Controlling Interest (15 page)

“Yes, ma'am.” The old man's words whistled through his scanty collection of teeth. He picked up the pretzel with a sheet of waxed paper. “You visiting from out of town? Don't believe you're one of my regulars.”

“No, sir, I live here, but I'm looking for somebody. You wouldn't happen to have seen this young lady in the last day or two?”

The man gave Natalie her treat and took Yasmine's photo. He squinted. “Sourdough with raisins.”

“Sir?”

“She wanted sourdough with raisins. Skinny little Indian-looking thing. Tried to give me some foreign money, but I told her no way.” The old man tugged his cap and looked down. “She looked like she was gonna cry, so I just gave her a pretzel.”

Natalie felt like hugging the skinny, snaggletoothed little man. “When was this? Did you see where she went?”

“Last night, when I was about to close up for the day. Saw her walk toward the Salvation Army shelter.” Mr. Grizzly jerked a thumb to the right and squinted. “She a runaway? Should I of told the cops?”

“No, sir — well, she's sort of a runaway, but she's an adult.” Natalie thought of her father's admonition not to involve the police until Abid Patel gave the word. “I'll check at the shelter and make sure she's okay.” She smiled at him. “Thanks, you've been a big help.”

Skipping toward the Salvation Army sign above a door in the middle of the next block, Natalie took a big bite out of her pop-pyseed pretzel. “Thanks, God,” she mumbled around it. “You've been a big help.”

Matt had logged just over an hour at the computer, searching for information related to a Pakistani psychology intern named Rafiqah Akbar, when the doorbell rang. He heard the soft clump of Tootie's slippers in the foyer, followed by her clarion voice at the door. Normally he paid no attention to her visitors. Relatives, retired school teachers, and church friends were always dropping by for banana bread or blueberry muffins or just a cup of coffee.

Then a double set of footsteps ascended the stairs.

He didn't even look up at the trademark rat-a-tat knock which always preceded her iron-gray head poking into his office without waiting for a response. “No thanks, Tootie. I've got all the cookies I need for now.” He absently reached for another snickerdoodle.

“Well, here's you another one anyway,” said Tootie dryly.

Matt's gaze flicked past the computer monitor. His mouth dropped open. Just behind his landlady stood the flame-haired waitress from the coffee shop.

She smiled and twirled her hair. “Hi, Matt. What's up?”

“You're here.” He stood up, sending the chair whizzing backward to clonk the windowsill.

Tootie scowled. “You're going to have to repaint in here.”

“I told you you've been putting too much wax on the floors.” Distracted, he rubbed at the scuff mark on the wall.

“Of course I'm here,” said whatever-her-name-was.

Was he supposed to remember it? Had he invited her over and then got amnesia? “Well, hey,” he said heartily. “Nice to see you.”

Oh, yeah, it was nice to see her. A lot of her. Her neckline dipped to roughly the vicinity of her navel, and a strip of slim, bare belly peeked between her top and her jeans. He stared at it like a cobra under a charmer's spell until Tootie cleared her throat.

“Are you expecting any more clients? It's five o'clock, and I'm ready to sit down and watch
Jeopardy
.”

Matt jerked his eyes off the redhead's navel ring. “Uh, no. No more clients. In fact I didn't know — ” He looked helplessly at his visitor's cleavage before finding her face.

Her blue eyes held a pleased smile. “I thought I'd surprise you. You left your card at the café, remember?”

“Did I? Oh, yeah, guess I did.”

Tootie's stern face swam between him and the redhead. He blinked as Tootie moved the folding chair to the center of the room and patted the seat. “Here you go, dear. I keep telling Matthew he should get some more professional furniture.” She retreated to the door and waited until the girl reluctantly sat down. “I'll just leave this open. Y'all call if you need anything.”

Matt considered hollering, “Help, I need my mother! Or a bedsheet to drape over this woman.” But that would probably be a little overdramatic. He waved Tootie away. Retrieving his desk chair, he sat down. Nice solid chunk of maple between him and temptation.

Not so long ago, he would have feasted his eyes on the bounty before him. After all, she was serving it up on a silver tray.

Unfortunately, huge chunks of Scripture ground into him in junior high chapel also traipsed through his brain.
How can those who are young keep their way pure?

Well, duh.
Don't look down.

He fixed his gaze on the girl's face. Lord knew, it was pretty too. He went for honesty. “Hey, I'm sorry, but I don't remember your name. You're gonna have to help me out.”

“It's Heather.” She pouted a smile. “Heather Hill. When you left your card, I thought you were interested. That girl with you last night wasn't your girlfriend, was she?”

“Heck no! She's my business partner.”

“Well, then.” Heather crossed one knee over the other and leaned forward a little. “I got off early and was just on my way home, so I thought I'd stop in and see if you had dinner plans.”

Matt started to sweat. He could actually feel his armpits getting damp. This girl was really, really hot. And all she wanted was a dinner companion. It would be rude to shove her out of the room.

His gaze drifted downward, then jerked back up. “I didn't have any real plans.”

“There's a good blues band down at B. B. King's tonight. Why don't we get a bite to eat and hang out for a while?” She smiled, eyes half closed. “My treat.”

He shook his head. Then nodded. Her treat.

I'm toast
.

CHAPTER
NINE

T
he Beale Street Women and Children's Shelter at dinnertime on a Saturday night was a babel of laughter, babies crying, and dishes rattling. Having spent several Thanksgivings serving food at shelters on the south side of Memphis, Natalie walked in looking for someone in an apron. It was a given that the person in charge of the place would be too busy to answer questions.

A quick look around revealed a cultural olio of black, white, Hispanic, and Asian faces — all female, except for a young man, probably in his early thirties, who was supervising the chaos at the children's table while feeding a baby in a high chair.

