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HELEN
Igot back to the motel around noon. I applied for a secretarial position very close to here last evening and got a call back almost immediately. They seemed desperate, and so was I. I scheduled an interview for the next day and here I was. I thought the interview went quite well, actually.
The job didn’t pay anything special, but it would do. After a few weeks there, I’d have enough to start making rent payments. I’d be out of this motel in no time, or at least well before the baby came. I wasn’t immensely excited about typing memos and completing invoices all day, but work was work. I didn’t have the luxury of being picky right now. I also called my landlord and got out of my lease in San Francisco. I told them to scrap anything I had left, which earned a few curse words.
I hung up and sat back on the motel’s floral print couch that I thought was probably from the seventies at the earliest. There were several stains that could have been from any decade quite honestly. I thought about how much my life had changed from just a few days ago.
For weeks I had been living in a beautiful home, on a beautiful estate. I had a smoking hot, crazy rich man by my side and I had passion. I was so excited to have the inspiration and time to write. The novel was going so well until I found out that my muse was a selfish, revenge-crazed old croak. After that, I pretty much lost all will to finish the story. Now, I had a child to care for, so my writing dreams were pretty much over.
I dug into the couch cushion to find the remote. When I clicked on the TV, the remote slipped from my hand and my mouth fell open. The first thing that appeared on the screen was a photo of Candace, and beneath the picture were the words “Missing Child.”
“What the hell.”
Once I recovered from the initial shock, I called Brenton without thinking twice about it. Sure, we hadn’t ended things on cordial terms, but this wasn’t about us. If there was anything I could do to help him or Candace, of course I’d do it.
“Helen?” Brenton picked up almost immediately. I could hear a car engine in the background.
“Brenton? I just saw Candace on the news. Are you okay?”
“Ugh, I’m a mess, Helen. Amber took her. When I talked to her, she was wasted. She promised I’d never see Candace again.”
I could hear the pain in his voice and my heart broke for him.
“We’ll get her back, Brenton.” I didn’t know why I said ‘we.’ It just came out. “What can I do?”
“I don’t know. I’m on my way to the police station in the valley right now. They’ve sent out some officers to look in places I suggested. I don’t think they’ll find anything though.”
“Why not?”
“She was serious about me never seeing Candace again, Helen. She wouldn’t take her just anywhere.”
“Oh.” I bit my nails, unsure how to be helpful.
“Besides, on the phone it sounded like she was somewhere with a crowd. None of the places I could think of would be that busy. I just have no idea where they could be.”
“A crowd?”
“Yeah there was a lot of loud background noise. Music, a lot of voices, chairs scraping on the ground.”
“And you said she sounded drunk?”
“Yes.”
I searched my brain for anything that could help. My mind went back to an evening on Brenton’s back patio by the pool. The night I had officially met Candace. She was a little spitfire, not wanting to like me. Over time, I liked to believe that my presence grew on her. Our date at the mall hadn’t been the best day ever. Amber helped ruin that one, but we had bonded. I hated the thought of her being scared and alone somewhere, with a drunk mom who was using her.
Then I thought of something. It was small, and chances were, it was nothing, but anything was worth trying. That first night by the pool, Candace had grabbed that bottle of wine off the table to impress me or to show off. She had told us she drank before, at a bar her mother would sometimes take her too.
“Rita’s,” I said into the phone.
“What?” Brenton asked.
“Rita’s. The bar Candace mentioned.”
“Oh my god, Helen. You’re a genius.”
“It might not be anything, but it’s worth a shot.”
“I’ll call the cops right away and tell them.”
