The Lost Girl (A Mickey Keller Thriller Book 1) Read online

  “Doesn’t bother me.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Hey. You think I’m unfit to work, I’ll go home.”

  “That’s selfish. Who am I going to get to fill in for you at the last minute?”

  Amy thought a moment, then nodded. “Definitely one of the drawbacks of being self-employed and running a business.”

  Ellen leaned back in her seat. Amy read her expression as one of disapproval.

  Joan appeared with another beer—no glass this time since the first one had gone untouched.

  “Don’t drink that just yet,” Ellen said. “There’s a story here. And I want to hear the lucid version. Or…the semi-lucid version.”

  “Trust me. You don’t want to hear either one.”

  Ellen gave Amy’s forearm a firm squeeze. “I do. Really.”

  Ellen was about her mother’s age—or the age her mom would be if she were still alive. Amy stared at her drink. “I was living my dream. And then in an instant, it was gone. Tragic, actually. Because that part of it wasn’t a dream. It was reality.”

  “Tell me more,” Ellen said.

  “Not my favorite thing to do,” Amy said, reaching out and picking up the bottle. “Talking about it.”

  “When did this…happen?”

  “Seven years, two months, and three days ago.”

  Joan swung up alongside the table with two plates and set them in front of the two women.

  “What was this tragedy that changed your life?”

  Amy stared at her burger. “I lost my girl. And my husband.”

  “Lost them? How?”

  “Our car was broadsided by a truck. They were killed. I survived.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Amy laughed. “Yeah.” She made eye contact with Ellen. “I’ve heard it. But no one knows what it’s like. No one understands. You can’t until you’ve lived through something like that.” She dropped her gaze. Grabbed the bottle, put it to her lips, then pulled it away and picked at the corner of the label instead.

  “Did you get help?”

  Amy canted her eyes ceiling-ward. “Let’s see. Depression. Survivor’s guilt. PTSD. Destructive tendencies. Yeah, I got help. No—I went for help. Didn’t get any. Lost my family, lost my job, lost my career. Lost my life.”

  “So you really were an attorney?”

  “Partner in the second largest law firm in Boston. My husband and I couldn’t get pregnant so we tried IVF. And then we were blessed with the miracle. My daughter. Lindy.” Amy stared off at the back of the restaurant over Ellen’s right shoulder. Her eye began twitching again.

  “You’re right. I can’t imagine what that was like.”

  Amy smirked—an “I told you so” look.

  “Did you have a support network? Friends? Other attorneys at the firm?”

  “Lost it all after having a nervous breakdown. Excuse me. A severe depressive episode.”

  “How severe?”

  Her right eyelid twitched faster. “Very.” Amy took a swig of beer. “Tried to kill myself.” She held out her left wrist, displaying a faint transverse scar. “I was bleeding out and a friend found me.” She stared at the healed skin. “Spent time on a shrink’s couch, my bloodstream filled with all sorts of psychoactive cocktails.” She snorted. “Therapy.” Amy set the bottle down. “They wanted to talk about the accident, about my daughter. About my husband. I couldn’t. Didn’t want to. So they didn’t really have much to offer me. Wasn’t their fault. I just wasn’t ready. I stopped going and tried to deal with it myself.”

  Ellen was staring, brow firm with concern.

  Amy gestured at her wrist. “Obviously, that didn’t work out too well, either. Spent several weeks in an institution on suicide watch. Multiple times.” She took another swig. “I needed a clean break, a move somewhere across the country.”

  “Did that help?”

  Amy sighed—a long one, the kind that told you it was not a simple answer. “I was on meds. Lots of meds. Still on some of them. But I had to get a job because I’d eaten away most of our savings…” Amy chuckled derisively. “Funny thing about large gaps in unemployment following a major life tragedy. People can connect the dots. And with a flood of lawyers clamoring for jobs, with no book of business and a sketchy gap on my CV, no way in hell would a firm hire me.”

