to come to her door late at night, drunk, begging her to let him in. She wasn’t interested in him, or any man. She’d just met someone new—another actress from that theater — they were crazy in love. ”

CHAPTER 43

I sat in my truck outside Wanda’s building, cradling The Journey in my hand, still buzzing with excitement. A first edition! I held it up to my nose and sniffed. It smelled old, but not moldy—it was the scent of history. The cover was just as Grace had described: the red-haired girl in the tree, gazing up at the full moon and stars. My job was done. Or should be. I’d found what Grace was missing. But what was she really looking for? Not just the book, but a whole lost world. I knew I owed it to her, somehow, to find out the truth about Julia’s death. Wanda’s words echoed in my ears: “He was obsessed with her.” A humming sensation in my solar plexus told me I had one more thing to do. Even it was risky. Even if Detective Flores had respectfully asked me to stay the fuck away. It was getting dark when I pulled up in front of the Town Hall Theater. I tried the door, and oddly, it was open. “Hello?” The lobby was cool and dimly lit by a single lamp. “Brick?” No answer. Would he have left the building unlocked? I opened the double doors to the theater and made my way into the darkness. It was warm and still in the theater. Too still. As my eyes adjusted, I squinted to see rows of seats and an empty stage. I sensed, no—I knew, someone was there. Who else would be there but Brick? He was the only staff member now. Maybe he was hiding. My thoughts tumbled over themselves: Sadie— what are you doing here? Maybe you should get out, now. And then Boyko’s voice was in my head: “Promise me you’ll be careful, whatever you do.” A clunking sound came from the backstage. Calling out Brick’s name again, I made my way down the aisle in the dark. The stage lights came on with a click and a hiss, and there was Brick, entering stage left, coming to stand in a pool of light, side-lit. “Hi, Sadie.” The same guileless look was on his face that had fooled me in the first place. He was about 5’11,” a couple of inches taller than me, but his chest was caved in, and his arms lacked muscle tone. And there was a distinct feeling emanating from him—fear. “Hi, Brick. Did you hear me calling you?”

“No, can’t hear anything back here. So, what brings you to Hollywood?” “I had an errand to do, and I thought I’d stop by. I guess you know about Kim.” “What a horror,” he said. “I was relieved to hear your niece is OK. But I couldn’t believe it about Kim. I knew she was troubled, but—kidnapping. Murder. I can’t ever forgive her for killing Julia.” I nodded, keeping my face a mask of comion. “Do you have any idea why she would do it?” Brick shook his head sadly. “I think she’s just a deeply deluded person. So. What can I do for you?” “I’m here for my client—to set her mind at peace. She wanted to know—did Julia ever find love? Grace said Julia was searching, always searching, to find the right person.” The sweetness went out of his face, replaced by a cornered look. “I wouldn’t know about that.” I steeled myself, then said, “I heard she was in love with an actress from your theater.” He jerked his head back like he’d been slapped. “Who told you that?” “A little bird.” “So what? So she was seeing someone. What about it?” “I know how misleading it can be, when you think someone really cares about you, and then they—betray your trust,” I said. He squinted at me. “I can’t see your face. Why don’t you come up onstage?” I climbed the side stairs and stepped onto the stage, a few feet away from him. I smelled him now, a tang of rage and sadness. I was poised to run if I had to. He peered at me. “What did you mean, someone can betray your trust?” “I heard that Julia was kind of a—manipulator, like—she could—.”

