Kat Richardson - Vanished

I bought hot chocolate and a sandwich, feeling the need to raise my blood sugar fast and bask in the warmth and life of the busy little restaurant. The shaking in my limbs was visible to anyone who cared to look and my hands trembled so hard I had difficulty holding the cup at first.

The waitress, a large woman in a bright blue dress and frilly apron with the name LILA embroidered on it, paused to watch me. “You all right, miss?”

“Very hungry,” I mumbled.

“Eat slower, or you’ll make yourself sick. That’s too good a sandwich to waste. I’ll get you some more chocolate.”

Lila whisked my cup away and brought it back refilled and overflowing with whipped cream. I’m not usually fond of sweets or chocolate specifically, but this was hot and stopped the quivering. I thanked her and asked for some water.

“You sure you want water now? It gives you cramps if you drink too fast.”

“This is good, but sweet.”

“Oh, yeah,” she agreed. “I’ll get your water. You eat that sandwich while I’m gone.”

I’d forgotten that you have to ask for a glass of water in California. The state’s so frequently in a drought that even in good years, a glass of water is treated like a luxury to be doled out one at a time. Some places even charge for the glass to offset the cost of washing it.

Lila returned and put a red plastic tumbler filled with water near my hand. “You came down from the dance studio?” she asked.

“Umm. yeah.” I’d have sworn no one saw me or that it was not even possible to see from the diner to Dad’s building. “How did you know?”

“Oh, lots of folks come in after class. Replace those calories they sweated off. But you. look a little more serious. ” she added, giving me a speculative look.

I’m not one to ignore an opening. “Well, really,” I started, “I’m scouting stories. I heard the place was haunted. ”

She gaped and made a squeaking sound. “You mean like on Ghost Hunters ?”

I only shrugged. People will fill in their own blanks if I keep my mouth shut and it wouldn’t hurt to let her think I might work for a spooky TV show if that got information flowing, though I felt a bit grimy for the ruse.

She nodded to herself before speaking again. “I guess that’s not so strange. I mean. after what happened there, you’d think it would be haunted, right? Not that I’ve ever seen a ghost over there and my chiropractor is right in the office it happened in, you know.”

“Really? So what did you hear about it?” I asked.

Lila glanced around to be sure no one wanted her attention and then turned back to me and lowered her voice. “Well, back a while ago there was a doctor up on the second floor. Must be. twenty years ago—before I moved up from Long Beach, anyway. So, anyhow. He was having an affair with his nurse and then one day she just up and disappeared. No one knows what happened to her, but they say he killed her and hid the body somewhere. But whatever happened, she was never found, and one day he just shot himself. Dead.”

It hurt to hear my dad described as a womanizing murderer. Even if I suspected he might be responsible for Christelle’s death—and with her ghost wandering the remnants of the office, there was no doubt in my mind that she was dead—it didn’t feel good to hear someone else say it. I decided to pretend that it really was not my father and Christelle she I was talking about, but some nameless doctor and his nameless nurse. That I could talk about without feeling queasy.

I swallowed some water before speaking. “So he killed himself?” I asked. “It wasn’t his wife, or the girl, or her boyfriend who shot him?”

Lila shook her head. “Not the way I heard it.”

“Interesting. Do people see his ghost there? Or the nurse’s?”

“Well, like I said, my chiropractor has that office now. I’ve never seen anything weird there, but. it’s funny how the room is always too warm.”

“Too warm? Most people say ghosts are cold.”

“Yeah, well, you’d think so. But this one’s warm. And there are noises at night.”

“I couldn’t hear anything over the music in the studio,” I said. I hadn’t heard anything at all, not even the sound of Christelle opening the door, now that I thought about it. Usually the Grey is full of sourceless muttering and the singing of the grid, but except for Christelle’s voice, the general Grey buzz, and the zing of the flying energy balls, there’d been no sounds in the ghostly office. I’d have to take another look, but this time I’d try to get into the right layer of time and see if that made a difference.

“Do you think your chiropractor would let me look around his office? After dark, that is. When the ghosts are more active.”

“Oh, I think so. He’s a nice kid. Paul Arkmanian, that’s him.”

I raised my brows. “Kid?”

She turned her head and blushed. “Well, not really a kid you understand: He’s Sandros Arkmanian’s son,” she said, as if that not only made sense, but made him perfectly safe. On the sense side, I wasn’t so sure, but considering how tight-knit the neighborhood looked, maybe “safe” wasn’t so far out. Everyone knew everyone and everyone’s children, and they probably knew who was having an affair with whom, who was drinking too much, and who was dying of which tragic disease without their selfish kids ever coming around to visit. They’d all know who was “good folks” and who wasn’t. I’d bet the neighborhood ladies brought casseroles and baked goods around for christenings and funerals, too.

Lila was glancing around the room again, her face lighting up as she waved a hand at someone, beckoning the person closer to our table. A burly, square-shouldered man got up from his own table and strolled over to us. He looked to be about six feet tall, mid-sixties, and prosperous without being full of himself over it. He gave Lila a kiss on the cheek when he reached her side.

“What can I do for you, Lila?”

“Sandy, this nice woman wants to meet Paul. She works for that ghost hunter show and they want to talk to him about the office ghost.”

Sandy looked a little less excited at the prospect than Lila had. “That’s just a story, Lila. Paul’s office isn’t haunted.” He turned his attention to me and gave me a hard, evaluating stare. “You sure it’s the place you want?”

“Suite 204,” I replied. “I just want to take a look.”

He shrugged his eyebrows and sighed. “Well. I suppose that’s OK. Really, I don’t think it’s haunted.” He looked at his watch. “You want to come over, have some coffee? We can talk it over, see if Paul’s all right with the idea.”

“Now?” That startled me. Even Seattle’s notoriously friendly residents don’t issue invitations with such alacrity.

“Of course now. What’s the point in waiting?” He turned toward the table he’d come from and waved. The three other men sitting there waved back. “I’m taking this pretty girl home to meet my son!” he called.

They laughed and flapped their hands at him, waving him away. “Good luck, Sandros!” one of them called back.

I finished off my sandwich in a couple of huge bites and left money on the table for Lila. I had a bad feeling about Paul Arkmanian as I followed his father down the street. Was he gay? A misogynist? What was the big deal with going out with a female? But I wanted into that office without having to do another Grey version of a B and E, so I was willing to try anything.

We went down Brand and turned onto a much smaller side street. In a few blocks, all signs of business had vanished and single-family houses in neat little yards appeared. It was like something from a fifties sitcom, and I recognized the houses as the sort I’d walked past every day as a child. The nostalgia was thick enough to choke on and my eyes watered a bit.