  “No book of business?”

  “Lawyer speak for no clients.” Amy stared off at the table. What she did not tell Ellen was that she had a hard time thinking about returning to that kind of lifestyle. Practicing law would forever keep those wounds open, like a festering bedsore that never healed. Leaving Boston was step one. Leaving the legal profession was a close second. “I finally started looking for different types of work. Minimum wage positions in stable businesses. Do my work and go home. Minimal responsibility. Minimal stress.”

  Ellen leaned back in her seat. “So everything you told me during your interview—”

  “A lie. Never worked in a bakery. Learned it all at YouTube University.” Amy forced a half smile.

  “I should fire you for lying to me, falsifying your work history.”

  “And you’d be completely justified. But you won’t.”

  “Why so sure?”

  “Because that’d be very harsh. Cold-hearted. And you’re one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.”

  Ellen’s gaze worked its way across Amy’s face before she answered. “Fine. Then earn your keep. When we get back, call that contractor and use your attorney tone to scare the living daylights out of him. My daughter’s getting married and I need a functional backyard.”

  2

  Amy arrived at the Lake Merritt home of her brother Zach and sister-in-law Loren. When Amy left Boston for Oakland—at Loren’s insistence—she moved into the ground floor of their two-story house. She lived there until they were satisfied she was mentally stable and viably employed—but after three years, they urged her to find a place of her own to reestablish her independence and sense of self.

  Zach and Loren had two children, which presented both a challenge and a therapeutic opportunity. At times the two boys, Devin and Daniel—ten and twelve—filled the void Amy felt in her life, though it also stirred the deep-seated sense of loss she was trying so desperately to escape.

  Amy sensed that they were now an age where Loren and Zach could tell them what had happened to their uncle and cousin—but if the boys had been told, they were obviously instructed not to ask her about it.

  “I brought a loaf of olive and walnut sourdough,” Amy said as she gave Loren a hug and a peck on the right cheek.

  “My favorite,” Loren said, gathering up the white bag. “Did you make it?”

  “I did.”

  “Zach will be up in a minute. He’s doing some research for tomorrow morning’s trades.”

  Zach had been a successful Wall Street investment banker, but when the recession hit his firm suffered lightning quick losses that put them in liquidity hell—they did not have enough capital to survive, so in a matter of days they unloaded tens of billions of dollars in subsidiary lines of business to generate the funds needed to hold off the blood-smelling foreign sharks. The firm made it through—but Zach’s division, and thus his position, did not.

  Truth was, he and Loren had been discussing an exit from the insanely stressful, cutthroat world. The work was destructively competitive and took its toll. Corporate politics made it worse and kept him looking over his shoulder.

  Wanting to raise a family, he realized that he needed to be more accessible, and toiling away with a Wall Street firm was less than ideal for fostering a healthy family life. Loren’s stable job as an FBI agent afforded him the flexibility to work for himself as well as the ability to move anywhere in the country she was transferred.

  He was confident he could make enough money from home to supple
ment Loren’s salary. Although he had done well on Wall Street, he refused to blow it living the high life, unlike many of his friends. As a result, he and Loren were able to pay cash for their two-million-dollar Lake Merritt house—and have four times that in reserve. If he could earn enough to cover their monthly expenses, the dividend payouts from their portfolio provided plenty of free cash. Loren’s job supplied the family medical insurance while her salary would more than fund the boys’ private schools and college educations. If they were smart about their finances, they were financially set.

  “I wish my brother would get out of that business.”

  “Day trading?” Loren pulled out a platter from the cabinet. “I’d hardly call it a business. I mean, I guess it is.” She shook her head. “But yeah, me too. He’s better than that. He could’ve gotten a job with a San Francisco firm doing institutional investing.”

  “That’d be a good idea if he didn’t hate anything to do with ‘institutional’ and corporate.”

  Loren chuckled. “And he’s none too happy to have a spouse who works for the FBI.”

