I left Cody's office twenty minutes later, in some kind of daze. He liked everything that mom made, despite initially claiming that he didn't have much of a sweet tooth. "That's what most of our customers say," I teased, "but my mom changes everyone's minds."
"Maybe I should stop by there sometime. I feel like I hear about it a lot." He flattened the empty paperbag on the desk and rolled it up. I inspected his tattoo covered right arm. I wondered how far it went. "Where is it, again?"
"It's right across the street from the pier. Between a gym and an eye doctor's office. I'm going to assume you know the eye doctor, judging by the glasses."
"These could be for fashion."
"I thought so too, at first. But you wear them every time I see you, so you must just have bad eyesight."
"Very observant. Who's the detective here, anyways?"
"If I keep this up, I might even put you out of business."
"You might. Zoey Hudson, P.I.," he made a gesture like he was talking about a headline, "solving your cases in little overalls like this is some kind 1995 sitcom."
"Overalls are in right now, grandpa. I'm sorry you don't keep up with fashion." I hopped up from my seat and grabbed my bag, seeing that I didn't know when his break was supposed to end. "I know you have some work to do, so I'll leave you be. It'd be really nice to see you sometime, though. If that's okay."
"I'll stop by." He stood up to walk me to the door. He stopped right at the frame to lean against it.
I turned around so quickly that he seemed a little surprised. "I just wanted to thank you for everything. You worked really, really fast, so..."
"Don't mention it." He smiled. It was a small polite one, and it made me wonder what a genuine one looked like. He leaned back slightly so he could hold the door. "I'll see you later."
See you later. I practically floated into the shop. The excitement I felt at those words was the kind of excitement that I used to feel in elementary school whenever I invited my classmates over to the shop. A boundary was being crossed. All of my best relationships started at the shop, too. I didn't know what it was about Cody, but I wanted us to have a good relationship. I wanted us to be friends, at the very least. Although we'd had good banter up until then, there was a polite distance that was persisting between the two of us, and I didn't want that to be the case anymore.
"Zoey!" Minnie cried as soon as the door opened.
I pulled my mouth down like I was going to wince once I recalled that I told Minnie I'd be back sooner. "I'm sorry, I got caught up at the..."
"What'd the detective say?" My mother seemed to spring out of nowhere.
I glanced between Minnie and my mother, and hoped that mom got the idea that discussing family matters in front of customers wasn't the best idea. But Minnie was a little bit more than a customer. She was playing some kind of card game with my grammy. Mom didn't get it. She reached behind me to shut the door and ushered me into a seat at the front table, where Minnie and grandma sat.
"What detective?" Minnie wrinkled her forehead in confusion.
"It's... it's kind of a long story. But to keep it short: Hannah ran off somewhere, and we don't know where she went. So I hired a detective to look for her, because it's not a case that the police would really take seriously so..."
"That's why she hasn't been in school for so long! Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
"I don't know. I guess we just wanted to wait around and see if she was going to come back home at some point, maybe. I don't know."
"It's been such a hassle, Minnie," my mother cut in, "my mother and I have been running around to so many police departments. You'd think that they want to help, but they were all just making excuses for her. It was clear that none of them were taking our case that seriously."
"The police are useless. Absolutely useless." Grammy shook her head.
"That's so crazy." Minnie crossed her ankles and stared pensively at the wall behind my head for a moment. "I don't even know what to say. So you went to a detective?"
"Yeah, I just met with him right now. According to him, Hannah and – um, Hannah, I mean, she's in New York City right now. She's staying at the Trump Hotel."
"New York?" Grandma squawked. My mom touched her arm as an emotional display.
"I've always wanted to go there. I'd go there too if I had to run away from home." Minnie added. She shrunk once she noticed the look my mother gave her. "It's still bad. What Hannah did."
"So, that's it. She's at the Trump Hotel in Central Park. According to some of the people that the detective contacted, she was only going to be there for a little while and come back this Wednesday. But it seems like that's not the case."
"What do you mean?" Grammy asked.
"Who'd he contact?" Mom leaned in.
"Some of her friends. You know, he gave me a folder full of his notes, so you can look right through it for more details. Anyways, according to these sources, they feel like she's probably going to end up staying in New York City way longer than intended. I don't know why. I didn't really want to know why, to be honest, I just wanted to bring back the folder and let you guys have a look at it."
"How can she afford the Trump Hotel?" Minnie asked while she watched me slide Cody's folder of notes out of my bag. "Isn't it super expensive?"
"It's, like, crazy expensive. But she's not paying for it, exactly. She's there with someone else, and they go to borrow money from some people in order to do it." I set the folder down at the center of the table and looked at my mother. "This is yours now."
"Did you give him the desserts?" Grandma asked.
"I did. He liked them."
Mom picked up the folder. A silence fell over the table, and we all knew that the Hannah-centered conversation was over. I cleared my throat. Minnie reached over to touch the ends of my hair. "I literally just noticed right now that it's pink! And it's short! I saw you like two days ago, what happened?"
"You just noticed the hair?" I cracked a smile.
