gagengirl entertainment
Pulling out my phone, I pulled up the picture of Chef’s sister’s class schedule. It showed her name as Cooper, Aliana Grace. Her classes were typical of a college student without a declared major: Elementary French, Introduction to Comparative Literature, Introduction to Art, Introduction to Oceanography, and Introduction to Archeology. According to her schedule, her French class should be letting out.
Since Pablo went to school at UCSB, he gave me a tour of the campus while we were dating. That knowledge helped me find the building where Aliana’s French class should be. I only hoped she hadn’t changed her schedule since she’d given her brother the copy.
I felt kind of stalker-y as I waited outside the building. But I felt victorious when she exited the building a few minutes later with a few friends. I settled my nerves and approached her. “Aliana Cooper?”
She stopped and looked at me. “Yes?”
“I’m a friend of your brother’s. Do you have a few minutes?”
“Sure. I was just heading to lunch.” She turned to her friends. “Go without me. I’ll see you back in the room later.”
As her friends walked away, I realized how much she looked like her brother. They had the same facial structure, brown eyes, and curly dark brown hair. Her hair was longer, hitting her shoulders. She had the top pulled back with an orange clip. Adjusting her backpack first, she straightened her orange shirt and waited for me to continue.
“Is there somewhere we can talk?”
“Do I have a choice? Aren’t you going to take me in?”
I shook my head, wondering why everyone thought I was law enforcement of some type. “No. I’m a friend of Chef’s.”
She nodded and smiled. “You must be Felicia. Brad has talked about you.”
I was able to smile. At least she knew about me. “Yes. I’m Felicia.”
“Aliana. But you already knew that.” She thrust her hand toward me. “If you’re paying for lunch, can we go somewhere off campus?”
“Sure.” I didn’t think I had volunteered to pay for lunch. But if it encouraged her to talk, it would be worth it.
About fifteen minutes later, we were sitting down with our food at a small Chinese restaurant just off campus.
“Thanks for lunch. I’m getting tired of campus food all the time. My brother says that I’m lucky and I shouldn’t complain.” She started eating.
“When is the last time you saw him?”
Aliana took a drink from her soda. “Friday night. He came by for a few hours and we visited. You’d think I’m half a country away the way he is sometimes. But I guess you know that, don’t you?”
I nodded, not knowing that. I was about to find out that we didn’t know him at all. “It’s only forty-five minutes away.”
“I know. But he visits me at least once a week, always spending at least a couple hours with me. I mean, I know he’s paying for this but…”
“Your brother is paying for your college education?”
“Oh, yeah. He didn’t tell you that? Our parents paid for his when he went here. They didn’t want him to owe anything when he graduated. And since they are gone, he’s doing the same for me.”
Since they are gone… I tried not to react. I shouldn’t have been surprised that I didn’t know his parents were gone. He had kept his sister a secret.
“But I don’t know how he is paying for it. I mean, he won’t sell the house in Buellton. And he pays rent for that tiny apartment in Solvang.” She shook her head. “I guess The Elskede pays well.”
I took a bite of my food. I didn’t know how much Pablo paid him, but it couldn’t be enough to cover her education and his rent and expenses.
“I think he feels guilty about what happened and not being there. But I don’t blame him.” She took another drink of her soda. “I think if he had been there, I’d be without a brother, too.”
I nodded, not sure what she was talking about. Listening to her talk, I learned that her parents were gone and Pablo blamed himself. My anger toward him decreased slightly as I listened to his sister.
“Do you know what you want to major in?”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure. I’ve been thinking about it a lot this quarter. In light of all that’s gone on in the world lately, I’ve thought about a double major in Black Studies and Global Studies or Middle East Studies. ‘Cause, like, how can you change the world if you don’t study how we got this screwed up, right?”
I smiled at her. “You want to change the world?”
She shrugged. “Kind of. I’d love to help fix things. Someone has to care, right?” She paused and shook her head. “But some days, I just want to think of myself and find something I’d enjoy like archeology.” She sighed. “Maybe I’m just too young and naive.”
