“His name is one of the few things he is certain about, though unfortunately, he can’t recall his surname. And, yes, I have tried looking up missing person reports purely based on his first name. Despite how unique it is, I’ve found nothing. Not even on a nationwide database.”
Tyler paused for a moment, setting down his mostly undrunk coffee as he mentally reorganized the next few questions he’d probably meant to ask.
“If he’s certain about his own name, then are there any other names he remembers? Or maybe places or dates? Something that can be used as a starting point.”
Having already gone through those same questions, I sadly shook my head. “Most of what he remembers is vague. The only other name he’s been able to recall is Eli, but that hasn’t turned up any more info than Mia. Eli probably isn’t even the person’s full name, and without a surname, it doesn’t do much good.”
“There was another name he mentioned,” I continued as Roland climbed to his feet and made his way to the garbage, tossing out Tyler’s undrunk coffee. “Kind of a generic name, but a full name at least. Tony something, I think.”
It took me a moment, and I had to wrack my brain for what Roland was talking about, but when it came back to me I felt like a fool for forgetting in the first place. “Oh, right. Tony Smith. That was another name Mia mentioned, though I don’t know anything about this person, either.”
Now that I thought about it, Mia had been suspiciously silent about Tony Smith. He often spoke about Eli, reliving the few memories he could recall of the other man like he was afraid they would disappear at any moment. When I’d first started helping Mia regain his memories he’d mentioned a man named Tony Smith, but since then, the name had been surprisingly absent from his lips.
Why?
If this was a person related to Mia’s past the same as Eli then surely Mia should be just as keen to talk about him, but instead Tony Smith had been completely ignored. I’d even forgotten that Mia mentioned the name in the first place and would have completely overlooked it if discussing it hadn’t reminded me.
“You’re sure the name was Tony Smith?” Tyler asked, an unexpectedly serious look on his face.
Just to be certain, I checked the notes app on the phone where I’d recorded everything that Mia had been able to recall.
There it was. Tony Smith. The name stood in stark black and white on the screen, mocking me for having forgotten it in the first place.
“Yeah, that’s the name. Why?”
Tyler slowly shook his head, brow furrowed and gaze distant. “I don’t know. Something about that name seems familiar, butI can’t recall where I’ve heard it before. I’m pretty sure it was recent, but…”
He trailed off, lost in thought, and only snapped back to attention when Roland moved up beside him and placed a hand on his arm.
“Sorry. Got carried away. I can’t remember anything right now but if you can send me everything you’ve got so far I’ll see what I can come up with.”
My phone was already in my hand, and it was a simple matter of hitting a few buttons to send Tyler all the information I’d managed to collect about Mia so far. It was a distressingly small amount. All my effort so far had resulted in a pile of data small enough to fit into a single text message. It felt so hopeless, like my failure was inevitable, but I wasn’t going to give up.
“Any help you can give me would be great. It feels like I’ve been bashing my head against a wall trying to track down Mia’s identity.”
Tyler accepted the information, apologizing in advance and warning me not to get my hopes up in case he didn’t turn up anything useful.
I didn’t care. Even if the lifeline he was throwing me was only as thick as the strand of a spider’s web, I’d still grab it with both hands. I’d never been the type to quit, not even when I was staring down the barrel of my own death, and I certainly wasn’t going to start now.
CHAPTER 21
Mia
Disney songs playedfrom the radio as I sat in the passenger’s seat of Auggie’s ex-wife’s car. His daughter, Melody, sat in the backseat, happily singing along despite barely getting any of the words right. It was disorienting, hearing an almost completely different set of lyrics from in front and in back of me, but Chantal barely seemed to notice. She just continued to drive the car, hands steady on the wheel, bopping her head to the beat like we were being serenaded by a professional musician.
Mothers truly had some extraordinary superpowers.
Auggie had explained everything to me that morning. He had to go to work, and Chantal had offered to take me shopping with her for new clothing, so I didn’t have to keep borrowing his. He hadn’t said it outright, but he’d hinted that I could get whatever clothing I wanted, no matter what section of the store it came from.
I knew what he meant. He was saying that I could choose women’s clothing if I wanted. Part of me was excited by theidea. It had been so long since I was able to wear something that I liked. In fact, nothing I’d worn in conscious memory was something I enjoyed, and the few memories I had of clothing I liked in the past felt more like a dream than reality. The freedom to finally wear something I was comfortable in felt too good to be true.
I shifted my gaze toward Chantal in the driver’s seat, though my head remained fixed straight ahead. If Auggie was the one accompanying me, I might have been able to pick out a dress with confidence, but I barely knew this woman. She seemed nice enough, but so far, we hadn’t talked much, and she didn’t inspire the same comfort and confidence that Auggie did.
I was so lost in those thoughts that I didn’t notice that we’d pulled to a stop until Chantal turned the car off. Looking out the window, I saw plenty of shops, but none of them looked like clothing stores.
“Where are we?”
“We’re at my salon,” Chantal said from the backseat where she was unbuckling Melody from the little girl’s car seat. “Before we go shopping, there’s something we have to do first.”