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“You can go on the marketplace.”
“The open enrollment period has passed for this year.”
“You can do COBRA.”
“Do you know how expensive that is? ProEye was picking up the premium. And with no job what exactly am I supposed to use to pay for it?”
“I’m really sorry, Mick. But you’ll get hired somewhere else. You’re really good. I’ll give you a reference. Again, I’m sorry.”
“Can’t you poke around and find outwhogot me canned?”
But he had already clicked off.
Gibson stared at her stunned reflection in the black of her dormant computer screen.
What in the hell had just happened?
CHAPTER64
CLARISSE SAT IN FRONT OFher computers, her notebooks neatly stacked beside her. Everything in her life seemed normal, at least according to her eccentric standards. But there was nothing normal about any of this anymore.
She glanced at one notebook that she had labeledHOW I DIE.
With Mickey Gibson she had voluntarily made contact with an actual person who might know who she was. She had pepper-sprayed a cop who was taking perhaps an unprofessional interest in the murder of Harry Langhorne and the treasure the man had left behind. She had a formidable person from her past hot on her trail. And this person also had her mother as captive. And lastly, an international criminal was counting on her to retrieve his money stolen by Harry Langhorne.
And if I disappoint him?
As soon as she had found the note in the wine cellar, she had thought about ways Langhorne could have concealed his fortune. Crypto had instantly occurred to her, as she was sure it had to Gibson as well. But she had one advantage over Gibson. She had known Langhorne, so she didn’t think that was it. Crypto was fallible; one could lose enormous amounts of money in seconds. In that regard it was no more a currency than a highly volatile penny stock. Langhorne did not like to lose at anything. He would have opted for something with more certainty as to value. He would have most likely put the money into anappreciatingasset.
She picked up herMICKEY GIBSONnotebook and rifled through the pages. The truth was she could have looked for the treasure all on her own. But the reasons she had not, and why she had involved Gibson, were complicated, just like she had told Gibson they were.
She was the big girl on campus. She could have been anything. She didn’t turn pro in basketball. She didn’t even try her luck on Broadway. Then she became a cop. Okay, that was fine. But then shemarried that jerk and she let him ruin her life. How had the big girl on campus allowed that to happen? Now she’s driving a mommy van and sitting behind a computer screen pissing her life away. I brought her into this to kick her ass, sure. But I also brought her into this to wake the woman the hell up.
She had filled six entire notebooks devoted to the life of Mickey Gibson.
Clarisse let her fingers drift over the computer keys.
But still, how pathetic is that? What right do I have to judge her decisions? And she was kind to me, when she didn’t have to be. Of course I’ve changed my appearance so much that she didn’t recognize me. But I remembered what she did for me. And it just kills me to see how…ordinaryher life has turned out to be.
Mickey Gibson had been the odd combination of stud athlete and Bohemian artist. She was whipping balls to teammates one night and singing her guts out the next, while dressed as a French revolutionary in a college production ofLes Misérables. And everyone adored her.
Clarisse could have easily hated her for that, but found she couldn’t. The woman was nice to everyone, without a hint of an ego.
When I served her food in the cafeteria, or when I pulled wardrobe for her during the theater productions, she was unfailingly polite and always had a smile for me. Even though I was a poorly paid kitchen worker, an unpaid stagehand, whatever the university wanted me to be. Back then I just wanted a roof over my head and some food in my belly.
That was a simple life that part of her sometimes yearned for now. Her existence now was so complicated.
And Gibson had a loving family. Clarisse had none of that.
But she imagined that back at Temple she and Mickey Rogers had talked about roles they wanted to play. That Gibson had encouraged her, helped her with memorizing lines, given her the courage to audition.
Now that fantasy seemed laughable, and, even worse, pitiable.
You were such a loser you had to imagine you had friends.
But I could have been Mickey Gibson. I could have been the big girl on campus with adoring parents. And I wouldn’t have thrown it all away like she did. I never got that chance, though.
And there had been that encounter on the campus, late at night when the creep had assaulted her. It had been terrifying and…Gibson had been there. Clarisse should have been immensely grateful but she hadn’t been. It had made her mad, furious even, for reasons she couldn’t really explain.