I thought about it. She was young and naive, but it didn’t seem like such a bad thing. “You mentioned a house in Buellton…”
Aliana nodded. “Brad won’t sell it. I’ve told him to dozens of times. I don’t want to live there after I graduate. I can’t go back. There’s a reason I spent my junior and senior year in a small apartment in Santa Ynez. Gosh, I almost got caught a couple times. I would’ve been sent to foster care. But I just wanted to get through high school and pretend that it all didn’t happen. So I spent the last year and a half lying that I was living with my brother in Solvang.”
I really wanted to ask what had happened, but I didn’t. Whatever it was, she assumed I knew. It sounded like it had been about two years since it happened. She wanted to leave it in the past.
“He just won’t let go.”
I nodded. “Can you give me the address?”
“Sure.” She pulled a piece of paper out of her bag and wrote down the address. Then, she looked at her watch. “I better get back so I can get homework done before work tonight.”
“Work?”
Aliana’s cheeks turned pink. “Don’t tell my brother. He doesn’t want me working so I can focus on school. I got a job working as an assistant gymnastics coach. I mean, I wasn’t good enough to continue on in college, but I still love it.”
I took the address from her and then took her back to campus. She headed to her dorm room and I plugged the address into my phone for directions.
For a car that spent most of the past five years just taking the kids to and from school, my little Beetle was getting a good workout. It was a forty five minute drive before I found myself pulling into the driveway of Chef’s childhood home. I parked the car and waited a minute. I half expected him to come running out and down the street.
But nothing happened.
So I walked to the front door and knocked.
A minute later, the door opened. Chef was surprised to see me. “Felicia?”
“Want to let me in?”
He nodded and opened the door wider so that I could walk in. Closing the door behind me, he turned around to face me. “What are you doing here?”
First, I gave him a hug. “I’m glad you’re okay. We’ve all been very worried about you.”
“Thanks, but…”
I reached up and slapped the backside of his head. “What is wrong with you?”
He pulled away, allowing me to get a good look at him. Chef was slightly taller than my brother. He was clean-shaven and smelled of soap. For being holed up in the house for the past six days, he didn’t look like he’d been struggling or starving.
I turned around and inspected the room. There was no furniture in the living room. “What is this place?”
“My childhood home.” He walked away from me toward another room.
I followed him. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“How did you find me?” He stopped in the kitchen where there was a small oak table and two matching oak chairs.
“Well, I started with Avianna, since she is who we thought was the last person to see you. But then it turned out not to be true because she lied to the police.”
“The police? You involved them?”
“Of course. You were missing. Pablo filed a missing person’s report. But they started with Avianna and stopped.”
He sighed, relieved, and sat down. “Good. I’m glad they stopped.”
I shook my head at him. “So, then I went to The Elskede where Victor mentioned you planned to get out of town. And Tania told me you wanted to borrow some money. And Pablo said you had asked for your paycheck early but he couldn’t give it to you.”
Chef took a deep breath and let it out. “If he had done that, I wouldn’t have had to disappear.”
“But Isabel indicated you were going to talk to her brother. So, I went to Lompoc and talked to Jorge, who marked me.”
He laughed. “You mentioned Pablo’s name, didn’t you?”
I slapped him upside the head again. “You don’t talk, you listen. Jorge said that you asked him for money, too. But nobody seemed to know why you were so desperate for money. Avianna showed up at the house and admitted that she failed to tell me that she had given you two thousand dollars because you had borrowed money from someone. She gave me a key to your apartment.
“So, this morning I searched your apartment and found myself face to face with Gus Hobbs as I left. And he took me to Pearl Tarkey, where I learned that you stupidly borrowed money from her. But I kept asking myself why you borrowed that money in the first place. So, then, after dropping off the dogs that Gus Hobbs took from Avianna’s as a warning, I returned the menus to The Elskede before heading to UCSB.”
His mouth opened, surprised. “How did you…”
I shook my head at him. “Why didn’t you tell us you had a sister? And why the hell did you borrow money from Pearl Tarkey instead of us?”
“I didn't want to alter our relationship by owing you money.”
“Well, you altered the relationship anyway with all of these stupid moves you kept making.”
“Felicia, I’m sorry.” I could tell he meant it as tears filled his eyes. “I screwed up and kept digging myself a big hole. I didn’t want to admit everything I’ve done.”
“Your sister wants you to sell this place.”
Chef shook his head. “I can’t. I can’t let go. My parents died here…”
I sat down in the other chair and took his hand. “What happened?”