  “Oh yeah? You never mentioned that before.”

  “It’s a bit of a sore point between us. Dirty laundry.”

  “He thinks it’s too dangerous?”

  “Yep.”

  “Hey, it’s steady work. With full health care and retirement benefits. The kind of things he can only get with the institutional and corporate bodies he rails against.” Amy glanced around. “Where’s Coco?”

  “The boys took her for a run around the lake.”

  “They don’t run.”

  “They’re riding their bikes. Coco’s the one running. She got hold of an entire bag of dehydrated chicken strips and needs to burn it off.”

  “Exercise? Or punishment?”

  Loren laughed. “A little of both. Problem is, Coco loves to run. Mostly while chasing after the two cats next door.”

  A German shepherd mixed with the thick undercoat of a Husky and the disposition of a Labrador, Coco was eighty pounds of lovable, food-scavenging lapdog. Loren and Zach adopted her from a rescue organization when she was about four months old. Coco had been found by a vet when she was a young pup, ridden with fleas and ticks. It was a miracle she had survived. After Dr. Johnson nursed her back to health, Coco was placed with the Robbins.

  “Told the boys to be home at six.” Loren removed the loaf from the waxed bag and set it on a cutting board. “So what’s new? How’s work going?”

  Amy squinted and scratched the back of her head, tussling her dirty blonde hair. “I had an interesting discussion with my boss today.”

  Loren selected a knife and held it against the crust. “‘Interesting’ can be taken a lot of ways. Is this good interesting or bad interesting?”

  Amy thought a moment, then moved behind Loren and opened a cabinet, removed the olive oil and vinegar bottles. “I told her about what happened.”

  Loren stood there, the blade still resting on the hard exterior of the bread. “You told her?” She shook her head. “I mean, that’s great. I—I didn’t realize you were, you know, comfortable doing that.”

  “It kind of…came up.” Amy explained how the discussion originated.

  “Not sure it was such a good idea to drink a couple of beers at lunch. With your boss, no less.”

  “Probably not. But I needed it. I knew she was going to ask and I had to give her an answer. An honest one.” Amy’s eyelid began twitching. She looked away. “Anyway, can’t take it back.”

  Loren began sawing away at the sourdough, slicing thick pieces, before answering. “How did it make you feel? Telling her what happened.”

  “Exposed,” she said without hesitation. “Naked.”

  “Do you like Ellen?”

  Amy nodded slowly. “Yeah. A genuinely good person. Honest. Real. Always straight with me.”

  Loren placed the bread on the platter and set it on the dinner table. “Being able to talk about it, that’s a big deal. I’m not a shrink, but I think this was a good thing.” She turned to Amy and studied her face. “Don’t you?”

  “I guess. I think so. Yeah. I’m just still not real comfortable with exposing myself like that.”

  Loren gave Amy a hug. “I’m proud of you. I think it’s another important step. I know it wasn’t an easy thing to do, but you can build on this.”

  Amy took a deep breath, then moved away and gathered up the oil and vinegar and a bottle of za’atar spice Loren had bought in the shuk, or the outdoor market, during a trip to Israel. Loren told her it was supposed to give strength and clear the mind. Amy had eaten a lot of it the past few years. She wished it would work faster.

  The door to the downstairs office swung open.

  “So did it feel good playing lawyer again?” Loren asked.

  “Whoa. What?”

  They turned in unison to see Zach standing there. His head was canted left and his gaze was riveted on Amy.

  “Just some advice I gave my boss. It was nothing.” She glanced at Loren and tried to signal her, without alerting her brother, to not make a big deal out of it.

  But Zach advanced on her nevertheless. “Sis, I’ve been through hell and back with you. And discussing anything involving the law has been off base for you. Not just off base. Forbidden.”

  Amy looked away and pulled some dishes out of a cabinet. “It just kind of happened. I overheard something and had to speak up. It’s not like I was trying a case.”

