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And I also got the feeling if we let her get on that plane and fly back to Iowa without even trying to talk to her, we might miss out on something extremely important.
“And you have to be at work, too,” he reminded me. “You’ve only had Melanie working for you for a couple of days. Do you think it’s fair to leave her alone like this?”
I only hesitated for a second. “Yes,” I replied. “I mean, the whole point of hiring her was to have someone who could watch the store while I was on maternity leave. Besides, it’s a Monday, and Mondays are usually dead at the shop. She’ll be fine.”
Calvin didn’t reply immediately, which told me he still wasn’t on board with the plan, but knew he couldn’t outright forbid me to drive to Phoenix so I could talk to NancyAnne. “Be careful,” he said after a long pause, his way of giving in gracefully.
“I will,” I said.
“I’ll call you if I learn anything else,” he told me. “Love you.”
“Love you more.”
We ended the call there, and I hurriedly finished getting dressed. I knew I’d have to run to the shop to open up, because I hadn’t given Melanie a key yet. It was on my list of things to do, but with all the craziness that had been going on lately, getting one had completely slipped my mind.
It was fine, though. I’d swing by the store, open things up, and then be on my way. At least it wouldn’t be too much of a detour, five minutes out of my day at the very most.
Now I just had to hope NancyAnne would really be at her hotel and hadn’t headed to the airport early.
In which case, I’d just have to track her down there.
“I’m so sorry to spring this on you,” I told Melanie. “But I completely forgot that I needed to drive to Phoenix for some tests this morning.”
Her hazel eyes flared with something like alarm. “Is everything okay?”
“Oh, it’s fine,” I assured her. “It’s just that there are a few things my local doctor can’t do, so I need to go see a specialist. I’m hoping I’ll be back around one so you can take a late lunch, but if I’m not, you can just lock up and put the ‘be back at’ sign in the window and go get yourself something. People are used to the shop being closed at odd hours, so it won’t be a problem.”
“I can have something delivered — ” she began, but I only smiled.
“Delivery around here can be a little spotty,” I said, which was the simple truth. Travis Cox, Globe’s one and only Uber/Lyft driver, also supplemented his income by driving for DoorDash. He meant well, but he got distracted, and your food would get delivered cold…or not at all…more often than not. “It’s really better to just close up and go get yourself something. But I’m hoping I’ll be back by the time you need to take a lunch break.”
“Okay,” Melanie replied. “I’ll hold down the fort. Have a safe drive!”
“I will,” I said automatically.
As I headed out back so I could get into my car, though, I couldn’t help thinking that the hundred-mile trip ahead of me was the least of my worries.
It had been quite a while since I’d been anywhere near the airport; the last time I’d traveled out of state was to handle all the legal matters following Lucien Dumond’s death and the huge mountain of cash he’d left me. I’d made half-hearted promises to my mother that I would visit her in California, but my new life in Globe had turned out to be much busier than I’d expected, and I just never seemed to make the time.
I probably would have felt more guilty about the situation if she and Tom, her husband, hadn’t owned a positively gorgeous Victorian home right here in my adopted hometown, and it really made more sense for them to come to Arizona rather than vice versa.
Because even though I’d never come right out and say such a thing to my mother, I knew I’d be perfectly happy if I never set foot in L.A. again.
Traffic was thick, which I’d kind of expected but found annoying after more than two years of living in Globe and getting used to its much slower pace. Still, I was able to fight my way to the parking garage at the hotel and leave my Renegade there…even as I winced at the hourly rates they were charging.
No one ever had to pay for parking in Globe, that was for sure.
The information Calvin had given me said that NancyAnne Nielsen was staying in room 810, up on the eighth floor. It had been a long time since I’d been up quite that high, and I had to take a couple of deep breaths as the elevator climbed to my destination. No, it wasn’t exactly that I was afraid of heights…but I much preferred to be a lot closer to the ground.
Room 810 was located roughly in the middle of the long row of doors down the hallway. A man and woman pushing a cart laden with luggage moved past me as I hesitated outside the door, and I waited until they were safely inside the elevator before I lifted my hand to knock.
So many precious seconds passed that I wondered if I really had struck out here, and that NancyAnne actually had gone to the airport early, even though her flight wouldn’t be leaving until after two.
But then the hotel room’s door opened, and a woman who looked like she was probably in her mid-thirties stared out at me. She was pretty in a thin, strained kind of way, with hair somewhere between brown and blonde and unusual light brown eyes, almost amber. “You’re not Jeffrey,” she declared in accusing tones, and I stared back at her in shock.
Was it possible she didn’t know?
“No, I’m not,” I said. “My name is Selena. But I’d like to talk to you about him, if that’s okay.”