“She led everyone on,” he blurted. “She’d look at you, with those big brown eyes, and it was like—you were—the one she’d been waiting for. But it was bullshit. All bullshit….” “That could be really hurtful,” I said. “So you agree with me? That she was a… a manipulating bitch?” “When someone promises you something and then takes it away—it’s—yeah.” His eyes narrowed as he examined my face. Then he seemed to soften. “That’s what happened. Making it look like she was in love with me, that she would save the theater, all that.” He took a step toward me and I fought the urge to move away. “You’d be partners, right?” I said. “She’d get the money from selling the book, and you could pay off the theater’s debts, and then you’d run it together.” “Yeah, I fell for her little operetta, just like Kim did. We were each caught in her sticky web.” “So, how’d you find out?” “What do you mean?” he asked. I hoped I wasn’t off base, but plowed ahead. “When did you find out about—the affair?” He looked past me, his eyes unfocused. “I stopped by her place after a couple of drinks at the bar. She wasn’t going to open the door at first, but I made a scene in the hallway and she was worried about the neighbors, so she let me in.” No longer there in the theater with me, he was reliving what happened in Julia’s apartment, playing it out in his head, his breath shallow, sweat beading on his upper lip. “She was so. Strong. She punched me. In the face.” A childlike look of bewilderment crossed his face. The stage lights buzzed as we stood onstage in the empty theater, actors without a script. I waited for him to continue. What seemed like a few minutes went by, though maybe it was only several seconds.

“What happened then?” I said softly. He snapped back to the present, the spell broken. Peering at me, he said, “What do you want?” “Like I said, I’m here as a favor to my client.” “You’re asking me all these questions. Are you—are you trying to trick me?” His voice trailed off. He paced the stage, increasingly agitated. “You think I don’t know what you’re doing? You think I—?” His eyes grew wider. “You— you wait here, I have something to show you, it’ll explain everything!” He took off backstage and then his steps pinged on the scaffolding. I looked up but couldn’t see him. I took a half-step toward the stairs and heard a whoosh and a loud thump behind me. A large sandbag lay on the spot where I’d been standing a moment ago. “WHY DID YOU HAVE TO COME LOOKING FOR THAT FUCKING BITCH?” Brick’s agonized voice rang out from above the stage. Running up the aisle, I heard his steps clanging down the scaffolding, but I was out of the building and in my truck in a heartbeat. Driving away down the Hollywood streets, I willed my heart to slow down. A mile away, I pulled over and called Detective Flores. Miraculously, she answered her phone, and I filled her in on the Brick incident. She questioned me closely, and when I asked if she was going to investigate, she said he was already a person of interest and that they would look into it. Before we got off the phone, she added another onishment for me to stay out of the investigation. I disconnected from the call and, in an effort to calm down, took out The Journey and once again looked at the inscription. I sighed. Familia. What was that quote? Something like “Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.” There was, yes, one person who would always take me in. I made a quick call and then stopped at a florist’s. I got on a series of freeways, the 101 to the 170 to the 5, and then the 14 through Lancaster and Palmdale and some of the ugliest strip mall wasteland California has to offer. But between strip malls, in the waning light, the desert was beautiful. The barrenness of the Mojave always feels comforting to me. I find solace in that emptiness, the sandy-colored, dry earth dotted with tenacious brush and twisted Joshua trees. I thought about the words desolate and desert, and wondered if they have the same root. What

about dessert, though, it can’t possibly have the same origins—it’s the opposite of dry, it’s rich and moisture-laden. Unless it’s biscotti, which you dunk into coffee… uh-oh, now I was thinking of food. But where I was going, there was bound to be food. I took the 58 west through Tehachapi and made my way to Keene. Gloria opened the door, her face lit up with pleasure. “Flores! M’ija, you shouldn’t have.” She kissed me and took the flowers. “Qué bueno, I get to see you again so soon. You should move to L.A., then we could see each other all the time. Come in, come in.” I stepped into her apartment and took in the smell of something glorious. “Enchiladas?” I asked. “Yes, Sedicita. I know you never eat. Look at you, you’re too skinny. It’s a good thing you called first this time; I got started cooking right away. Come on in, I’ll put the flowers in water.” I followed her into the kitchen. A pot of beans was bubbling on the stove and the table was set. A basket with a folded cloth inside it sat on the table. I lifted up the cloth to see if there were tortillas inside. “Not yet,” she said, as if reading my mind. “I’ll warm them up. The enchiladas will be done in a little while. Por favor, siéntate. ¿Quieres un café?” “Gracias,” I said. I was going to need the caffeine for the long drive. Gloria filled me in on the details of her family, gossip from work, and what was happening in the UFW. I gave her a slightly edited version of the Grace Case, knowing she would worry about me if she heard all the gory details. At dinner, I ate more than I should have, but it was worth it. I left with yet more Tupperware filled with leftovers. I also took with me, tucked away in my bag, Gloria’s enchilada recipe. Maybe I’d even try it out.

