Angel's Dance (9 page)

Clear could feel herself crying and
tried very hard to stop, but didn’t realize that she was even
making a sound until she felt Grant’s hand on her shoulder. She
swiped at her eyes angrily.

“
Are you alright?” Grant
asked quietly.

Clear nodded, unable to speak. She
cleared her throat, again swiping at the tears leaking from her
eyes. “Not for me,” she mumbled, unable to say more. Grant nodded,
understanding.

Laura scoffed, “Not for you, for us?”
She shot daggers at Grant. He glowered back.

Clear stood up and started putting
everything back in the box. “Your daughter was very good at
compartmentalizing.” She stated, trying to sound professional. She
began to put the box back and stopped. There was a baseball… She
sifted through the memories trying to place it. Where was the
baseball? It was important somehow. She shoved the box back up into
the closet.

“
Laura, do you know where
her baseball is?”

Laura looked at her in shock, with a
little guilt she shook her head. “How… how…”

Clear looked at Laura hard. “You threw
it away right after he left. You thought that was the end of it,
but she fished it out of the dumpster that night and hid it away so
you wouldn’t get rid of it again.” Clear sat on the bed and looked
around again.

“
How is this significant?”
Grant asked.

“
I.. don’t quite
know…something…” She put her hands to her head and closed her eyes.
Her head was starting to ache. “I’m sorry, I don’t know. I just…
Well, I need to lie down.”

Grant looked at her a bit surprised
and a little worried.

“
Oh, that’s all you have
up your sleeve?” Laura muttered. “Nothing else to
share?”

Clear glowered at her, her head
beginning to throb. “I can’t tell you anything the police didn’t
already figure out and you already told Grant. She wasn’t taken
from here. She didn’t run away, but she was taken. I just don’t
know where she was taken from.”

Laura threw her hands up in the air.
“Then what have you been doing pawing through my daughter’s room
for the last half hour for?”

Clear sighed. “Chicago is
very
big
. There
are a lot of people. It’s so… overwhelming. I have to know Kat if
I’m going to find her.” She bit her lip as pain shot through her
head. “Please Grant… I need to lie down. My head,” she bent over
feeling as if she would be sick.

“
Laura, you got anything
for a headache?” he growled. He helped Clear stand up and led her
into Laura’s room. She pulled back.

“
No, I
shouldn’t.”

“
She’ll get over
it.”

“
There is Imitrix in my
bag… for the migraine.”

Grant flipped the light switch off and
headed out. “I’ll be right back.”

Clear writhed in pain for what felt
like forever, but was probably no more than a few minutes. Finally
Grant came back in with a glass of water and her pill bottle. He
handed it to her and she squinted as she popped the pill top off.
She chugged the water and tossed in one pill, then curled up on the
bed facing away from the window. Grant walked to the other side of
the bed and closed the blinds then carefully left the room, closing
the door behind him. Clear had a momentary feeling of gratitude
before the numbing lead feeling began to descend. She welcomed it,
knowing the pain would end soon.

Clear awoke groggily. She shook her
head, trying to remember what she had seen in the dream she had
been having. It was about Kat, she knew that much. Kat and… there
had been a man… an oogy older man with graying teeth.

Carefully sitting up on the bed, Clear
squinted from the tensing of her muscles. Everything ached so
badly. She had almost forgotten this feeling. It had been so long
since she had been plagued with the migraines. Civilization
sucked!

She gently rolled her head, loosening
the muscles in her neck and focusing on her breathing, trying to
release the images and let them flow freely. Trying to focus on
them would simply cause them to slip away out of her grasp. As her
neck muscles loosened, she began gently rotating her shoulders,
loosening the back muscles.

There was the man and there was
another girl. The man had hurt Kat… hurt her feelings. The other
girl was supportive… Once again the images flitted away. Clear took
a deep breath pushing her frustration away and slowly stood,
feeling the muscles in her legs groan in protest. She began
rotating her hips slowly to loosen the lower back and hips and
tried to breath in rhythm with the rotations, forcing her conscious
mind to relax along with the muscles.

A stark image of the girl came into
focus and the emotions Kat felt for her. They were very close. The
girl was telling her something…. Not to worry about what he said…
Suddenly the bedroom door came open and a shaft of bright light
struck Clear in the face. She snapped her eyes shut as they
prickled from the light sensitivity still plaguing her. Immediately
the images, the whole thing just disappeared.

“
Worst. Timing. Ever!”
Clear growled.

“
What the hell are you
doing?” Laura snapped back. Clear realized that she was still
swaying and moving and immediately stopped, somewhat
embarrassed.

“
Laura.. leave her….”
Grant was right behind Laura and Clear felt this overwhelming sense
of compassion and concern from him. The stab of jealousy was
quickly brushed aside. Realizing that what images she had were now
gone, she flounced out of the room.

“
I need some water,” she
muttered as she carefully slipped past Grant and Laura. Once she
got to the kitchen she realized that she had no idea where to get a
glass. Turning, Grant and Laura were right on her heels.

“
Feeling better?” Grant
asked tentatively.

“
The migraine is gone… for
now,” Clear amended. She knew there would be more, probably one
every single day they were here. Even more motivation to get this
whole thing over with quickly.

