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She tipped up the glass to drain the ice-water-diluted Diet Coke from the bottom and handed the glass to Taylor.
“Thanks.” He resumed wiping the already spotless surface with his with his ever-present towel.
Misty rolled her eyes and walked away toward the front of the room where heavy blue velvet stage curtains hid the tank. The big reveal was a real moment for first-timers. To the right of the tank was a hallway lined in doors. The first door led into the private dining room, where one entire wall was the glass side of the aquarium. Farther right, another door led to the stairs up. Mackey’s office was the door across from the stairs on the right. The storage room and private bathroom were farther along the hall.
The rest of them had to use the public restrooms on the opposite side. Only Mackey got to use the shabby little private one.
She started to walk away, felt Taylor’s eyes were on her, and wished for a distraction. His phone pinged as if she’d willed it to happen. She glanced back once, to see his head down, eyes focused, so she hurried down the hallway, ducked into Mr. Mackey’s office, and closed the door behind her. The doorknob made a loud click when she let go of it, and she froze, listening. But there was only silence. Okay. Good.
She took a deep, calming breath, and turned to look around the room. Mackey had the owners’ eight-by-ten headshots on the walls, the kiss-up. There they were, the billionaire bad boys; Barron White, “Bare” to his friends— okay, probably “Bear,” but “Bare” was funnier; Raphael Jones, who went by RJ; Andrew Alexander Chay III, who went by Andrew Alexander Chay III.
She guessed Mackey’s need to kiss up to the bosses had outweighed his bigotry. He did a good job hiding his racism. But she’d picked up on it in his attitude toward Echo. His homophobia was right out in the open, too. If not for the bosses, there would be no merman. He’d prefer they not exist. The asshole.
Okay, time to get this over with. She went to the desktop, which was still open, and jiggled the mouse to keep it that way. Then she ran a search on Eva Quaid, but nothing came up.
That was odd.
Wait, wait, Eva and Paul had been newlyweds at the time of her disappearance. She backspaced to erase “Quaid” and ran the search again on “Eva.” Eva Mendosa came up. There were five files. She quickly wrestled a thumb drive from her jeans pocket and plugged it in, then she dragged the files over and dropped them. It took all of ten seconds, but it felt like much longer. Finally, she popped the thumb drive back into her pocket, and gave another quick look around the office. It was a mess. There were file folders with coffee rings all over his desk, stacks of mail, empty glasses from Taylor’s bar. On a shelf behind the desk, there was a bundle of what looked like wall calendars.
She’d heard the story. It went, “We did a calendar one year.” The end. But she’d never heard which year, and she’d never seen one of them. These must be the leftovers, forever preserved in shrink wrap.
She pushed the desk’s swivel chair over to the shelf so she could stand on it to reach up, because she had to get a look at them. Maybe Eva was in them. Maybe it was a clue. Maybe she was just damn curious.
So she climbed up and reached, the chair twisted, and she went down right on her ass on the floor. She’d had an instant fear, while falling, that she might crack her head on the desk and die, then the impact forced every bit of air from her lungs.
Shit, she’d hit hard. How loud had it been? Had anyone heard?
Her heart pounded. She pushed her hair up off her face, and there was a photo looking back at her. It was on the inside of the desk, the part your knees aimed at when you sat in the chair, a 3 x 5 snapshot in a clear plastic frame. Misty rolled onto all fours and used her phone’s flashlight. It was Eva, looking at the camera and a man who was looking at Eva like you’d look at the last chocolate bar in existence: with a predatory desire.
Wait a minute, that was no man. That was Mackey! He had not aged well.
But this shot did not look as if they hated each other. She was smiling and relaxed, and he was looking like he wanted to devour her. And he had this photo where only he could see it. In an office nobody was supposed to enter. Not even the cleaners.
She snapped a photo of the photo, got to her feet, righted the chair and went to the door. When she opened it, there was a woman standing on the other side with her hand raised in knocking position. Misty damn near jumped out of her skin.
“Gee, sorry, sorry,” she said. “Didn’t mean to scare you there.” She was tall, long-limbed. Her dark hair was twisted up in back, and she had long bangs over huge brown eyes you could fall into, thick lashes, and crow’s feet. Late thirties, maybe.
Misty stepped into the hallway, pulling the office door closed behind her. “Um, if you’re looking for Mr. Mackey?—”
“No, I’m, uh, looking for you. You’re Misty, right?”
She realized the woman was a cop. She knew a cop when she saw one. She was dating a cop, and her almost official Uncle Mason was a cop. She knew cops. “I am,” she said. “I know you, don’t I? I’ve seen you here before.”
“Good memory,” she said. “I come in sometimes, yeah.” She handed over a card. “Jen Scott, I’m a detective with the Saratoga Springs Police Department.”
Cop. She knew it. And she knew the name. This was the cop in charge of Eva’s case. “I just poked my head in looking for Mr. Mackey,” Misty said. “But he’s not?—”
“I don’t care what you were doing in your boss’s office. That’s between you and Earl. Listen, you’re roommates with Karen Ziglar, yeah?”
“Zig?” Misty asked.
“She’s doing that podcast about the missing mermaid. You’re helping her with that, aren’t you?” It wasn’t really a question.
“What do you…” Misty bit her lip. She knew cops. A comedy routine popped into her head about a cop’s little girl going to confession, saying she didn’t recall her sins, and asking for an attorney.
She improvised something similar. “I don’t know anything about the podcast, beyond that it exists.”
“No? You didn’t know your roommate was doing a podcast about a woman who worked where you currently work, doing what you currently do?”
