I nodded. I knew the area, of course. It was actually a rather great divide, many miles of empty, although beautiful, land, with one lush county segueing into another, harsher, drier, hotter county. The Starbucks wouldn’t be your typical hangout for moms and students and guys with square glasses and thick, mangy beards.
No, this Starbucks was a stopover, a place to get coffee while waiting out traffic. Or to use the bathroom. This Starbucks was an outpost. An outlier. Other than the occasional morning commuter who hit up this Starbucks, employees would rarely, if ever, see the same customer twice.
“So, no one else remembered her?”
“No.”
“Just the one employee?”
He nodded, said nothing. His aura was crackling with blue energy, split occasionally with streaks of yellow. I wasn’t sensing any deception on his part. I felt that I could trust his memory, and I felt that I could trust him, too, although I didn’t like the part about him considering hurting her.
“Did you ever hurt your wife?” I asked.
“I told you, she just disappeared—”
“That wasn’t my question. Did you ever hit your wife? Hurt her in any way?”
“No, never.”
“Did you fight often?”
“What’s often? We had your typical fights, I guess.”
Despite my desire to stay out of his thoughts, I dipped in quick enough to see him yelling at her—“going off” on her, as he called it. Yeah, he fought like a crazy man. His face twisted. And, no, he didn’t hit her. At least, not in the memories I saw. But he was verbally abusive.
“So, what happened next?” I asked, easing back out of his mind again, to my great relief.
“I called the police. Reported her missing.”
The police had come out. Had interviewed him and the workers. A massive search had been conducted. The search had lasted for days, and I even remembered it. Whether or not she had been found hadn’t made the news. Or, if it had, I was too knee-deep in my own issues to have noticed.
After three days, the search had been called off. There were no leads, nothing to indicate that his wife had ever left the Starbucks. There was video surveillance of her going in, but none of her leaving. A true mystery.
“I didn’t kill her, Ms. Moon.”
I knew that he didn’t kill her. But there was always the slim possibility that his memory had been replaced with a false memory, one so powerful that even his own mind believed it. But I doubted that. Then again, he could have been delusional, of course. Mentally ill. But I doubted that, too. His aura was normal enough. Those with mental health issues had very erratic, scattered auras. Distorted auras that flashed with many colors. His pulsed blue and yellow, and mostly blue. Blue was the color of trust. At least, according to my own experience.
Not to mention, I had seen his memories. Hell, I had lived through them. And then, there was the minor issue that his wife was never seen leaving Starbucks.
“My wife needs help, Ms. Moon. Something has happened to her. Something very, very bad, and the police aren’t doing a damn thing about it.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing. The detective on the case, last I heard, was dead.”
“Dead? How?”
“I have no clue. They won’t tell me anything, other than they’re working on it.”
“Are you a suspect?”
“They say only that I’m a person of interest. That all husbands are when wives go missing.”
True enough. And as I contemplated his words, I checked the time on my cell. Ah, hell. I was going to be late again. Damn.
“Will you help me?” he asked.
“Yes. But first, I need to pick up my kids.”