Randy White - Gone

Mr. Seasons said, “Hannah, you’re missing the point. That particular card requires substantial yearly expenditures, so everything gets billed. Taxes, investments, everything. So don’t worry your head about numbers. What’s interesting is, Olivia used the card twice just before that man finished the seawall-three days before she took off. But she’s only used it once since. What’s that tell you?”

I couldn’t yet feel the tequila in my drink, so I was honestly irked at Mr. Seasons for telling me not to worry my head about numbers like I was some stupid girl.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” I replied, “until I know more. Does she have any other credit cards?”

“Of course, but she hasn’t used them. We’d know because all statements are billed to my office. I have no idea how much cash Olivia had on hand before she left, but I’m sure it would have been a substantial amount. The point is, the statement suggests a certain intent-”

Maybe I was wrong about feeling the tequila because I interrupted, “I understand what you’re saying, Mr. Seasons. Your niece didn’t use the credit card because you could have tracked her. The places she’s been staying, buying gas, food. That’s obvious. What I’m asking is, could she have a credit card you don’t know about? And, if she does, would it have had a credit limit lower than this?” I touched my finger to the charge of $5,753.97 to Monkey Business ’12 LLC posted two weeks ago.

I felt the man remove his hands from my chair and stand. “I’ve never heard of a limit lower than ten or fifteen thousand. What are you getting at?”

There was no reason to tell him my card maxed at eight thousand because I’d found out what I needed to know. I wasn’t happy about what I had learned, though. In fact, I felt a chill that was partly suspicion, partly because I felt sure I was right.

“The last time Olivia used this card, she did it for a reason,” I said. “If she has a card you don’t know about, she could have used it if the limit was over six thousand. Or maybe even paid cash. But she didn’t.” I took another look at the statement. “American Express Centurion. Is this card well known in circles where people have money?”

Mr. Seasons was giving me that look again like he was inspecting me, trying to gauge my intelligence. “I suppose so,” he said, then made a sound of exasperation. “ Of course it’s well known. A Centurion card is the most prestigious card in the world. Only a few thousand people qualify. It’s called the Black Card.”

“A business owner would be impressed if a new client or customer pulled it out?” I asked. “Or said, ‘I’ve got a Centurion card,’ over the phone?” I was thinking about what Darren had said about booking a cabin aboard Sybarite . You had to be invited, recommended, or prove you were someone very, very special.

The man was paying attention now. “Why does it matter?”

I answered, “It might be important or I wouldn’t bother. Would a Centurion card impress even someone who dealt with wealthy people on a regular basis? That’s what I’m asking.”

“You have no idea. Salesclerks get shaky in the knees. Maître d’s at restaurants. I’ve seen it. The reason I wanted you to look at the statement, though, is what you figured out very quickly-the pattern of avoiding a money trail. It suggests that Olivia was with that man for three weeks at least. What I’d hoped you’d also see is that she started using the card again. Or was until Martha had it frozen. We think Olivia got rid of the guy somehow, Hannah. We think it’s good news.”

I pushed the margarita away, deciding I’d had enough alcohol for one night-until we were done with business, at least. “Mr. Seasons, hate to say it, but I think you’re wrong. Her using that card isn’t the worst news in the world, but it’s not good news. You still think we should wait for Mrs. Calder-Shaun?”

He bent over the table. “What can you possibly see here that I don’t?” meaning the credit card statement. At the same instant, his cell phone made an old-fashioned ringing sound. “Wait-it’s Martha. Let me find out what’s keeping her.”

The man put the phone to his ear but then covered it with his hand long enough to tell me, “More photos on the computer, and here’s more stuff on Olivia.” He nodded at the file and laptop next to the bottle of what might have been brandy. “Have a look while I take this.”

Mr. Seasons turned and walked into the shadows, wanting privacy, so I busied myself by opening the file. In it were a few photos, a curriculum vitae Olivia had compiled after graduating college six years ago, and a spiral notebook that, I realized after opening it, was what amounted to her daily diary. It gave me a start to be looking at something so personal, so I immediately closed the thing… thought for a few moments… then opened it again so I could at least check the dates.

Olivia had started the journal in January the previous year, entering drawings and notes about an orchid house she was having built, but the notebook had gradually turned into something more personal. Or so it seemed as I leafed through the pages and saw that some of the longest passages were written in a sort of shorthand code that wasn’t easy to read but doable if I took my time. Shorthand or petite cursive-there weren’t a lot of entries. The girl had skipped whole months, sometimes offering explanations such as one from the previous year: August/September-felt awful, four doctors apts. But the notebook did more or less record what the woman was thinking and some things she had experienced over a period of fifteen months.

The last entries were dated May 3rd and May 5th, both written on the same page. There were simple notations about a book on Catholicism she was reading, then another about a church charity she planned to attend.

Church? I don’t know why it surprised me that a wealthy, single woman attended church, but it did. After that, the notebook contained only blank pages, more than a dozen.

Mr. Seasons had told me Ricky Meeks had moved his boat behind Olivia’s house the first week of May, but an exact date hadn’t been mentioned. He had lived there, on his boat, until May 24th, the day after he’d finished the seawall. Olivia had disappeared two or three days later. That meant Meeks and the girl had had at least three weeks living in the same space, no house staff around after five p.m., just them alone. Yet, during those three weeks Olivia hadn’t bothered to write anything about the new seawall, or the man who’d been hired to build it. To me, the fact she’d written nothing, not a single word, meant a lot more than a few dry entries. The emptiness of those dozen pages shouted out that something had changed in her life.

I took a look toward the shadows where Mr. Seasons was still on the phone, his voice too low to hear but sounding perturbed by something Mrs. Calder-Shaun had said. Out of politeness, I turned my chair to face the bay as if the light was better for looking at photographs I had pulled from the folder. Older photos that had been taken with a camera and printed on glossy paper. They were of Olivia when she was a girl.

There were only six. I shuffled through them a few times but kept coming back to one that meant more to me than the others. No telling why-or so I pretended at first. The photo was of an adolescent girl at some kind of school function, standing with two boys who were half a head shorter-an awkward time in a girl’s life that I could relate to. Olivia’s hair was glossy blond, expensive-looking for a girl her age, same with the formal dress she wore and elbow-length white gloves. She was so tall, she stood slope-shouldered to disguise her height. Not ugly but certainly not pretty-not at that stage of her life, anyway. With one gloved hand, I noticed, she tried to shield her mouth to hide her braces. With the other arm, she tried to cover her woman’s breasts on what the mirror must have told Olivia was a beanpole adolescent body.