Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 81488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 272(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 272(@300wpm)
“This is what I have so far,” Detective John Garrison stated as he walked into the barn and handed him two thick envelopes. “It’s copies of everywhere I’ve looked for her, and the places I plan to go. Receipts and travel expenses. Nothing more.” The big, hulking guy with a mop of messy gray hair looked rather disappointed, as if he, too, had lost his one true love. The man’s dark wide-set eyes hid behind a thick pair of green spectacles. Detective Garrison was supposed to be one of the best in all of Houston. He wasn’t cheap and came highly recommended. It looked as if he’d met his match.
“Tina is eluding everyone. Every time I hire someone to find this woman, who doesn’t have the ability or superpower to be invisible, one of you bastards comes to me with envelopes, receipts, and the whole nine, but still emptyhanded. Why, in your professional opinion, is she so damn hard to find?”
“I suspect she’s changed her identity multiple times, Mr. Wilde. And I mean all aspects of that. Her hair color. Her style of clothing. Her legal and all nicknames and even social security number. She’s livin’ low key, too. She has to be. No marriages, no reachin’ out to old friends and family, and never giving birth nor adopting. Children would draw attention to her. There’s no other way she could be this difficult to find without that being a reality. Unfortunately,” he shrugged, “she has no DNA in a database. I’m still on the case, though. I know you’re frustrated as hell. This isn’t my first hard nut to crack.”
“The guy before you said it was impossible.”
“This isn’t impossible, but it’s definitely difficult.”
Grandpa reached down and picked up a piece of straw. He stood back up, looked at it real close, then twirled it about between his thumb and forefinger. “It has been far too long, so many, many, many years since I’ve set eyes on my beautiful Tina… No phone calls. No letters. No nothin’. She’s a woman of intelligence. She’d know how to find me.”
He’d called her bluff when she’d stormed out on him on the last day he’d ever seen her. At the time, he wasn’t worried. Besides, she’d done that move several times before, threatened to leave or did so, runnin’ off to her mama, but always returned. This time, she was gone for good. As the days turned into weeks and months and years, he became darker and angrier as reality set in. He’d lost the best woman he’d ever had. He’d married many more times after that, but it was never the same… Nobody was Tina. He spent half the time trying to convince himself that her absence didn’t hurt, and the other half determined to get her back, no matter what the hell it took. He refused to believe that he’d done all he could. There had to be more. He’d even searched for her on his own. Nothing. He’d offered monetary rewards for her whereabouts. All he got were false leads that helped feed his false hope. Grandpa Wilde had been through seven detectives over the years, all of them coming up empty.
“…I have to find her, Garrison.”
“It’s important that I get closure for you, if nothing else. Whatever is going on, I will get to the bottom of it. It’ll just take more time, is all.”
“A part of me would like to hurt her, the way she hurt me,” he bent down again, this time picking up a pebble. He dropped the blade of straw and threw the rock as hard as he could. It flew into the air to finally thump against the dull red wall. “Another part of me just wants to love on her and tell her how much I missed her. Ask her for forgiveness.”
“Mr. Wilde, can I ask you somethin’? I’ve asked before, but—”
“I know what your question is.” He smirked, shook his head. “You want to know why Tina decided to leave me. Doesn’t every good PI ask that?” The detective cleared his throat and cocked his head to the side. “You’ve asked me a dozen times… and I tell ya the same thing each fucking time. All you need to know is that I never hit her. I never abused her. I never even cheated on her, either. I treated ’er like a queen. That’s the way she deserved to be treated. She never had to get a restraining order out on me, and she never told me she was afraid of me, or didn’t love me anymore.
“But there was this one thing she just couldn’t stomach…” He looked out the barn doors, towards the glints of light that kissed the serrated bits of broken glass. “…just this one thing that she couldn’t take. It’s the same reason that she refused to give me a baby. She’d been sneakin’ off to some charlatan of a doctor and taking birth control pills behind my back. I know full well why she left me.” He ran his fingers against his nose, curing an itch, then latched his gaze on the man who promised to grant him a miracle. “All you need to know is that she took issue with something that had nothin’ to do with my love for her, and nothing that I did to her personally.”