Chapter 2 (Doesn't ring a bell)

"What'd you do, time travel?" Gemmel's tone said she was joking.

"Looks like it, doesn't it?" Linda was still studying the picture. As near as she could make out, the image was small, old, and grainy, the woman in the picture looked enough like her to be her twin.

"Woo-oo-ooo." The eerie bit of tune cane from Rinks. Then he added prosaically, "She wouldn't happen to be a relative would she?"

"The family name is Garcia. The parents are Tony and Martha, the kids Michael and Anna," Gemmel added.

Her eyes on the picture, Linda shook her head. "Doesn't ring a bell."

She glanced over at the sheet of paper on top of the nearly inch thick file. Handwritten, raggedly torn from a green legal pad, it appeared to be notes some sort. What she could understand of it, the handwriting was hard to decipher, didn't tell her much. It looked like a detective's contemporaneous account of an interview with someone who basically stated the Garcias were a nice family. She lifted it aside. A type written list of names, none of which meant anything to her, was next. She suspected it was a list of people the police had either interviewed or meant to interview, but she had no way of knowing for sure.

"So, what happened?" She asked, glancing up. If she knew anything about Gemmel, she'd read everything in the file.

"They disappeared. The whole family, including the dog. Vanished without a trace. One day the husband doesn't show up for work. Neither does the wife. The kids are absent from school. No answer when people tried to reach them on the phone. Finally somebody goes out to the house to check. They're gone."

Linda frowned. "So, maybe they just took off."

"That's what the police originally thought. The husband's car was missing, although the wife's car was still there. They could all have piled in and headed out. But they hadn't told anyone they were leaving, and the house was ransacked. Dirty dishes from last night's supper were in the dishwasher, which hadn't yet been turned on. There was water in the bathtub and a couple of floaty toys too, and the dirty clothes the girl had been wearing that day were crumpled on the floor beside the tub, which made the police think that the mother might have been giving the daughter a bath. In other words, if they just took off on their own, all indications were that something occured to make them leave in a hurry."

"Like what?"

"No clue," Gemmel said. "Unless maybe they were hiding from something or somebody and were afraid they'd been found. The police did follow a couple of leads that the husband was involved in criminal activities, but nothing ever seemed to really pan out."

"Tell her about the blood," Rinks said.

Linda looked questioningly at Gemmel.

"There were indications that some blood had been spilled in the kitchen. As in somebody bit the big one."

"Whose was it?"

Gemmel shrugged. "If they ever determined that, it's not in the file. Or at least if it is, I missed it."

"Hmm." Conscious of a vague feeling of unease, Linda glanced down at the file again. The tiny faces in the picture stared back at her solemnly. The man and the boy were like the woman, wearing jeans. The man had on a navy sweater with a baseball cap pulled down over his eyes which kept his hair and face hidden. The boy was brown haired and cute in a blue T-shirt like the mom's. The little girl was chubby cheeked and adorable in a long-sleeved green dress that might have been velvet, with a lace collar, smocking on the bodice and black tights. There was something about the picture that Linda found disturbing, which probably had a great deal to do with the way the woman looked. It was impossible that these people had anything to do with her, of course. Even the close degree of resemblance between herself and the woman might be the result of the result of the small size and slightly out of focus quality of the images. If she had a good, clear photo, probably the similarities would come down to coloring and build, and that would be it.

"Weird," Rinks agreed, adding another file for scanning to the small pile beside the computer, while Gemmel demanded with a trace of indignation. "Is that all you have to say about it?"

Linda shrugged. "Don't they say that everybody has a doppelganger somewhere? Maybe this is mine."

"Well, if it were me, I'd sure want to know more, but whatever." Gemmel sounded disappointed. A few minutes later, she left the room, and Linda got down to the truly stultifying work of computerizing the files.

By the time, six, quitting time in her previous, much lamented position as a rising associate for Lucas, Markman and Simone rolled around, her back ached. Her arms felt as if they were ready to fall off. She was seeing dark spots in front of her eyes from staring too long at the computer screen. Conscious that she had been, as Scott had so kindly pointed out to her that morning, an hour and twenty minutes late, she kept doggedly working even after Rinks, started complaining about being tired.

