Page 31 of The Night We Lost Him

The entire business district is essentially one long strip running the length of Bell Street: quiet, gentle, and yet it has a surprising energy. People head in and out of restaurants. Families eat nighttime ice cream on benches. A lone guitarist plays Bob Dylan, the sound rising along the lantern-lit main drag.

There are several establishments already closed for the day—a bakery, a lunch spot—but Sam pulls into a parking spot in front of Charlie’s Restaurant, a line of eager diners waiting outside the front door.

We pop out of the car and head inside, scanning the full restaurant and the side patio. From Sam’s face, I can see that none of them are Cece.

We head down the street on foot, stopping in Full of Life Flatbread, a pizza restaurant that smells so good my stomach rolls, a small wine bar across the street from it. And, a few doors down from there, Babi’s Beer Emporium.

No Cece, not anywhere.

“Well, this is working out great,” Sam says.

“Patience,” I say.

We cross Centennial Street, the open establishments getting fewer and farther between, when I see a small restaurant on the corner. Bell’s Restaurant. It’s lovely—with a garden in the back, a wide blue door, a window in the middle of it showing off the elegant interiors: antique tables and Windsor chairs, an open kitchen complete with copper pots and wine bottles and plants.

I’m peeking through the window when Sam bangs on it.

“Holy shit,” he says.

“Your fist was like an inch from my face.”

“That’s her.”

He points to a woman sitting at the corner table, closest to the kitchen. She is typing on her laptop—two people sitting across from her, their backs to us.

She is stop-and-stare gorgeous with this sleek silver hair, large eyes contained behind thick black glasses—and so impossibly elegant in a white button-down shirt and jeans, cowboy boots. She looks less like a hotel mogul and more like a Ralph Lauren model.

She wraps her hair around one of her shoulders, continues keying her laptop.

“Let’s do this,” Sam says.

Then he pulls the blue door open. And we walk past the entry table, flush with flowers and books, and head straight to her table.

She must feel us looking at her. Because she looks up as we approach and then she sees Sam. A look of recognition comes over her face.

“Hey, Cece.”

“Sam…”

Then she turns and meets my eyes, looking me up and down.

“I’ll be damned,” she says. “The daughter.”

“Did we get our signals crossed?” Sam asks. “We thought we were meeting you up at the house.”

Instead of answering him, she keeps her eyes focused on me, in a way that feels a bit too familiar. I hold her gaze, Sam motioning toward the table.

“Okay for us to sit?” he says.

“It’s not really the best time, Sam. We have a bit of a fire drill at work.”

“Really? Because your office said it was a family matter.”

She turns and gives him a smile, like she is enjoying this—her discrepancies, his discomfort. Or maybe what she’s enjoying is that my brother is calling her out.

“Sometimes it’s everything at once, isn’t it?”

“Sometimes,” he says. “We can be fast.”

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