“They said it was a home invasion. My sister was at gymnastics. I was at work. Three armed men broke in and shot them both. They didn’t take anything. I don’t know why my parents were targeted. But if I had been here…”
“Your sister would have no one. Where were Jorge and Isabel?”
“You know they lived here for a while too?” He managed a smile and I nodded. “Jorge was in Lompoc. He had been living there for about three years. Isabel was at UCSB.”
I squeezed his hand. “It’s time to sell this place and let go.”
He pulled his hand back. “That’s easy for you to say. You don’t know what I’ve been through.”
“You think I don’t know loss? Next week will be the fifteenth anniversary of my parents’ car accident. They didn’t see me graduate college or get married or have kids.” I paused, trying to hold back tears. “And it’s rare for a day to go by, even after fifteen years, that I don’t think of them. There are so many questions I wish I could ask my mom.”
“I’m sorry. I forgot.”
I stood up. “I’m sorry you went through that alone. If we’d known…” I stopped myself realizing that I did know. I remembered hearing the story. Two of the gunmen had been caught and were serving life sentences. The third was killed by police.
“Come on, let’s go back to…”
Chef shook his head. “I can’t leave here. I’ll…”
“You’ll be safe at The Elskede. I have Pearl Tarkey’s word on that.”
“You’re going to take her word for that?”
I nodded, trying to pull him to his feet. “Yes. She said you’d be safe until you stepped one foot outside of The Elskede.”
He shuddered as he stood. “That isn’t very reassuring.”
“Come on. You can stay in one of the empty rooms until we have this resolved.”
“We?”
“Yes, we. I’m in the middle of this now. I’ll get us out.” I followed him through the house to the only other room with furniture - his bedroom. He packed up his bag and started toward his car in the garage.
“Let’s just take my car for now. We’ll get your car later.” I didn’t want to let him out of my sight. He wasn’t going to run on my watch.
“Do you think we could stop for some pea soup? I haven’t had lunch.”
I shook my head, surprised at his propensity for bad decisions. “You really don’t understand the trouble you’re in, do you?”
Part 8
Solvang
gagengirl entertainment
Pulling out my phone, I pulled up the picture of Chef’s sister’s class schedule. It showed her name as Cooper, Aliana Grace. Her classes were typical of a college student without a declared major: Elementary French, Introduction to Comparative Literature, Introduction to Art, Introduction to Oceanography, and Introduction to Archeology. According to her schedule, her French class should be letting out.
Since Pablo went to school at UCSB, he gave me a tour of the campus while we were dating. That knowledge helped me find the building where Aliana’s French class should be. I only hoped she hadn’t changed her schedule since she’d given her brother the copy.
I felt kind of stalker-y as I waited outside the building. But I felt victorious when she exited the building a few minutes later with a few friends. I settled my nerves and approached her. “Aliana Cooper?”
She stopped and looked at me. “Yes?”
“I’m a friend of your brother’s. Do you have a few minutes?”
“Sure. I was just heading to lunch.” She turned to her friends. “Go without me. I’ll see you back in the room later.”
As her friends walked away, I realized how much she looked like her brother. They had the same facial structure, brown eyes, and curly dark brown hair. Her hair was longer, hitting her shoulders. She had the top pulled back with an orange clip. Adjusting her backpack first, she straightened her orange shirt and waited for me to continue.
“Is there somewhere we can talk?”
“Do I have a choice? Aren’t you going to take me in?”
I shook my head, wondering why everyone thought I was law enforcement of some type. “No. I’m a friend of Chef’s.”
She nodded and smiled. “You must be Felicia. Brad has talked about you.”
I was able to smile. At least she knew about me. “Yes. I’m Felicia.”
“Aliana. But you already knew that.” She thrust her hand toward me. “If you’re paying for lunch, can we go somewhere off campus?”
“Sure.” I didn’t think I had volunteered to pay for lunch. But if it encouraged her to talk, it would be worth it.
About fifteen minutes later, we were sitting down with our food at a small Chinese restaurant just off campus.
“Thanks for lunch. I’m getting tired of campus food all the time. My brother says that I’m lucky and I shouldn’t complain.” She started eating.
“When is the last time you saw him?”