  Zach took his sister’s shoulders in his hands. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not upset. I’m really, really happy.”

  “Let’s not make more out of it than it was.” A grin teased the corners of her mouth. “But it did kind of feel good. To be able to help someone with…well, something I know about.”

  “I bet.” He started to help set the table. “So if you can’t catch on with a law firm, maybe you should open your own practice.”

  Amy laughed. “Even if I wanted to, that’s a huge leap from helping out my boss. I’d have to take the California bar—and pass it after not practicing law for several years—and then start from scratch to build a business. Oh—and I’ve got no assets. No collateral. No goodwill.”

  Loren and Zach shared a look. Amy had the feeling they were about to offer her a loan—or worse, a monetary gift. Seed money.

  “It was just some commonsense advice I gave my boss, that’s it. Really, let’s just drop it.”

  “No,” Zach said, “I’d rather not drop it. You did a great thing today, made important strides toward coming out of your shell, getting your life back together, and I—”

  “Zach,” Loren said. “Don’t. This is probably not the time or—”

  “And when would the time or place be? Huh? My sister’s been sleepwalking through life. Time to wake up. She’s a Stanford-educated lawyer. To throw that all away—”

  “I’m standing right here,” Amy said. “No need to refer to me in the third person.”

  The garage door rolled up, vibrating the walls as it rumbled along its track. Coco’s barking echoed as she ran the stairs.

  “Kids are home,” Loren said. “This really isn’t the time, Zach.”

  The young men came running up the steps and tossed their helmets on the sofa.

  “Hold on a minute,” Loren said. “Is that where your stuff goes? On our nice couch?”

  Coco ran over to her water bowl and began slurping.

  “Hey Aunt Amy,” Daniel said, wrapping his arms around her.

  “Hey back.” Amy brushed the hair out of his eyes.

  Devin likewise greeted her warmly and, at Zach’s direction, they ran off to wash their hands, Coco turning and dashing after them, a trail of water following her.

  Once they left the room, Loren, Zach, and Amy were left to themselves, setting plates of grilled shrimp and crab cakes on the tabl
e and killing time until the children returned.

  Amy went through a difficult time when Devin turned eight, roughly the age Lindy would have been had she not died in the accident. She felt resentment toward her nephew and jealous of her brother and sister-in-law. She successfully fought those emotions over the years but had to admit it probably had more to do with the passage of time and Devin getting older.

  When Daniel and Devin reentered the dining room, Amy remained silent, withdrawing back into the world she thought—hoped—she might have started to escape.

  At the moment, however, she felt like no such progress had been made.

  3

  Amy and Loren made plans to go running the next morning, a Saturday. Amy had to be prodded, but Loren made the case that she should build on the positive development she had at work. Amy again downplayed its significance.

  “Small victories,” Loren said. “Sometimes the Bureau can’t go for big scores. That’s actually how it is most of the time. We may only be able to take down a bit player, but we can make that guy turn on someone else, who helps us put the screws on a guy who’s higher up. By the time we’re done, we’ve gutted the organization and shut down their operation. But it all started with that first low-on-the-totem pole knucklehead.”

  “Fine, I’ll go. Haven’t put my running shoes on since…” She shook her head. “Well, since then.”

  “The fresh air will do you good. There’s a nice breeze coming off the lake. We’re on a roll, sis. Let’s keep it going.”

  LAKE MERRITT WAS A THREE-AND-A-HALF-MILE heart-shaped tidal lagoon in the heart of Oakland surrounded by parkland and city neighborhoods. It began as an arm of the San Francisco Bay before becoming the city’s main sewer, but as the surrounding community grew, the stench of human waste became unbearable. In the late 1860s, the body of water was dammed off from the bay, the lake was cleaned and turned into the nation’s first wildlife refuge. The centerpiece of Oakland, it now featured paved jogging trails, grassy shores, bird refuges, a children’s amusement park, and rowboat and canoe rentals.