Look For Me (Detective D.D. Warren #9)(64)

If I were a teenage girl who’d just wrapped up play rehearsal at seven thirty on a Saturday night, what would I do next?

Depart with friends seemed like the winning answer to me. Anya was the lead actress, meaning she liked attention. Leaving alone, heading back—to what, foster care?—would be too much of a letdown. So she’d look for ways to keep the theater magic alive. Accompany some of the cast and crew going for dinner, drinks, coffee, whatever.

They’d walk. No one, especially teens, could afford cars in Boston. So someplace close. I consulted my phone again, identified three restaurants and a café within walking distance. The restaurants sounded too expensive, the café a better fit for an aspiring thespian’s budget.

I spotted the likely group seated in a far corner the moment I entered Monet’s. My timing was off, though, because I’d no sooner picked a table by the door than they were pushing back their chairs, standing up.

I skimmed the group quickly. I wasn’t sure what Anya looked like. The photo I’d seen of her from the Beauty and the Beast page had definitely involved a wig, not to mention a very large yellow ball gown.

But now my gaze settled on one girl in particular. Long strawberry-blond hair tumbling down a black trench coat in perfectly groomed waves. Exotic green-gold eyes turned up slightly at the corners. She would be absolutely stunning if not for the calculating grin on her face as she turned toward the much older, heavyset man beside her, placing a hand on his arm.

Anya Seton. I’d bet my life on it.

I turned away, let the group pass. Four younger people, one graying adult. Cast, I would bet, out with the director.

I studied a poster on the wall, the café’s namesake’s famed rendering of water lilies. The group exited the door out onto the sidewalk, still talking among themselves.

“Would you like a menu?”

I turned to find a waiter staring at me. I regarded him blankly.

“No.”

Through the window, I could see the group was breaking up.

“You know them?” I asked the waiter quickly.

He shrugged. “They’re regulars.”

“Girl with the reddish-gold hair, that Anya Seton by any chance?”

He gave me a suspicious look. “Why?”

“I, um, saw her in a play once. Thought that had to be her.”

“Yeah. She’s in most of the local productions. Gonna be a big star one day.” He rolled his eyes. “Likes to tell us that as she signs a napkin and leaves it as a tip.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Cuz, you know, Brighton community theater is only one short step from Broadway.”

“Everyone’s gotta dream.”

“What, this isn’t the pinnacle of my career?” He gestured to his latte-stained black apron.

I was startled enough to laugh. And realized for the first time that the waiter was a nice-looking guy. Late twenties, warm brown eyes, rueful smile.

In the next moment, I faltered. Because I didn’t know what to do with cute guys. Rarely even noticed such things. There were ways that I had healed and ways that I was still broken. Unconsciously, I started fidgeting with the bandage on my left hand. Rubbing it just slightly, feeling the corresponding twinge of pain. It both grounded me and made me sad.

For no reason at all, I thought of my mother. All the hopes and dreams she still had for me. The strength she found to still care, though I knew most of my actions, including my current search for yet another missing girl, broke her heart.

The group outside was scattering. Anya heading up the block, her arm looped possessively through the director’s, the others headed in the opposite direction.

“I gotta go,” I heard myself say.

Cute waiter guy shrugged. “You don’t have to chase her for an autograph. Come by this same time tomorrow. She’ll give you one happily enough.”

“Um . . . thanks.”

He nodded. “Do I know you?” he asked abruptly. “Are you also an actress, because you look familiar. Maybe I saw you on TV?”

“No,” I said. “You don’t know me.”

Then I turned my back on him and headed out the door.

? ? ?

AFTER THE WARMTH OF THE café, the night air hit me like a slap. I hunched my shoulders in my thin windbreaker and trucked up the block. At least the dark blue color helped me blend in with the shadows. I could hear footsteps ahead. The low murmur of voices punctuated by laughter.

As we approached the street corner, I slowed, not wanting to get too close. Anya and the director waited for the cross light. He whispered something in her ear. Very intimate for a purely professional relationship, I thought. She giggled in response. The sound made me shiver.

Two more blocks. At the third, he reluctantly unhooked his arm. More whispers. Reminders of upcoming rehearsals, or promises of a different kind of rendezvous? Anya turned her head, offering up a pale cheek in gracious offering. He brushed his lips across the porcelain surface. Then he turned left, most likely heading to his place, while Anya kept going straight.

I hesitated. A lone woman walking the streets of Boston at night learned to be aware of her surroundings. No way the sound of my footsteps wouldn’t draw notice. Especially as Anya was a foster kid, with plenty of reasons to develop street smarts.

So I didn’t continue straight. Instead, as the guy went left, I crossed to the right, keys out of my pocket, held in my fist with one key protruding between my knuckles. If Anya looked over, noted my presence, she’d see another lone woman, walking briskly and practicing basic self-defense.