Aliana took a drink from her soda. “Friday night. He came by for a few hours and we visited. You’d think I’m half a country away the way he is sometimes. But I guess you know that, don’t you?”
I nodded, not knowing that. I was about to find out that we didn’t know him at all. “It’s only forty-five minutes away.”
“I know. But he visits me at least once a week, always spending at least a couple hours with me. I mean, I know he’s paying for this but…”
“Your brother is paying for your college education?”
“Oh, yeah. He didn’t tell you that? Our parents paid for his when he went here. They didn’t want him to owe anything when he graduated. And since they are gone, he’s doing the same for me.”
Since they are gone… I tried not to react. I shouldn’t have been surprised that I didn’t know his parents were gone. He had kept his sister a secret.
“But I don’t know how he is paying for it. I mean, he won’t sell the house in Buellton. And he pays rent for that tiny apartment in Solvang.” She shook her head. “I guess The Elskede pays well.”
I took a bite of my food. I didn’t know how much Pablo paid him, but it couldn’t be enough to cover her education and his rent and expenses.
“I think he feels guilty about what happened and not being there. But I don’t blame him.” She took another drink of her soda. “I think if he had been there, I’d be without a brother, too.”
I nodded, not sure what she was talking about. Listening to her talk, I learned that her parents were gone and Pablo blamed himself. My anger toward him decreased slightly as I listened to his sister.
“Do you know what you want to major in?”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure. I’ve been thinking about it a lot this quarter. In light of all that’s gone on in the world lately, I’ve thought about a double major in Black Studies and Global Studies or Middle East Studies. ‘Cause, like, how can you change the world if you don’t study how we got this screwed up, right?”
I smiled at her. “You want to change the world?”
She shrugged. “Kind of. I’d love to help fix things. Someone has to care, right?” She paused and shook her head. “But some days, I just want to think of myself and find something I’d enjoy like archeology.” She sighed. “Maybe I’m just too young and naive.”
I thought about it. She was young and naive, but it didn’t seem like such a bad thing. “You mentioned a house in Buellton…”
Aliana nodded. “Brad won’t sell it. I’ve told him to dozens of times. I don’t want to live there after I graduate. I can’t go back. There’s a reason I spent my junior and senior year in a small apartment in Santa Ynez. Gosh, I almost got caught a couple times. I would’ve been sent to foster care. But I just wanted to get through high school and pretend that it all didn’t happen. So I spent the last year and a half lying that I was living with my brother in Solvang.”
I really wanted to ask what had happened, but I didn’t. Whatever it was, she assumed I knew. It sounded like it had been about two years since it happened. She wanted to leave it in the past.
“He just won’t let go.”
I nodded. “Can you give me the address?”
“Sure.” She pulled a piece of paper out of her bag and wrote down the address. Then, she looked at her watch. “I better get back so I can get homework done before work tonight.”
“Work?”
Aliana’s cheeks turned pink. “Don’t tell my brother. He doesn’t want me working so I can focus on school. I got a job working as an assistant gymnastics coach. I mean, I wasn’t good enough to continue on in college, but I still love it.”
I took the address from her and then took her back to campus. She headed to her dorm room and I plugged the address into my phone for directions.
For a car that spent most of the past five years just taking the kids to and from school, my little Beetle was getting a good workout. It was a forty five minute drive before I found myself pulling into the driveway of Chef’s childhood home. I parked the car and waited a minute. I half expected him to come running out and down the street.
But nothing happened.
So I walked to the front door and knocked.
A minute later, the door opened. Chef was surprised to see me. “Felicia?”
“Want to let me in?”
He nodded and opened the door wider so that I could walk in. Closing the door behind me, he turned around to face me. “What are you doing here?”
First, I gave him a hug. “I’m glad you’re okay. We’ve all been very worried about you.”
“Thanks, but…”
I reached up and slapped the backside of his head. “What is wrong with you?”
He pulled away, allowing me to get a good look at him. Chef was slightly taller than my brother. He was clean-shaven and smelled of soap. For being holed up in the house for the past six days, he didn’t look like he’d been struggling or starving.
I turned around and inspected the room. There was no furniture in the living room. “What is this place?”
“My childhood home.” He walked away from me toward another room.
I followed him. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“How did you find me?” He stopped in the kitchen where there was a small oak table and two matching oak chairs.