"Go on, I'll be fine," she urged him. It was, she saw with a glance at her watch, about ten minutes after six. In thirty minutes time, she would have made up the missed time and then some, and Scott could take a quick trip to hell.

"Yeah, I go off and leave you alone all by yourself and someone comes in to hurt you." Rinks shook his head. "This place was made to be a slaughter house. Come on, Grant, use your imagination. Get out while you can."

Looking up from the screen, Linda had to laugh. "I'd rather not use my imagination if that's where it's going to take me."

"These files aren't anywhere you know I have been here since last year and I haven't even made a difference. I think they multiply in the dark."

The bit about the files not going anywhere was so true that Linda agreed to stop working. Pushing the chair back, she got up and stretched. Damn! her back was stiff. Her eyes fell in the Garcia family file. She knew that it was ridiculous to imagine that it had anything to do with her, but still she was interested in it, by the thought of the family that had so mysteriously disappeared, by the resemblance. Maybe they were relatives, some sort of distant cousins. Somebody at home might know. At the very least they might remember when the family had gone missing, because it was bound to have caused an uproar in the local media.

"You're supposed to lock up, aren't you?" A light bulb suddenly came on in her mind, she grinned at Rinks as she retrieved her purse and briefcase from the floor. The keys he tangled impatiently while he waited for her gave it away. "That's why you want me out of here. You can't lock up until I'm gone."

"Maybe." His answering grim told the tale. "Maybe there's a concert I got tickets to, and it starts at seven. Just maybe, that's all I'm saying."

"What concert?" With a guilty glance at Rinks, who was returning the unread files from the floor to the box from which they had been taken, she picked up the Garcia file and slid it into her briefcase. She would read it tonight on her own time and bring it back tomorrow and no one will know. She would have let Rinks know but she didn't want to get him in trouble if anyone found out she'd borrowed the file.

"Its a singer concert. Scoop Boys and Lapel Shades."

Those were, as Linda kind of vaguely thought she knew, local bands.

"Sounds lovely." She led the way out of the room, waited while he turned off the lights and locked up behind her, then walked with him to the elevators.

"Should be great," he agreed.

"Sun Arena?" she asked as they stepped into the elevator, thinking of the traffic that would clog downtown if this main avenue for the performing artists and every other big event, including, and most important, the basketball game, was involved.

"They wish." He shook his head. "Its outside, at Marley Park."

"Do you have a date?"

"Just hanging with friends."

The elevator stopped, and they, the only ones in it, stepped out into the building and joined the stream if stragglers exiting the building. The warm sunshine of the evening spilled over them as they pushed through one of the manu tinted doors that formed part of the long front wall of amber glass. The textured concrete under their feet was hot, it could fry an egg, the inside of her car would be hot as an oven. But these soft golden hours were but what made summer magical in Kentucky's bluegrass region. They were what Linda had missed most when she had gone away to College in Massachusetts and then to Boston Law School, then to a job as an associate in one of Boston's law firms. She had come home last September because of her mother, but this, her first summer spent in the South in years, reminded her why, when the time had first come for her to go away, she hadn't wanted to leave.

"It's a beautiful night for it," Linda said.

"Yeah."

"Night, Linda, Rinks" Sarah spoke over her shoulder as, juggling an arm full of books and files as well as a briefcase and her purse, she hurried past them and toward the parking lot.

"Night," she and Rinks called back in unison.

A glimpse at the longing expression in Rinks face as he looked at Sarah's swinging hair and swaying skirt provided Linda with a surprising revelation, he had a thing for Sarah.

"Go offer to help her carry some of that stuff," she urged Rinks in an under tone.

Glancing at her in some amusement, as though he was suspicious that she might somehow, mysteriously, have divined his secret, he shook his head.

"Nag. She's got it under control, and anyway, I got to get to my concert." They had reached the parking lot by that time and Rinks, lifting a hand in farewell, turned right toward his ancient Dodgers while Linda went straight to where the dealership man had said he parked the Jaguar. "See ya tomorrow."

"Enjoy your concert."