CHAPTER 44

Grace

A triangle of early morning light illuminated Grace’s altar. She stood before Our Lady of Guadalupe and recited the words she had written that morning, her prayer for the day:

Mi madre true I come to you And St. Anthony too Please hear my plea Something is lost At what cost It must be found This time around

It was hard, sometimes, to hold on to her faith. She thought about the past week —Joey’s death, Sadie’s niece getting kidnapped, it was all too much. What if Sadie isn’t the right one, she wondered. Maybe she just doesn’t have the gift of sight, after all. And why did she ask me to drop by the office this morning. Why not just talk on the phone? Is she going to tell me she’s given up?

Grace closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. She thought of Alice, held hostage with her brother, despairing of ever escaping. Grace opened her eyes. It was only when Alice lost all hope that she found a way out.

* * *

Grace sat in the wobbly folding chair in Sadie’s office. “Cigarette?” Sadie said. “Sure.” As Grace inhaled, she felt a calmness enter her. She blew out the smoke. “How is your niece?” “She’s OK. But now I’m forbidden from seeing her because of—” Sadie choked up. “That’s awful.” Sadie wiped her eyes and then, oddly, she smiled. “I have something for you,” she said. She pulled out a book from the desk drawer and handed it to Grace. “Dios mio!” Grace said, her heart pounding. It looked right—but was it? She didn’t want to get her hopes up. She opened it to the flyleaf, found the inscription, and drank in the words she had been missing for so long. She said, her eyes tearing, “When did you—where did you—?” and laughed. Sadie laughed too, her eyes shining with excitement. “Found it yesterday. I got back late last night, and wanted to tell you in person. Julia’s friend Wanda had it all this time. She claimed that Julia gave it to her as a gift, said it was valuable and that Wanda could make serious money off it.” Grace blew out a plume of smoke. “Sell it? That’s crazy. No amount of money could make me do that. In matters of the heart, the object has no financial value. It only has worth.” She flushed. She ran her hands over the cover of the book. “I knew you’d find my talisman. I can’t thank you enough.”

Sadie nodded, without saying anything, her eyes like deep pools, and when Grace returned her look, their two gazes intersected in the middle of the room, in a slice of sunlight that hung lightly in the morning air. Sitting in her car, Grace ran her fingers over the inscription:

Para mi hija Graciela, Este libro es mi corazón. Con este libro te doy mi corazón, hoy y para siempre.

Con carino, tu Mamá

To my daughter Grace, this book is my heart. With this book I give you my heart, always and forever. Love, Mama. Grace hugged the book and whispered, “I have tu corazón now. And I will never let it go.”

CHAPTER 45

In the few days since I’d delivered Grace’s book, I’d left Detective Flores several messages but she hadn’t returned my calls. This morning I finally got a message from her. She confirmed that she had arrested Brick Paxton on suspicion of the murder of Julia Ruiz. After I got off the phone, I looked around my office and decided to do what I always do after finishing a big case. I went into a cleaning frenzy. I was in the back room on my hands and knees, drying off the floor with a towel, when something next to the baseboard caught my eye. Something small and milky-blue—could it be? I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but what if…? I crawled over and picked it up. Yes. I closed my fist around it and pulled it in to my chest. My missing earring, whose mate was sitting patiently on the dresser in my apartment. I held it up to the light to see the luminous coral and blue colors shift. My touchstone. I had finally finished The Journey. The last few lines reminded me of a promise I had made, so many years ago. Father had sealed the portal in the tree and made her and Gil promise never to go back to the other universe. Even though she gave him her word, she could not forget all the beings trapped in those pods, waiting to be freed. Someday she would have to go back.