There was a lot to think about by the time I got home. I collapsed on the couch, folded my hands over my stomach and stared at the ceiling. I didn't want to see Cameron. There was no hope, at all, for us continuing our relationship. Even if he apologized, even if he said it was all a mistake and promised to never do it again – none of that would matter. I knew I couldn't ever trust him again. But I didn't know how to feel about Hannah. She was my little sister. As horrible as she could be, I wasn't sure where to draw the line with her. I wasn't sure how I felt about a future where I wouldn't ever see her again. I had no idea what my mother and grandmother were planning on doing with the information that I gave them, but I knew what I was going to do with it.
I sat up and reached for my bag, which was sitting on the cofee table. I pulled out my phone and sent a text to Christine Sánchez, who was probably my wife in another life. Even if we went on for months without speaking, it was like no time had passed whenever we did decide to talk.
I need to skype you rn it's so serious :))
Less than five minutes later: :( i will log on right away bby
I got myself camera ready within the next few minutes and waited for her to log on. Her and Cameron were my only contacts. My chest tightened at the sight of his name. We only used it once (unless he used with Hannah, of course) when he went on a business-related trip to Miami. But my mood brightened once I saw that Christine was on. I started the video chat, and there she was: bronze, make up-less and her hair pulled up into a bandanna.
"Your hair!" She yelled.
"Getting ready for bed?" I smiled.
"I thought we were being casual right now! I thought this was a casual video chat, man, shit. Whatever." She shrugged a shoulder.
"You look perfect right now, anyways. How's New York?"
"It's nice. It's whatever. Me and Mikey just moved into this super cute apartment in Brooklyn. He's got a nice little job as a delivery boy for this Mexican place that's kind of close to our place. The irony of him working at a Mexican place, I know, but he's been building up an immunity to the food. He doesn't even get gassy anymore."
"I'm very happy for him. I couldn't imagine being him on prom night. That's the ultimate disaster. What about work? Any acting gigs?"
"Mm... well, you saw the commercial I was in, right?"
"Yes! I did. I saved it onto my desktop."
Christine grinned and showed off her commercial-ready, dimpled smile. "Well, I'm hoping to do more commercials. I'm also auditioning to be a back-up dancer in some music videos. So I don't have any concrete work right now, but there are just a lot of possibilities."
"That's awesome. You have to let me know the moment you hear back from anyone and get a part. I'll add it to my folder of your successes. Remember the little people when you blow up."
"I'll try. There aren't a whole lot of blondes in my life, so I think I'll be able to remember you. So when are we talking about your hair? Or your life? I need to do my eyebrows, so ignore me while I clean this situation up." She presented her tweezers to the camera.
"We're not talking about my hair. I have a lot of other more important stuff to tell you." And I told her everything. She ended up not being able to pluck her eyebrows at all because she was too busy staring, slack-jawed.
"He's... he's, like, evil. I never would've thought in a million years that he would be so evil. And he took your dog. Because cheating on a girl, yeah, that happens, but then cheating on a girl and taking her dog away? You know, that's just very extra. There should be a limit to how much you can wrong someone." Christine smoothed her thumb over her eyebrow and leaned in to her mirror, which seemed to be to the right of her laptop. She got distracted again and perked up. "You know what we should do? Tell me his address. You know where they're staying now, right?"
"Yeah." I knew exactly where she was going with this. "I don't know this is going to work, but I don't know how else I'm going to get my dog back."
"So you want to take a step onto the dark side, Miss Hudson? You've come to the right person." Christine put her fingertips together like she was some kind of evil mastermind. "Tell me his address and what you expect his schedule to be like in a given day, and we can make some kind of arrangement."
And we did. As much as Cameron had seemed to change over the past few weeks, there were some things that I knew concretely about him. There were things that I knew concretely about Hannah. What I definitely knew about Hannah was that she would never take the dog outside to do his business. She might take him on walks, but those would be rare and short. That meant that Cameron had to take Ruffles out regularly. One of Cameron's worst habits when it came to Ruffles' and Ruffles' morning routine was that he would let him go, and then tie him to a post so that he could go get a newspaper and breakfast at the deli. I didn't know how that routine would translate in New York, but I knew that Ruffles used the bathroom twice a day. In the morning at ten o'clock, and in the afternoon at six.
"Originally they were leaving on Wednesday, but the detective says they'll probably be there longer." I added.
"We have the week. I have a ton of auditions in the next few days, but I have nothing going on Tuesday. Which means I have plenty of time to try and steal your dog. For you. Leave it to me! I'll text you when it's going to happen."
"Is this illegal? It can't be because the dog is mine, right? It's like me taking back what's mine."
"Zoey, things are only illegal if people find out. How many illegal things have I done? How many times have I gone to jail?"
"You've never done anything illegal..."
"That you know of. You see how that works? Trust me on this."
"I am. I do." I bit my thumb nail. "Thank you."
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A/N: Things are going to get more exciting starting from here. I'm excited. And check out Ruffles! Who wouldn't miss that face?