Finding Tessa by Jaime Hendricks (best ereader for comics .TXT) 📗

feeling like he was ten and had just got busted for nailing a classmate in the chops. Solomon had a stack of manila folders to his right and a single sheet of paper in front of him, which he stared at without making eye contact. He pushed the paper toward Jace.

“What am I looking at?” Jace asked.

“Tessa. We ran her current Social. And I say current, because it’s not real. That number isn’t even in existence.”

Jace swallowed heavily, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, which he realized too late made him look guilty. He knew the number on her ID card wasn’t real.

“That’s impossible. She has a state ID card.” That was the truth. Just the facts, ma’am. “I gave it to you last night.”

“Mmm. We can’t find her in the DMV records. No license?” Solomon asked.

“No. She doesn’t drive.”

Was that even true? He’d bought her story about why she never got her license. Did she not bother to learn, or her foster parents, who were only in it for the money, wouldn’t teach her? Too many other kids, they’d said. She was more comfortable walking anyway. That’s why Valley Lake, where Jace worked, was such an attractive option when they decided to buy a house. Main Street, where all the town’s industry was located, was less than two miles away. She welcomed the walks to get what she needed, and in this day and age, anything else they wanted could be delivered.

“A state ID can’t be faked, Detective. Right?” Jace doubted his own statement, for reasons.

“Gone through the proper channels, no, it can’t be faked, and her ID is real, which leads us to believe that she hadn’t gone about getting it the right way. But as you said last night, you really didn’t know much about her, did you?” He paused before he started with his real questioning. “Did Tessa come from money?” Solomon asked.

That question gobsmacked Jace, enough for him to chuckle audibly. “No.”

“Something funny, Montgomery?”

Jace straightened. “She didn’t have anything when we met. She’d just barely got her design business off the ground when . . . when this happened.”

“So basically, you married a woman you didn’t know much about, took her word for who she was, and now she’s gone?” Solomon asked. “Gone, and left behind all that blood? Actually, come to think about it, we haven’t even verified that it’s her blood yet.”

The accusation hung in the air around him, but Jace was undeterred. “I’m the one who called you, Detective. I gave you access to everything in the house. I let you collect DNA from the bathroom. I’m not hiding anything.”

He was hiding a ton of shit, but he kept his expression neutral. Willed perspiration not to spring from his pores.

“Mmm,” Detective Solomon said. “So, what brings you here this morning, then?”

Jace looked down. “I wanted to know if you found out anything. That’s all.”

“Nothing yet. It’ll be another few days for that DNA you allowed us to gather. All we know is if she left on purpose, she might be pretty good at disappearing and becoming someone else.”

“She didn’t leave on purpose,” Jace said, lifting his head.

“And you know this because?” Now Detective Solomon was interested, his eyebrows crawling toward his nonexistent hairline.

Jace chose his words deliberately. “Because we were in love.”

“Mmm.” He tapped a pen on the desk, the sound ricocheting in the sparsely decorated room. “Well, if you hear anything or think of anything that could help us identify who she was in the past, be sure to let us know.”

“I will.”

Jace stood and offered a hand, but Solomon didn’t return the gesture, nor did he stand, or even look at him. He offered no parting words as Jace turned and left, navigating the narrow hallway himself. It was all he could do not to run out the front door.

Driving to work, he glanced at the clock. Just after eight A.M. The bank wasn’t even open yet. The meeting with the detective didn’t take as long as he’d thought. He was about to pull into the parking lot and noticed Rosita’s red SUV was the only car there so far. Not wanting to be alone with her, he drove past the bank and down the block. Most nine-to-fivers weren’t at their jobs yet and there was ample parking a mile past the bank on Main Street. He guided his car into a spot and walked into Bean Addiction. The earlier coffee at his house wasn’t enough to do the job on a morning like this one.

“Good morning, Mr. Montgomery!” Hannah, the barista, said. “The usual?”

Since he and Tessa had moved to town, no matter what time of day or day of the week he came in for his coffee, Hannah was there, and Jace wondered if she’d ever had a day off. She was probably twenty-five or so, and always wore her blond hair pulled back into a bun under her hat.

“Yes, please, and add a toasted bagel with cream cheese today.”

“Rough night?” she asked with a chuckle.

Good Lord, how was he supposed to answer that question?

“You could say that.”

He stepped away and gazed out the window, minimizing the possibility of being pressed further for details. Hannah took the hint as she focused on his order. Taking in the moment of normalcy, Jace spaced out, peering through the glass. A few old men sat on the benches that lined Main Street, probably up for hours already, reading newspapers, Bean Addiction cups in their hands. Were their lives going according to plan? Who were they? Widowers? Bachelors by choice? Or were their wives just missing?

Things weren’t all roses with him and Tessa of late. It could be his fault. But the detective’s discovery of who she was, or wasn’t for that matter, rattled him.

“Here you go,” Hannah called, and set his coffee and a small paper bag with their logo on the counter.

“Great. Keep the change,” Jace said as he plunked down a ten.

He didn’t usually leave double for a