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“Exactly. Now are you going to take the case or not?”
“I will.” There was a beat before he continued, “If you could send me a picture, I’ll begin making the rounds. If I find her, I’ll call you immediately.”
After we finished up the rest of the details he needed from me, I started calling every other place I could think of. Restaurants we’d been together. Jean, though I kept my reasons for calling as vague as possible. Gilded Cage. Every business between here and the bodega.
Morgues.
As each called turned up nothing, I became more frustrated and less concerned, especially once I’d gotten the morgues out of the way. For three hours, I talked with people who were rude, bored, annoyed, and everything in-between, and I got nothing.
I tried calling her again, but there was still nothing. Every single one of them went straight to voicemail, where I left increasingly terse messages asking her to call me and let me know that she was all right.
As the afternoon went on without any progress, I had to face the fact that wherever Sine was, she didn’t want me to find her. After all, how hard would it have been for her to call me and tell me what she was doing? Or a text? Or if her phone was dead, there were dozens of possible options, not the least of which was to stop here herself and explain why she’d blown off work. Blown off me.
It wasn’t like she’d simply stood me up for a date. She had a job. Two of them, actually. Contracts that she’d signed. If nothing else, professionalism and courtesy weren’t too much to ask for. I didn’t know of any other employer who’d have spent the day looking for a missing employee rather than just firing them. Hospitalization, okay, that would be an understandable absence, but I was getting more and more confident that she wasn’t hurt or in trouble.
She just hadn’t cared enough about her job, or me, to tell me she wouldn’t be coming in today.
As the fourth hour came and went without a word from her or from Max, I’d had enough. I dialed her number one final time.
Each word I said was flat and cold. I made no attempt to disguise my anger. I should have felt relief at ending things, but all I felt was mildly sick. I needed to get out of here. The studio held too many memories of her, and all I wanted to do right now was forget.
