I hear him describe his wife to anyone who will listen. No one remembers seeing her. Wait, one worker does, but she isn’t very forthcoming. No, that’s not it. She just doesn’t remember too much. Yes, she took an order from her. Water only. ‘Water?’ he asks. ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Yes, sir. Just water. Then she went in there.’ She points to the bathrooms.
Henry rushes back to the bathroom. Maybe he missed her. Maybe she is behind the door, or in a stall. Dammit, no stalls. Not behind the damn door. He checks the guys’ bathroom again, too. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Now, Henry is outside, rushing back to his truck, in case she has come back, in case he has somehow missed her. But she’s not there. Now, he’s running around the building, running and running, looking for her. Maybe she had wanted to throw up in an alley? But there’s no alley here. Just a big, hot shopping center sitting on the edge of the desert. He stands on a parking lot curb, shielding his eyes from the sun’s glare. Nothing. Then stands on his truck’s bed, searching.
Nothing.
Now, he’s on his cell phone calling the police, weeping, fearing the worst. He’s nearly incoherent as he reports her missing.
And then the thoughts repeat.
Over and over.
Chapter Three
“She disappeared,” said Henry, speaking into his hands, his voice barely audible, his voice barely human. He was unaware that I had just seen the entire scene in his thoughts. “She just disappeared. And I have no idea where she went or what happened.”
I didn’t know either, of course. I didn’t know all or see all. I was just a woman. Just a mom. Granted, a very freaky woman; and, if you asked my kids, I was a very freaky mom, too.
I said, “You watched her walk into Starbucks?”
He nodded. He held a tissue tightly in his hand. The tissue might have been torn to shreds. “Yes. I watched her in the rearview mirror.”
I could have confirmed this by dipping into his thoughts, but I thought I’d had enough of Henry Gleason’s thoughts for one day. Hell, for a lifetime. I said, “And you watched her enter?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see where she went from there?”
“No. She just, you know, blended with the crowd and I started playing with my phone. You know, wasting time, looking at texts and scores and news and weather.”
“Angry Birds?”
He gave me a weak grin. “That, too.”
“An employee at Starbucks saw her?”
“Yes. She spoke to the police, but she really doesn’t remember much.”
“Do you have her name?”
“Jasmine.”
“Last name?”
He shook his head. “The police will have it, but I can’t imagine there are too many Jasmines working at that Starbucks.”
I nodded. They would. “Anyone else at Starbucks see your wife?”
“No one.”
“What about customers?”
He shook his head. “By the time I went looking for her, anyone who might have seen her was long gone.”
“Did you ask around?”
“I did. Like a crazy man. No one had seen her. This isn’t your typical Starbucks, you know. People were coming and going, not staying long. There weren’t, you know, those hipster geeks in there with their laptops. This Starbucks straddles Corona with Yorba Linda.”