LITMIR.BIZ

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beach, or vacationing in the mountains—like I told him to.” Connie looked at her, desperation once again entering her eyes. “You know, he used to talk about going to the mountains.” Tears were sliding down her thin cheeks now.

      Kenzie reached over on her desk and extracted tissues from a box she’d brought to the office to help her cope with her last cold. She offered the tissues to Connie, who took them after a beat, wiping away the telltale trail of tears from her face and dabbing at her eyes. She crumpled the tissues in her hand, as if holding them would somehow give her strength.

      “Who’s sitting on some beach or vacationing in the mountains, Connie? Who are you talking about?” Kenzie asked, thinking that Connie had to be talking about a boyfriend who had suddenly stopped returning her calls and pulled a disappearing act.

      When they were in college together, Connie had had a social life that would have kept three other women on their toes and busy. Heaven knew that Connie had never wanted for company. More than once Connie had offered to “fix her up,” but their taste in boyfriends were worlds apart. Back in those days, Connie was attracted to guys who easily came under the bad-boy heading.

      On the other hand, if she had brought someone like that home, said “bad boy” would have been summarily threatened with bodily harm if he didn’t vacate the premises voluntarily and immediately. She’d grown up with four brothers, a father and countless cousins, all of whom were incredibly protective.

      Of course, that didn’t keep her from making her own bad choice in the end, Kenzie thought ruefully. She forced herself to focus on the woman crying next to her desk.

      More tears slid down Connie’s face as she choked out, “John Kurtz. My father.”

      “Your father?” Kenzie repeated, confused. “You’re talking about your father?” she asked again.

      Connie wiped away the tears from her cheeks and then blew her nose, as well. She took in a deep breath and released it.

      Kenzie pushed the box of tissues closer to her. “Why don’t you begin at the beginning.”

      Connie swallowed, struggling to get hold of herself. “I guess that would be when my mother died.”

      Kenzie could remember a vivacious, lively redhead who had attended their graduation. They had that loss in common, she thought.

      “I didn’t know,” she apologized. “I’m really sorry to hear that, Connie. When did your mother die?”

      Connie closed her eyes, as if summoning the memory was painful. “A little over three years ago.” Opening her eyes, she looked at Kenzie. “My father became almost a hermit after she died. It was understandable at first—” A sad smile punctuated her statement. “They’d been the classic high school sweethearts who got married right after graduation. My mother worshipped the ground my father walked on—and the feeling was mutual,” she added with feeling.

      Her voice cracked as she tried not to cry.

      “Take your time,” Kenzie told her again even though she really wanted to hurry the woman along and pull the words out of her throat. She tamped down her impatience. Kenzie was the type who always read the end of a book before she then turned to page one. She had always had an insatiable need to know how things turned out before she ever got to that part.

      But in this case, she kept quiet, letting Connie tell her story at her own pace, in fits and starts.

      Connie sighed again, as if that would somehow shield her from what she was talking about.

      “Anyway, when she died, Dad just withdrew into himself. I thought he’d come around eventually, but when he didn’t, I tried to get him to go out, to see people again. He thought I meant that he should start seeing other women—and maybe I did—but I told him he was wrong. And that it was also wrong just to sit home and brood day after day the way he was doing.”

      Connie sniffed and looked off, no doubt reliving the incident she was describing.

      “And we got into a terrible argument, said some things we both regretted—at least I regretted them,” the other woman said with a deep sigh. “Anyway, my father broke off all communication with me. I was angry, so I decided the hell with him.” A sad smile curved the corners of her lips. “But, well, he’s my father so I decided I should try to mend this breach between us. I called him—and called him—and I just couldn’t reach him,” she said with a note of desperation. “After a couple of days, I started to get this uneasy feeling that something was wrong so I went to his house. And he wasn’t there,” she cried, trying her best to keep her voice in check.

      “Maybe your father did go on that vacation,” Kenzie suggested.

      But Connie shook her head from side to side. “My father’s a very detail-oriented person. If he ever did decide to go on a vacation, he’d notify the post office to have them hold back mail delivery. Or, at the very least, he’d have his neighbor pick up his mail for him.”

      She looked at Kenzie with fresh tears in her eyes. “His mailbox is one of those large models—he used to get packages with kits in them,” she explained. “Anyway, there was so much mail in the mailbox, it was overflowing. There’s mail on his lawn, Kenzie,” Connie cried, as if the sight of that mail had literally caused her pain. “So much mail that it’s noticeable from the street.” She let out another shaky breath before she could continue. “Anyway, that’s when my father’s neighbor called me.”

      “Your father’s neighbor had your number?” Kenzie asked.

      Connie nodded. “I gave Mr. Moore my cell number right after my mother died so he could call me in case my dad did...something stupid or got too sick to call or... You have to understand, my father wasn’t himself after my mother died...” Her voice trailed off. And then she sat up a little straighter, her eyes holding Kenzie’s prisoner. “Something’s happened to him, Kenzie. I just know it.”

      “Not necessarily,” Kenzie told her in a very calm voice. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Connie. You have to think positive,” she advised the other woman. She kept her voice even, almost cheerful. “This could all be a just a misunderstanding or he just needed some time to himself, or—”

      “Or he could be lying in some alley, bleeding or dead,” Connie cried, interrupting Kenzie. “Tossed aside like so much garbage.”

      “You don’t know that for a fact, Connie, and until you have reason to believe that’s the case, I want you to focus on positive thoughts,” Kenzie instructed, keeping her voice just stern enough to get the other woman’s attention.

      Connie covered her face with her hands, crying again. “I should have never yelled at him,” she said, her voice hitching, “never told him that he was acting like an old man when he had so much of life to live still in front of him.”

      “Sometimes fathers need to be yelled at,” Kenzie told the other woman with sympathy.

      Connie raised her head, her eyes pleading for some sort of reassurance. “Have you ever yelled at yours?” she asked.

      Kenzie laughed. “More times than I could even begin to count,” she told Connie.

      It wasn’t true. At least she hadn’t yelled at her father in years, but that wasn’t what this woman needed to hear right now. She needed to be able to assuage her conscience in order to think clearly, so Kenzie told her what she wanted to hear.

      Connie nodded, sniffling and once again struggling to get control of herself. “Then you’ll look for my father?” she asked hopefully.

      Kenzie nodded. “You just need to fill out this paperwork and we can get started on our end.”

      Kenzie opened up the large drawer to her right and took out a folder that was filled with official-looking forms. Beneath the folder she had another file folder filled with forms that were already filled out.

      Those she had already input into the system over the last couple of years.

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