I also wanted to keep my promise, yet someday I still had to go back. To find out what really happened to my father.

* * *

I put on the earring, fastening it securely in place. I thought back to the day it went missing, the day that Grace walked into my office and set off a certain chain of events. My phone bleated and I saw with dread that there was a text. But then my mood soared: it was from Dgirl, my moniker for Daniela.



Who knew that a text could give me such a rush of love and relief? I hoped she was right, and that we would be able to see each other again someday. I sat down on the red ball. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. Things were looking up. I had just deposited the hefty payment from Grace, my rent was paid, and—most important—my niece was safe. Looking through my closet in the back room, I picked out a celebratory outfit— stretchy top with the gauzy thing over it, fake fur mini-skirt, and cowboy boots. I grabbed my bag, locked up the office, and started jamming my way down Valencia Street. But then I stopped. Why rush? Why not enjoy the day? The fog was burning off, the sun was coming out, and the air was warming. I took a good look around me. Everything I usually ignore on my walk down Valencia Street was crystal clear to me now. The sidewalks were dirty, but when you smiled, the ersby smiled back. The barflies were out on the sidewalk in front of Clooney’s, already buzzed and smoking cigarettes, and the produce market on the corner was a collage of oranges, mangoes, and pomegranates. I turned down 24th, then stopped to look at a window display for Dia de Los Muertos, an artful arrangement of sugar skulls, skeleton art, and marigolds, presided over by the Virgen de Guadalupe, the yellow and orange rays of light emanating from her form, set off by the midnight blue of her cloak. I must’ve been standing there for a while when I noticed my hand on my heart. Humming a tune as I crossed the street to the café, I reached up and touched my earlobe, feeling the earring in its place. My talisman. I opened the door to La Boheme. Where I would sit down with my book and an espresso. Where I just

might run into someone. A friend. Or a stranger with a secret, looking for a beloved object, treasured and lost.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you:

To the generous friends and family who read and commented on various drafts of my manuscript and took the time to hash out ideas with me: Donna Levreault, Monty Sullivan, Paul Hellyer, Rowena Richie, Borys Procak, Janet Ference, Elizabeth Gjelten, Christine Rodgers, Sara Gifford, Lil Hara, Hal Lieberman, Irene Barnard, Christina Pérez, Michelle Richmond, Jennifer Dessin, Deborah Rose, Amy Ashcroft, and Lissa McLaughlin. To Ragdale Foundation and Virginia Center for the Arts for invaluable fellowships. To those who loaned me a quiet place to write: Christina Pérez and Peter Olney for the Writer’s Cottage, Sara Gifford for her home, and Lynn Rosenfield and Carl Lieberman for their cabin. To my remarkable writers’ group, who were right there when I started this novel on our retreat in Gualala several years ago, and whose has buoyed me through completion of the book and beyond: Janet Ference, Elizabeth Gjelten, Lori Habige, and Christine Rodgers. To Rebecca Sanchez, John Norton, Maria Nieto, Lisette Senn, and Ellen Sussman. To Ithuriel’s Spear: sca Rosa, astute editor, and Jim Mitchell, dynamic publisher. Finally, ten bears’ gratitude to my husband, Borys Procak, for kindness, wit, and laughter.

SUSIE HARA lives in San Francisco. Her stories have been published in several anthologies, including Fast Girls, Best American Erotica, and Flash in the Attic Fiction, vol. 2. Her play Lost and Found in the Mission won the Best Ensemble award in the 2008 San Francisco Fringe Festival. She has received fellowships from Millay Art Colony, Ragdale Foundation, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. This is her first novel.