Twenty minutes later, Linda had left the lively city behind. Once she passed the bridge that arched over Kentucky Ave River, a sleepy expanse of muddy green water that was a favorite of local fishermen, she was in Woofer County. The leafy back roads that led to Greystone Springs were narrow and windy, distinguished by series of quaint bridges that curved over rambling streams and lined with mortarless stone walls that had been constructed by itinerant Freemasons some three hundred years before. Farms, small and large, dotted the landscape, ranging in type from the hard scrabble ones that could no longer get something for their owners to the mansions and stables and vast acreage of the premier. On all sides, Lush fields of Kentucky's fabled bluegrass rolled away for as far as the eye could see. As Linda had several times had to explain to disappointed friends that the bluegrass wasn't really blue. It was as green as the grass anywhere, except on certain days when the wind blew in the right direction and the light was just right on it, it's better to say that the grass was most of the time green. But whatever color it was, it was ideal for raising the beat horses in the world and for generations now that was the use to which it had been put.

It was beautiful, anachronistic, and it was home. She'd been back for only ten months, and she could swear she felt at peace.

Sometimes she longed for Boston like she longed for a cool breeze in the midst of all this cloying heat. One day, when everything here was settled, she meant to go back and pick the pieces of her life she had made for herself there.

Linda was jolted back to the present by the sound of Rita Ora's body on me emanating from her bag. It was her ringtone, and as she fished out her phone, she saw the caller was Davis. A junior partner in his father's real estate development company, he'd flown with his father to Chicago, where they had business that would take them two days after dropping her off at work.

"Just calling to check in," he said when she answered, and she guessed that he had only just arrived. He was a handsome young man. They were the same age, he'd been a part of the wild kids she'd run with in highschool, and back then they'd dated for sometime, long enough that he'd been the one to take her to senior prom. When he'd asked her out not long after she had gotten back in town she had no reason to turn him down. He'd made it pretty clear lately that he wanted to take things to the next level; you probably guessed wrong, he wanted them to have sec, but she wasn't ready for that. She believed sec and guys added up to a big messy drama that she didn't need at the moment, except she's staying around permanently, which is not the case.

"How was your flight?" She asked

"Fine. Did you get your car fixed?"

"I'm driving it home right now."

"That's good. Anything interesting happen at work?"

Linda thought about telling him that Scott nearly fired her, but she knew he didn't like Scott, and with Scott, the feeling was mutual, and that would make the conversation intense. Instead she told him about the Garcia file and how much she looked like Martha Garcia.

"Before you start reading all kinds of things into it, you probably should take a good look at the picture. Old pictures like that are not too reliable."

" I brought the file home with me. I could drop the picture off at Wallows on my way to work tomorrow and have it copied and enlarged." The idea just occured to her.

"Sounds good," Davis said. Then Linda heard someone say something in the background, then he added, "Dad says hi."

"Tell him I said hello," Linda answered. Louis, Davis' father isn't someone she liked, he treats his son like a child and has never approved of her, but she just wants to be polite.

"Listen, I've got to go. I'll be back late tomorrow. Don't forget we're going to the country club on Saturday. I'll pick you up at eight."

"I'll be ready." Linda said and hung up. The coming Saturday was a holiday and the club sponsored an annual buffet and fireworks in honor of the holiday. It was a very known event and fun too. Most beautiful of her friends who were still around would be there. She only hoped nothing at work would stop her from going. Saturdays are usually work days sometimes but she hoped it won't be this Saturday because she planned to lie shamelessly about why she couldn't show up at work.

Thinking of possible excuses she could give while driving absentmindedly, the Jaguar hit a pothole and stopped.

"Oh not again," she groaned, listening to the noise of the engine in consternation.

She barely had time to steer it to the side of the road before it went off.

"Piece of shit," she muttered angrily.

Shifting into the park because she thought she should, she looked at the fuel gauge, hoping it could be the problem. Unfortunately it was full and that meant the fault lied elsewhere. It was just fixed this morning, she thought. It wasn't even her car, it was her mom's. Karen Grant had driven this car until she was diagnosed with ALS four years ago. It was unfortunately not suited for transporting a woman in a wheelchair, so she traded her reliable Honda for her mom to move around freely in her wheelchair. With the farms finances, they couldn't afford another car. Now she was stuck with the Jaguar.

Linda was fumbling with her purse for her phone when the sudden opening of the drivers side door made her jump and scream.