“The thing is my cell phone has never been recovered. It’s not even traceable. And all of my contact information was stored in it naturally,” I reply, “You know, the digital age and all. Her name is Shelby Parker. I haven’t seen her around campus, but that doesn’t mean she’s not around somewhere. I just thought I might reach out to her. She’d be a senior.”
“Well,” Kandace replies, biting her lower lip, “I can look through Dan’s class roster for this semester to see if she’s in any of his classes. Hang on a sec.”
I wait while she starts tapping some keys on her desk computer. “Shelby Parker, Shelby Parker . . .” she repeats to herself. “Nope, none on any of this semester’s class rosters. Let me look at last semester’s grades. You say she was in Dan’s Communication class?”
“That’s right.”
She keys something else in and waits. “There she is. Shelby Parker, Communications 201. She got an 'I' last semester. That means ‘Incomplete’,” she clarifies. “Oh and down here under ‘Status Code’ there’s a ‘W’. That means she’s withdrawn from the university.”
“Withdrawn?” I repeat.
“Yes, apparently your friend dropped out of school. You see, if there was a Status Code ‘T’ that would mean she transferred. This simply is coded that she left Columbia. Now you may get further information at the Registrar’s Office, but this is all I have on Ms. Parker.”
“Thanks, Kandace,” I reply heading out. Next stop: Registrar’s Office.
As one might expect, the Registrar’s office was not permitted to divulge a student’s or former student’s record without express written permission which includes the last four digits of their social, birth date and Student I.D. number.
Fantastic.
I’m screwed in finding Shelby.
Maybe. Maybe not.
If Shelby left Columbia, that’s one thing. But if she’s still in the city, that’s quite another. But I'm going to need some help. Some trusted help, and I have just the person in mind.
10
Do Me a Solid
“Ohh, damn, that hurts. Please stop, you’re killing me for Chrissake, Krew!”
“What a wimp,” he teases, lowering the tension on the rowing machine. “You’ve only done ten minutes. I had you up to twenty-five when you were in P.T.”
I grab a towel, and wipe my face and neck. “What can I say, I backslid.”
“No doubt,” he replies, as I climb off and he takes my place. I admire his bulging biceps and quadriceps as he shows off his rowing skills. “See?” he asks, “This is how you build up muscles which give you strength, Princess.”
I roll my eyes and drop to the floor to sit and watch, while guzzling some of my bottled water. “Now you’re just showing off,” I quip.
“You’ll get there,” he says, continuing to punish his beautiful body like that. “Glad you took me up on my offer, although I didn’t expect to have to open up for you so late at night. What’s the hurry?”
I pause from slurping more water, wanting to make sure I word my request in such a way he won’t be inclined to refuse.
“I need you to go to a sex club with me.”
Way to go, Carson.
I hear the snap of the handle clang against the frame as Krew lets go of it, no doubt in shock at my lurid request.
“Come again?” he rasps, and then gets an ornery look on his face. “Oh, and pardon the pun there.”
I bite my lower lip, trying not to laugh. What he must think of me! “That wasn’t how I meant for it to come out,” I say, “I totally freaked you out, I’m sorry. What I meant is that I need somebody to go with me to this private sex club so I can find out what happened to my friend Shelby.”
He exhales a hard breath, grabbing his towel and wiping off his face. “Uh . . . you actually are a member at one of these places?”
“Oh no, I mean I don’t think so anyway. But I do know that I went there as a guest at least once. You know my memory issues prevent me from having the full picture . . . because of my accident.”
“I don’t understand what exactly it is you want me to do. Can you be a bit more definitive, Princess?”
I sigh. “Okay, bits and pieces of my past from last semester, are slowly surfacing in what my therapist refers to as ‘recollection memories.’ They occur in occasional dreams. But they're not totally inclusive of all of the specifics. Just