Page 103 of Sunset Beach
“I didn’t see any fezzes in that clip, did you?”
“They could have all been at a banquet, or partying down at the pool, or staying in a different part of the property,” Drue said. Her stomach rumbled loudly, so she got up and went back to the refrigerator, taking another square from the cellophane bag and popping it into her mouth, grimacing as she chewed.
“What are you eating?” Corey asked.
She shrugged and kept chewing. “Energy bites? You said I could help myself to anything, right?”
Corey fetched the bag and held it up. “These? You ate these? They’re Bitzy’s protein chews.”
Drue paused midchew. “Who’s Bitzy?”
“My Pekingese. Well, Scott’s. I still dog-sit her sometimes.”
She walked into the kitchen, spat out the bite and retrieved another near-beer from the fridge. “What do you say we go over to my place?”
“Okay, but why?” Corey asked.
“Because I’m super hungry from my workout and you don’t have any food fit for human consumption in your house.”
Drue produced a box of chicken burritos from her freezer and placed them on the counter while Corey looked on in horror.
“You’re not seriously going to eat that, are you?” he asked.
“Don’t be such a food snob. They’re very delicious. And the label says they’re non-GMO so in my book that’s healthy.”
She rummaged around in the refrigerator until she found a bottle of spring water, which she handed to her guest.
Corey had seated himself at the kitchen table and was idly leafing through the thick black binder that had taken up permanent residence there. “Hey, what’s this?”
“Just another friggin’ mystery,” Drue said. “I found this in a box of my dad’s old law school textbooks, stuck way in the corner of the attic.” She gestured upward, then slid Colleen’s black-and-white high school graduation photo out of the binder.
“Pretty. Is that your mom?”
“No. Her name was Colleen Boardman Hicks. She went shopping and then to dinner with a friend in downtown St. Pete in 1976 and has never been seen since.”
“What’s it doing up in the attic of your grandparents’ house?”
“That’s what’s been keeping me awake a lot of nights,” Drue said. “I don’t know if I told you this, but my dad was a St. Pete cop when my parents were first married, and my grandparents let them live here in the cottage for cheap. They moved into town before I was born, and then, after my dad got out of law school, they split up. That’s when my mom and I moved to the east coast. I guess my mom must have stored her stuff here after the divorce. The box I found the binder in had her handwriting on the outside of it.”
She put the burritos on a plate and stood in front of the microwave oven, holding the plate aloft. “Last chance. Sure you don’t want to get in some of this fiesta of fabulousness?”
Corey made a gagging noise. “I’d rather eat Bitzy’s energy bites.” He tapped the cover of the binder. “You know, you really should consider getting yourself a hobby.”
“You mean an obsession? Like doing an Iron Man?”
“Touché,” he said. “So was this one of your father’s investigations from when he was a cop?”
“I asked him that, and he said it wasn’t, because he was still just a patrol officer. But he did go to high school with Colleen Hicks, although he claims they didn’t run around with the same crowd of friends.”
Corey still looked puzzled. “Did he have any idea how this file would have ended up here, with a bunch of his stuff?”
Drue placed a plate, napkin and cutlery on the table, carefully pushing aside the binder, and poured herself a glass of wine. “I told him I found a file of old newspaper clippings about the disappearance, in my mom’s stuff, but I didn’t mention finding this thing.” She nodded at the binder.
“Why not?”
She took a sip of wine. “I’m not sure. Maybe because I’m still not a hundred percent sure I trust him. There are just a lot of unanswered questions, you know?”
“Like what?”
