“What? Oh my God Madison you’ve lost your mind. My wife is not your stalker. She’s like … a housewife. Calm down.”
“I am calm!” Madison realized after she said it that it had come out in a screech. She was not at all calm.
“Okay, look: I need to finish testifying today. Meet me at McGregor’s tonight at seven thirty, and we will figure this out. Bring the new note.”
Madison hung up. She was supposed to go out with Ryan tonight, but that no longer seemed appealing. She couldn’t exactly make up an excuse when he would see her every coming and going. Accepting his invitation was seeming less and less like a good idea. Well, she could limit it. She texted Ryan, naming the restaurant around the corner from their place: Do you want to make it happy hour at Su Casa?
She sat in her office chair and stared at the whiteboard. Somehow yesterday it had seemed less personal or like it could still somehow be a fluke. Now it was as if she was having an actual conversation with a psychopath; someone was stalking her and knew that she was fully investigating him. It wasn’t funny anymore.
The only thing to do was keep moving. The faster she figured out who he was, the faster he would be caught. If she stopped investigating out of fear, he could still think she was investigating; who knew how his mind worked. Nope, she had to just keep going and find him, even though she was really afraid now. She repeated the process of the day before with the note, but this time found a clear plastic sleeve to put it in; she would take it to Tom later.
She wrote on the whiteboard: Anonymous has to be Samantha’s kidnapper, because of the connection to Felicity’s phone call and the exact same wording as the note. She had nothing to write under the Suspects column because she still didn’t have any idea who this person was. She then went to the Clues column and wrote down each note she had received, with the wording, along with the wording in Felicity’s phone call; it was chilling to see the similarities, especially considering the violent words included in Felicity’s call. Madison still didn’t know if any of this tied in to Elissa Alvarez’s disappearance.
According to her Leads column, the next thing she needed to do was talk to Elissa’s mother, so maybe she would soon find out if there was a connection. Harmony Alvarez had spoken with the media early on after Elissa had gone missing; however, there hadn’t been as much coverage on Elissa as there had been on Samantha, and Madison hadn’t seen anything lately where Mrs. Alvarez had been quoted. Hopefully she would be willing to talk to Madison.
Madison pulled up her private investigator’s database, a website that only licensed private investigators had access to, and put in the name Harmony Alvarez. It was unusual enough that there shouldn’t be too many of those in the United States, and even fewer in the San Diego area. She was right: only three names came up, and only one of them was in the San Diego area. Harmony Alvarez, age fifty-five, El Cajon, California. And there was a phone number.
Yes, Madison reminded herself, it is easy to find someone if you have the right tools.
“Bueno?” A woman answered. Madison did not speak Spanish, but she could get by in a pinch.
“Si … Mrs. Alvarez? Soy Madison Kelly …”
“Yes?” Thank God the woman had switched to English.
“I am a licensed private investigator. I’m looking into the disappearance of your daughter. Would it be possible for me to speak with you?”
“You are in San Diego?” she asked.
“Yes, I am in La Jolla.”
“Yes, this is possible. I am in La Jolla today working. I clean the house. You can come here?”
“Yes, of course. Will that be okay with your employer?”
“They are in Europe. I am alone here. I clean every two weeks while they travel.”
“Okay, perfect.”
Mrs. Alvarez gave her the address on a street in the hills of La Jolla. They agreed to meet in two hours.
Madison hung up. She felt a little better; she was moving forward with her plan. Now what she needed was a nap. The disturbing aspect of this case exhausted her, and she wanted to be clearheaded when she met with Elissa’s mother. She went to check the windows again: no unusual cars, no one lurking in the alleys. She didn’t feel safe in her home anymore. Thankfully, her wooden stairs were so rickety that the sound of someone walking up them would wake the dead. It was the built-in alarm system of an ancient dwelling. She went to the door and added a wedge lock that made it impossible to get in unless you removed the hinges from the door. Or used an ax, which would definitely get her attention.
Madison opened the windows so that there was an ocean breeze cutting across her apartment. She stripped off her clothes. As she crossed to her bed, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror on her antique vanity, and her breath caught in her throat. That happened sometimes. When she was living her life, she tended to forget that the bilateral mastectomy she’d had for early-stage breast cancer had taken her nipples and left her with two huge scars from her armpits to the center of her chest. Clothes allowed her to forget: the mounds under her shirt from the implants looked real. When she had the surgery, a friend had said, “At least you’ll have a new rack!” She didn’t talk to that person anymore. She didn’t have a new rack; she had two implants placed under her pectoral muscles, huge scars, and no nipples.
Madison ran her finger along the scar that ended where her nipple used to be on her right boob. Then she did the same on the left. Her chest was permanently numb from the nerves being cut during surgery, but her finger registered the unusual texture of the scarred skin. She didn’t feel pretty when she did this. She decided Dave was just being kind when he said he didn’t mind. Guys liked smooth, pretty boobs, with nipples. She looked like she’d been in a knife fight.
She lay on top of the comforter and let the breeze drift across her body. The air at the beach in Southern California remained cool for most of the summer months; the feel and smell of it reminded her of every summer in her life. She remembered coming home from summer school that time she was taking drama; she was riding her bike. Her problems and worries had seemed big and real, but she was on the way home, where there was safety: Mom and Dad wouldn’t let anything happen to her. That’s how it felt at the time, anyway. That was so many Junes ago she’d lost count; somehow it’d had a bit more hope.
Madison was so exhausted that she easily fell asleep. Her last thought before she began to dream was: Tom didn’t ask me what the note said.
Chapter Ten
When Madison pulled into the driveway, Mrs. Alvarez was standing on the sidewalk in front. She was wearing a uniform of some kind, sort of like scrubs in a tan pastel color. She waved. Madison eyed her as she was getting out of the car. Mrs. Alvarez looked warm and friendly; but she also looked like she’d been tired for a very long time.
“Mrs. Alvarez?” Madison got out of the car and reached out her hand to shake.
Mrs. Alvarez had to look up at Madison; she was about a foot shorter.
“Yes! You so tall!”
Mrs. Alvarez led the way into the home. It was the biggest house Madison had ever been in. As soon as you walked into the foyer, which was bigger than Madison’s entire apartment, you could see the ocean. They were in the hills above La Jolla, and one entire wall of this huge house was a window. It looked like there was no seam in the glass. Madison figured they must’ve used a crane to get that piece of glass in place. Mrs. Alvarez pointed at the corner of a huge couch, and Madison sat down. There was already a water bottle sitting on a coaster on the coffee table in front of her.