“Well, I started with Avianna, since she is who we thought was the last person to see you. But then it turned out not to be true because she lied to the police.”
“The police? You involved them?”
“Of course. You were missing. Pablo filed a missing person’s report. But they started with Avianna and stopped.”
He sighed, relieved, and sat down. “Good. I’m glad they stopped.”
I shook my head at him. “So, then I went to The Elskede where Victor mentioned you planned to get out of town. And Tania told me you wanted to borrow some money. And Pablo said you had asked for your paycheck early but he couldn’t give it to you.”
Chef took a deep breath and let it out. “If he had done that, I wouldn’t have had to disappear.”
“But Isabel indicated you were going to talk to her brother. So, I went to Lompoc and talked to Jorge, who marked me.”
He laughed. “You mentioned Pablo’s name, didn’t you?”
I slapped him upside the head again. “You don’t talk, you listen. Jorge said that you asked him for money, too. But nobody seemed to know why you were so desperate for money. Avianna showed up at the house and admitted that she failed to tell me that she had given you two thousand dollars because you had borrowed money from someone. She gave me a key to your apartment.
“So, this morning I searched your apartment and found myself face to face with Gus Hobbs as I left. And he took me to Pearl Tarkey, where I learned that you stupidly borrowed money from her. But I kept asking myself why you borrowed that money in the first place. So, then, after dropping off the dogs that Gus Hobbs took from Avianna’s as a warning, I returned the menus to The Elskede before heading to UCSB.”
His mouth opened, surprised. “How did you…”
I shook my head at him. “Why didn’t you tell us you had a sister? And why the hell did you borrow money from Pearl Tarkey instead of us?”
“I didn't want to alter our relationship by owing you money.”
“Well, you altered the relationship anyway with all of these stupid moves you kept making.”
“Felicia, I’m sorry.” I could tell he meant it as tears filled his eyes. “I screwed up and kept digging myself a big hole. I didn’t want to admit everything I’ve done.”
“Your sister wants you to sell this place.”
Chef shook his head. “I can’t. I can’t let go. My parents died here…”
I sat down in the other chair and took his hand. “What happened?”
“They said it was a home invasion. My sister was at gymnastics. I was at work. Three armed men broke in and shot them both. They didn’t take anything. I don’t know why my parents were targeted. But if I had been here…”
“Your sister would have no one. Where were Jorge and Isabel?”
“You know they lived here for a while too?” He managed a smile and I nodded. “Jorge was in Lompoc. He had been living there for about three years. Isabel was at UCSB.”
I squeezed his hand. “It’s time to sell this place and let go.”
He pulled his hand back. “That’s easy for you to say. You don’t know what I’ve been through.”
“You think I don’t know loss? Next week will be the fifteenth anniversary of my parents’ car accident. They didn’t see me graduate college or get married or have kids.” I paused, trying to hold back tears. “And it’s rare for a day to go by, even after fifteen years, that I don’t think of them. There are so many questions I wish I could ask my mom.”
“I’m sorry. I forgot.”
I stood up. “I’m sorry you went through that alone. If we’d known…” I stopped myself realizing that I did know. I remembered hearing the story. Two of the gunmen had been caught and were serving life sentences. The third was killed by police.
“Come on, let’s go back to…”
Chef shook his head. “I can’t leave here. I’ll…”
“You’ll be safe at The Elskede. I have Pearl Tarkey’s word on that.”
“You’re going to take her word for that?”
I nodded, trying to pull him to his feet. “Yes. She said you’d be safe until you stepped one foot outside of The Elskede.”
He shuddered as he stood. “That isn’t very reassuring.”
“Come on. You can stay in one of the empty rooms until we have this resolved.”
“We?”
“Yes, we. I’m in the middle of this now. I’ll get us out.” I followed him through the house to the only other room with furniture - his bedroom. He packed up his bag and started toward his car in the garage.
“Let’s just take my car for now. We’ll get your car later.” I didn’t want to let him out of my sight. He wasn’t going to run on my watch.
“Do you think we could stop for some pea soup? I haven’t had lunch.”
I shook my head, surprised at his propensity for bad decisions. “You really don’t understand the trouble you’re in, do you?”
Part 8
Solvang