The young man slipped a spoonful of something goopy into the baby's mouth, then smiled across the room at a pretty brown-eyed woman serving rice to the ladies seated around a long, sturdy cafeteria table. The young woman winked at him, and Natalie's heart melted.
Lord, I sure would like for somebody to look at me like that one day.

Okay, so the young woman wore an apron, but her husband was most likely the man in charge.

Natalie circled the large, open room, dodging a pack of little boys shooting each other with imaginary guns and making appropriate noises. She rounded the children's table and smiled at the baby. “Hi, kiddo, know where I can get some of that good stuff?”

The baby gave her a cereal-smeared grin. “Da!” he shouted.

The young man laughed and wiped the child's chin with his bib. “You're welcome to it, but I recommend the chicken and rice. Go ask my wife over there. She'll get you a plate.” He put down the baby's spoon and offered a hand. “I'm David Myers, the pastor and director here. This little squirt is Davey.”

“Hi, David, I'm Natalie Tubberville. I'm not hungry, but I'll be glad to lend a hand after I ask you a couple of questions. Would that be okay?” The baby grabbed the spoon and flung it onto the floor. Natalie picked it up and handed it to David. “I'm a great dishwasher.”

He peered up at Natalie. “We'll take all the help we can get. What kind of questions? Are you a reporter?” Expression hopeful, he wiped the baby's spoon off on a napkin, then absently stuck it in his shirt pocket.

“Sorry. No, I'm an investigator. Here's my card.”

David took the card. “Is this your real name? Funny, you don't look like a Matthew.”

She smiled at his teasing. “Matt's my partner. I'm new with the agency, so I don't have a card of my own yet. Anyway, we're looking for a young woman named Yasmine Patel. A pretzel salesman a couple of streets over saw her head for the Salvation Army shelter, but it turns out they just take men. They said to check with you. This is her picture. Have you seen her?”

David studied the photo, holding it out of reach of the baby's flailing hands. “Maybe.” He looked over his shoulder. “Alison, come here a sec when you get done over there, okay?”

His wife set the pan of rice down in the middle of the table and brushed her hands off on her apron. “What is it?” She gave Natalie a curious glance as she lifted little Davey out of his high chair. “Come here, snookums. Give Mommy love.”

The baby buried his face in his mother's neck, and another little stab of envy pierced Natalie.

“Honey, this is Natalie Tubberville.” David showed his wife the picture. “Do you remember seeing this girl in the last day or two?”

Snuggling the baby, Alison sat down on one of the child-sized benches to study Yasmine's photo. The noise level had dropped dramatically after a couple of elderly black women shepherded the children into a side room. Alison's eyes lit with recognition, but she sent Natalie a cautious look. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, I'm sorry. I'm a private detective hired by her family to find her. She disappeared from the airport a couple of days ago.”

Alison met her husband's eyes. “We don't talk about our residents with strangers. Many of them are fleeing abusive husbands.”

“I understand.” Natalie nodded. “But that's not the case with Yasmine. She had come to the U.S. to get married.”

Alison bit her lip. “Getting married? She didn't have a ring on, that I noticed.”

Natalie clasped her hands together. “You mean she was here?”

Reluctantly Alison nodded. “She stayed here last night. But she left early this morning. I don't think she was comfortable with all the noise.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“I tried.” Alison's smooth forehead wrinkled. “She had an accent, but she wouldn't tell us where she came from or where she was going. She wanted to pay for her room and board with money that looked like — I dunno, maybe rupees. Is she Indian?”

“Pakistani. Did you take her money?”

Alison shook her head. “We like to let people pay if they can, but what would we do with rupees? She was very polite, but quiet.” She paused, glancing at her husband again.

“She hasn't done anything wrong,” Natalie assured her. “Her family is worried about her. She came over from Pakistan to get married this summer. Arrived on a flight day before yesterday. Then she just —
pouf
!” Natalie snapped her fingers. “Disappeared, like that. Did you notice anything else odd or different about her?” The woman paid attention, a rare characteristic. “She was wearing a pair of beaded earrings. Did she still have them on last night?”

Alison looked at the ceiling. “I'm pretty sure she did. No other jewelry. Well, except for her shoes. She had on a pair of fancy little sandals, and they'd rubbed some serious blisters on her feet. I had to give her some Band-Aids.”

“Hm.” Natalie stared, stumped. Was that important? “Are you sure she didn't mention anything else about what she'd been doing all day? Maybe that'd give us a lead on where she's going.”

“I'm sorry. Like I said, she kept to herself.” Alison looked at her husband again.

He patted the baby's bottom. The little guy was sound asleep against his mother's shoulder. “What about the bed she slept in? Maybe she dropped something that would be helpful.”

“I suppose we could look in the dorm. Let me put Davey in his crib first. Guess he's not getting a bath tonight.”

Alison disappeared with the baby, leaving Natalie to chat quietly with David. She discovered the young couple had graduated from a Memphis seminary the previous year and had decided to stay on at the street ministry they'd founded as an extension of their studies.

David rubbed a hand over the table. “We get donations from churches all over the county, and volunteers come in from states as far away as Texas and Georgia and Florida. Next on our wish list is a bus.”

“I'll mention it to my mom. She's not a churchgoer, but she's very generous and has a lot of money connections.” Natalie smiled. “You never know.”

“Wow, that would be great. We'll take whatever help we can get, thanks.”

Alison returned without the baby, but she carried a small walkie-talkie-type monitor. “Come this way, Natalie. Since the weather's warm, the dorm isn't very full. I don't think I've assigned anybody to the bed your friend slept in last night.”