No one answered. Either rehearsal was done for the night or the actors were too involved in their greatness to keep an ear out for newcomers.
If I were a teenage girl who’d just wrapped up play rehearsal at seven thirty on a Saturday night, what would I do next?
Depart with friends seemed like the winning answer to me. Anya was the lead actress, meaning she liked attention. Leaving alone, heading back—to what, foster care?—would be too much of a letdown. So she’d look for ways to keep the theater magic alive. Accompany some of the cast and crew going for dinner, drinks, coffee, whatever.
They’d walk. No one, especially teens, could afford cars in Boston. So someplace close. I consulted my phone again, identified three restaurants and a café within walking distance. The restaurants sounded too expensive, the café a better fit for an aspiring thespian’s budget.
I spotted the likely group seated in a far corner the moment I entered Monet’s. My timing was off, though, because I’d no sooner picked a table by the door than they were pushing back their chairs, standing up.
I skimmed the group quickly. I wasn’t sure what Anya looked like. The photo I’d seen of her from the Beauty and the Beast page had definitely involved a wig, not to mention a very large yellow ball gown.
But now my gaze settled on one girl in particular. Long strawberry-blond hair tumbling down a black trench coat in perfectly groomed waves. Exotic green-gold eyes turned up slightly at the corners. She would be absolutely stunning if not for the calculating grin on her face as she turned toward the much older, heavyset man beside her, placing a hand on his arm.
Anya Seton. I’d bet my life on it.
I turned away, let the group pass. Four younger people, one graying adult. Cast, I would bet, out with the director.
I studied a poster on the wall, the café’s namesake’s famed rendering of water lilies. The group exited the door out onto the sidewalk, still talking among themselves.
“Would you like a menu?”
I turned to find a waiter staring at me. I regarded him blankly.
“No.”
Through the window, I could see the group was breaking up.
“You know them?” I asked the waiter quickly.
He shrugged. “They’re regulars.”
“Girl with the reddish-gold hair, that Anya Seton by any chance?”
He gave me a suspicious look. “Why?”
“I, um, saw her in a play once. Thought that had to be her.”
“Yeah. She’s in most of the local productions. Gonna be a big star one day.” He rolled his eyes. “Likes to tell us that as she signs a napkin and leaves it as a tip.”
“Really?”
“Yep. Cuz, you know, Brighton community theater is only one short step from Broadway.”
“Everyone’s gotta dream.”
“What, this isn’t the pinnacle of my career?” He gestured to his latte-stained black apron.
I was startled enough to laugh. And realized for the first time that the waiter was a nice-looking guy. Late twenties, warm brown eyes, rueful smile.
In the next moment, I faltered. Because I didn’t know what to do with cute guys. Rarely even noticed such things. There were ways that I had healed and ways that I was still broken. Unconsciously, I started fidgeting with the bandage on my left hand. Rubbing it just slightly, feeling the corresponding twinge of pain. It both grounded me and made me sad.
For no reason at all, I thought of my mother. All the hopes and dreams she still had for me. The strength she found to still care, though I knew most of my actions, including my current search for yet another missing girl, broke her heart.
The group outside was scattering. Anya heading up the block, her arm looped possessively through the director’s, the others headed in the opposite direction.
“I gotta go,” I heard myself say.
Cute waiter guy shrugged. “You don’t have to chase her for an autograph. Come by this same time tomorrow. She’ll give you one happily enough.”
“Um . . . thanks.”
He nodded. “Do I know you?” he asked abruptly. “Are you also an actress, because you look familiar. Maybe I saw you on TV?”
“No,” I said. “You don’t know me.”
Then I turned my back on him and headed out the door.
? ? ?
AFTER THE WARMTH OF THE café, the night air hit me like a slap. I hunched my shoulders in my thin windbreaker and trucked up the block. At least the dark blue color helped me blend in with the shadows. I could hear footsteps ahead. The low murmur of voices punctuated by laughter.
As we approached the street corner, I slowed, not wanting to get too close. Anya and the director waited for the cross light. He whispered something in her ear. Very intimate for a purely professional relationship, I thought. She giggled in response. The sound made me shiver.
Two more blocks. At the third, he reluctantly unhooked his arm. More whispers. Reminders of upcoming rehearsals, or promises of a different kind of rendezvous? Anya turned her head, offering up a pale cheek in gracious offering. He brushed his lips across the porcelain surface. Then he turned left, most likely heading to his place, while Anya kept going straight.
I hesitated. A lone woman walking the streets of Boston at night learned to be aware of her surroundings. No way the sound of my footsteps wouldn’t draw notice. Especially as Anya was a foster kid, with plenty of reasons to develop street smarts.
So I didn’t continue straight. Instead, as the guy went left, I crossed to the right, keys out of my pocket, held in my fist with one key protruding between my knuckles. If Anya looked over, noted my presence, she’d see another lone woman, walking briskly and practicing basic self-defense.
On the other side of the street, I kept my head up, walking even slightly faster now, as if intent on my destination. I didn’t have to see Anya. One of the first tricks of recon is to utilize all your senses. I could hear her footsteps, the rhythmic clicking of black boots against the sidewalk. As long as the beat stayed steady, so did my own pace. Another block, two, three, where I remained to the side and just slightly ahead.
Then she slowed. My pulse jumped. It took everything I had not to pause, glance over. Instead, I conducted a quick mental review of the buildings we’d just passed.
A squat residential had been to the right. Front porch light on. Chain link, some toys in the yard. A dilapidated day care had been my initial impression.
Or a foster home with young kids.
I disappeared around the corner just as I heard the creak of the gate swinging open behind me. Anya, entering the yard of the run-down house.
Patience. I’d like to say I learned it during training in the months after my recovery. But in truth, Jacob had always been a master of perseverance. The women he stalked, waiting for just the right one. The way, according to him, he’d spent hours on that Florida beach until I’d come dancing drunkenly into his line of sight. And he’d known—he’d simply known, he told me later—that I was the one for him.
A predator’s true love.
I thought again of the cute waiter in the café. The normal people, relationships that would never be mine. And once again I fiddled with the bandage.
I’d just turned back toward the house where Anya had disappeared into the yard when I heard a shout, followed by pounding footsteps.
Anya reemerged under the streetlights. Flying past the chain link, heading straight up the street as fast as her patent leather boots would take her. Hot on her heels emerged Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren.
I smiled. All dark thoughts forgotten as I stepped out of the shadows.
“Hey, Anya,” I shouted from the opposite corner. “Can I have your autograph?”
The startled girl turned.
And my smile grew even larger as D.D. took her down.
This CI business was getting to be fun after all.
? ? ?
ANYA WAS SHRIEKING AS D.D. dragged her to her feet. “Get your hands off of me! Let go! How dare you—”
“Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren, Boston PD. Now shut up.”
If anything, Anya increased her howling. I crossed the street as Phil came jogging up the sidewalk and several porch lights came on. The neighbors, about to enjoy a show.