Kathleen Eagle - In Care of Sam Beaudry

Some nights he’d drive around looking for trouble. Other times he’d dive into the never-ending stream of paperwork. On this night he went to the property cabinet and removed the Merilee Brown box.

He’d never known her to have much, but for a woman with a child, she had next to nothing. The personal possessions he’d removed from the motel room were remarkably scant. He had to believe she’d left home in a hurry, and he needed to find out why. An uncashed paycheck was his first clue. It was made out to Merilee with an unsigned endorsement to the order of Vic Randone. The check proved that Merilee was employed by the Gourmet Breakfast House in Long Beach until at least four weeks ago and that Randone was still taking money from her.

What the hell did she see in him?

Damn. Sam hadn’t asked himself that question in a long time, and he wasn’t going to let himself start in again. Back to the job at hand, he found a book about fairy-tale princesses and one about horses, a scrapbook full of baby pictures and growing girl pictures, drawings made with crayons, numbers and letters made by small hands and milestones described in a flowing hand. Sam knew Merilee’s writing. It reminded him of the rise and fall of the ocean on a calm day at the beach.

Their early days—the three of them together—had been like that. Calm and sunny. They’d all found jobs—Merilee waiting tables, Vic and Sam driving trucks—and they’d made plans. Merilee would start out modeling—she had some experience—which would lead to commercials, which would lead to bigger things. Vic would manage her—he had no experience—and Sam would keep the rent paid and the cupboards from going bare. Sam had done his part. His was the easy part, according to his roommates.

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