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Am I ever going to have a chance to reconnect with the one person who was always there for me?
“Woah,” Beatrice cocks her head. “You good? You spaced off for a second.”
“I’m fine.”
“He’s a good cat,” she says. She bounces Lemon Drop like he’s a little baby, and I can’t help but smile.
“Good,” I nod. “I’m glad you’ve got him.”
“I’m not keeping him,” she reminds me, but a few hours later, our shift ends, and Lemon Drop rides in the backseat of Beatrice’s car in his very own cat carrier and is wearing his very own collar.
“What a little sweetie,” I murmur.
“Not a word, Alex.” Beatrice rolls her eyes. “Not a word.”
14.
Alex
Sunday morning, I decide I’m ready to make my move. I’ll be getting my first paycheck relatively soon, which means I’m going to start looking for the right private investigator to take my case. I’ve never hired someone before, so I watch a few YouTube and TikTok videos about the process before I finally get up the nerve to go meet with someone.
The person I choose to talk with is named Molly Montgomery. She’s tall, skinny, and has long blonde hair that flows to the middle of her back. She looks like she’s a respectable sort of person. Not shady. I’m not really sure what I thought I’d get when I started looking up “private investigators in my area,” but it wasn’t her.
Molly’s office is a single room with a couch against one wall, a desk against the other, and two chairs in the center of the room with a table between them. We sit at the table and I place a folder on the center.
“How can I help you?” Molly asks. She cuts right to the chase. No bullshit. I like that.
“My brother and I were put into foster care fifteen years ago. We were separated. I haven’t seen him since.”
I expect Molly to say that she’s sorry or that she knows this is unfair, but she doesn’t. Instead, she just nods and reaches for the folder.
“Have you gotten in touch with him at all?”
“No.”
“Have any information on his foster homes?”
“Nope.”
“Checked high schools in the area to see if he attended or graduated?”
I pause. No. I didn’t do that. Shit. Why the hell didn’t I do that? Molly doesn’t seem bothered or upset by this.
“Siren City is big. The surrounding towns have a ton of little schools, and let’s get real: they wouldn’t be giving that information out to you, anyway. I’ve got resources, though. I’ve got connections. That’s where I’d like to start. If I can catch him in middle school or high school, chances are that his pictures are going to be in some yearbooks. Elementary school is more iffy.”