Grant moved past her and grabbed a
glass. He filled it with water and ice from the fridge then offered
it to her.

“
Thanks,” she murmured,
feeling guilty for the jealousy in the bedroom. She took the
proffered cup then looked around for Laura. Just because her vision
was gone, didn’t mean she couldn’t get more on it. She headed into
the living room where Laura stood looking at pictures on the
entertainment center. Clear was hit with a wave of melancholy and
realized that perhaps Laura was worse off than she appeared. Clear
had no right to judge her. If anything, she should be impressed
that the woman was holding it together as well as she
was.

Clear sighed and jumped right in. “Um…
Laura? May I call you…”

“
Well, you have to call
me
something
,”
Laura snapped.

Clear brushed off the attitude. “Did
you know all of your daughter’s friends?”

The woman glared at her balefully.
“Are you kidding? Who could possibly know all their child’s
friends?”

Clear decided that it would be best to
just get this miserably annoying part out of the way.

“
Look, I know you don’t
believe in me. Fortunately for both of us, that isn’t going to
affect what I do. I get that you have it in your head that there
must be something going on between us,” she jerked her thumb at
Grant “because you think I am young and beautiful and how could
he
not
want me. I
also get that you have a skewed view of him and think that I would
have to want him, because how could anyone not want him as much as
you, even with all his… issues. I hate to embarrass either one of
you with all this painfully revealing emotional bullshit, but I
need to make a point here. Grant and I are not together. We will
not be together. I know he thinks I am hot, but he also has been
with me enough to be more than a little… disturbed… terrified… awed
by what I do,” Clear shook her head. “I totally get how you see
Grant. He is good looking for his age, he can be sweet and charming
unexpectedly, but the guys got baggage, even more baggage than I
could have realized. He doesn’t have time for me and… well, he
can’t handle my baggage because he is pretty overloaded right now.
So, stop being so snarky and obnoxious to me because you feel like
I am taking your place. I am not.” She took a deep breath, pleased
to see that she had managed to take the woman completely off
guard.

“
I know that you are
blaming yourself for Kat disappearing and you feel like everyone
else has to blame you too, which makes you angry and makes you feel
like every question anyone asks is a personal affront to your
motherhood. I also know that you don’t like blaming yourself
because you’re not that type of person. The only person you can
shift that blame to is Grant and you have good emotional logic to
justify it. He is the reason you feel like you are a horrible
mother. You are stretched too thin and you couldn’t do all the
mommy things you wanted, because you were busy being dad
too.

“
Let me make this clear. I
don’t blame you.
Grant
doesn’t blame you. When I ask a question, it is not a
challenge to your motherhood. I just need a straight answer. Now,
back to my original question.”

“
I need to see.. or talk
to a specific friend of Kat’s. Trust me, you will remember her if
you met her. She is tall with miles of leg. Her hair is a blue
black, but it is not natural. She was probably originally a red
head or a blond. Her eyebrows weren’t dyed. She has her hair cut
raggedly and is probably Goth. Does she sound familiar?”

Laura stared at her in shock and
amazement, obviously not keeping up.

“
Well?” Clear
re-iterated.

“
Um.. no. No, I don’t know
the girl you are talking about.”

“
Damn!” Clear muttered
under her breath.

“
Was this girl involved in
Kat’s disappearance?’ Grant asked

“
I’m not sure, but she was
there when Kat had a bad experience with some guy, some WAY older
guy.”

“
Experience? What kind of
experience!” Grant snapped.

Clear held up her hand. “I don’t know.
I was trying to pull it all back when you two came barging into the
bedroom.” Clear squinted. “I’m sorry, my eyes are still feeling
very sensitive. Can we please turn off that light” She pointed
overhead. Laura walked over and flipped the switch, still moving as
if in a trance.

“
How…? How…?”

Clear waved it off impatiently. “How
doesn’t matter, just that I can. Please, we need to focus on this.
I just.. I have a feeling this is important somehow.”

“
What does the man look
like?” Laura asked.

“
He was.. I don’t know. I
think his image must be distorted by her feelings for him. He was
balding and wrinkly and had graying teeth, He was sort of hunched
looking. I don’t know.”

“
Distorted by her feelings
for him?” Laura asked in confusion.

“
Yes… people’s feelings
for others distort the way they look in those people’s minds. Kind
of like Shallow Hal… but not usually that extreme. It goes both
ways. If you have negative feelings for someone, then their
imperfections become much more noticeable to you. A large nose
becomes humongous, bad teeth are even worse, a few crow’s feet
become a bag of wrinkles. If you’re fond of people their good
features are more enhanced. Their eye color brighter, their smile
whiter… and their negative features are diminished. The overhanging
gut is smaller, the receding hair line is less noticeable. This
phenomena is much more pronounced in young people.” Clear shook her
head again. “But neither of them ring a bell?”

Laura shook her head, still trying to
process everything.

“
Look, this girl was very
important to Kat… I don’t know why, but she felt very close to this
girl.”

Laura shook her head again. “No… Kat
didn’t have any Goth friends. Believe me, I would have known anyone
she was close with. I do know everyone she was close with. This
makes no sense.”

“
She has Goth clothes in
her closet,” Clear pressed.