Chapter One（2）

“Start at the beginning. What are you doing in my neck of the woods? Are you visiting family?”

“No. My family’s all up north.” He raised his head and took a deep breath. “I’m looking for someone.”

“Who?”

“Ivor. I’ve checked the hospitals, the morgue. The police won’t help because his family won’t report him missing and he’s an adult. They say he’s got a right to disappear if he wants.”

“I’m sorry,” I interrupted. “Ivor is…?”

“Missing.”

“Right. I mean, who or what is Ivor to you?”

“He’s my boyfriend.”

“Oh, that’s great!” Possibly I sounded overly enthused, but as I recalled, Jake had not taken kindly to Kevin’s, er, boyish interest in me. Or mine in him. Not that I’d ever really been interested in Kevin.

Anyway, it was all a long time ago.

“Yes. It was. Is. And that’s why—” Kevin broke off as the barista brought our coffees and a couple of pastries on a tray.

In a mystery novel, that would have been the point at which a silencer would have appeared through the branches of the potted tree to take out Kevin, but in real life we just waited politely until she departed.

“Have some baklava,” I said, “and let’s walk this back a few steps. Ivor is your boyfriend, and he came down south to spend the holidays with his family, and now he’s missing?”

“Yes. Right. Exactly.” Kevin reached for a slice of baklava.

“And his family is saying…what?”

“Nothing.”

“Meaning they won’t talk to you or they don’t have any information?”

Kevin chewed like a threshing machine and spit out, “Both.”

“It can’t be both.”

“First they said he wasn’t there. Then they stopped talking to me.”

“Ah. So you think—”

“He didn’t change his mind about us! I know he’s there. Something happened while he was down here visiting them.”

Yep. And that something had led Ivor to change his mind about being with Kevin. Been there and done that. And honestly, it had all turned out for the best. As painful as it had been getting dumped by Mel, I didn’t regret a minute of that heartbreak because my path had ultimately led to Jake.

I didn’t try to tell Kevin that, though. I didn’t tell him if it was meant to be, it would happen. I didn’t reassure him about all the fish in the sea. Because it doesn’t help when you’re in love with a particular fish.

“What do you think happened?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Realistically, I mean.”

“Realistically, I don’t know. Nothing they could say would make any difference to him. I know Ivor. I know he loves me.”

I have to admit his absolute certainty was convincing. Or maybe it was just poignant.

I said tentatively, because sometimes hearing it aloud jolts you back to reality, “Do you think he’s being held against his will?”

“Maybe.” He said it more in challenge than in belief.

“What do you think would be the purpose of that?”

“Maybe they would try to force him into conversion therapy? They’re really conservative. I mean like something out of the nineties.”

“Uh…” Presumably he didn’t mean 1890s.

“I didn’t even think normal people could feel that way now,” he said all wide-eyed and shocked-looking. Seven years wasn’t a generation, but Kevin had grown up in a different world than me. Certainly a different world than Jake.

“I’m not sure how normal they are if they’re really holding their son against his will so that they can force him into conversion therapy.”

“I mean normal-seeming. People who live in the real world. Who’ve been to college. Who have jobs. Friends. Who have money.”

That caught my attention. “They have money?”

“A lot of money.” He said it with complete disgust.

“What’s Ivor’s last name?” I asked.

“Arbuckle.”

“Arbuckle? As in Candace and Benjamin Arbuckle?”

Kevin watched me, torn between hope and unease. “Right. Why? Do you know them?”

“My mother knows them. I went to school with Terrill.”

I hadn’t thought of Terrill in years. And I’d have been happy to go on never thinking of him.

Kevin was staring at me expectantly. I admitted, “I vaguely remember Ivor. There was a sister too, I think.”

“Jacintha. Yes.” Kevin continued to wait for my pronouncement.

I didn’t have a pronouncement. If I did, it would be something along the lines of Run for the hills! Terrill and I had been doubles partners on the tennis team back in high school. He was a good player but a total prick off the court. Happily, once my health had sidelined me, I’d never had to deal with Terrill again. As in literally never. I’d never seen or heard from him again after I got sick.

Terrill Arbuckle as an in-law was something I wouldn’t wish on anyone—or at least not the Terrill Arbuckle I’d known back then. And I couldn’t imagine the rest of the clan was any better. That was an assumption. I didn’t know it for a fact. Maybe Ivor was the white sheep of the family.

Kevin gazed beseechingly at me with those wide green eyes. He said huskily, “Do you—could you—can you help me, Adrien?”

“Me? Well, I don’t know how much help I’d be. I do know—”

“You saved me,” Kevin broke in, and he sounded startlingly passionate about it. “I’d have gone to prison for murder if you hadn’t stepped in three years ago. Nobody else believed me. Only you. Well, also Melissa. Anyway, I never got the chance to tell you. Never got the chance to say thank you.”

“That’s okay. You didn’t have to.”

“When I saw your bookstore, it was like a sign. I mean, I know that probably sounds crazy, but I was driving around feeling so—so desperate and alone, and then when I saw you, I knew it would be okay. I knew you would help. That I’d managed to find the one person who could help.”

“Okay, but wait,” I said quickly. “First of all, you’re welcome for three years ago. I couldn’t have done that on my own, though. And really the same goes for now. I’d like to help, but probably the most helpful thing I can do is put you in touch with someone who can get you some answers.”

“Who?” Kevin asked blankly.

I smiled. Because even in these not very cheerful circumstances, knowing I could call on Jake for help, could count on Jake now and forever, filled me with…happiness.

Yeah. Happiness.

“Jake Riordan,” I answered.