Page 1 of Find Me in California

Friday

CHAPTER 1

MATT

Matt turns his Porsche into the driveway and stops at the sight before him. Fifteen large boxes stacked five across in towers of three block his garage. Bleary eyed and exhausted from his flight, he stares. Somebody screwed up a delivery, because this is too large of an online order to forget. These boxes aren’t his.

Sucks for whoever they do belong to. It’s monsoon season.

He glances up at the sky. Bloated clouds are moving in fast and he’s not leaving his silver metallic baby outside overnight. The boxes, however, will remain in the driveway unless the owner lives nearby and can pick them up before the rain starts. There’s only so much space he’s willing to give up in his garage.

Grabbing his phone, he unfolds from the car, intent on moving the boxes out of the way and calling the number on the shipping label. But what he reads stops him cold. SHIPTO: MRS. ELIZABETHHOLLOWAYC/O MATTHEWGATLIN.

His grandmother. What the fuck?

He hasn’t seen or heard from her since he was eighteen, when he moved out of her house and left California. That was twelve years ago. Alarming that she knows where he lives. But not as disturbing as the boxes being left in his care.

Matt grips the back of his neck and looks up and down the street. Please don’t tell him she’ll show up next.

To say they have a complicated relationship is an overstatement. Their relationship is nonexistent. Elizabeth Holloway made sure of it after his mom’s death. Which prompts another thought ...

Maybe Elizabeth finally croaked.

For one glorious, fantastical second, giddy satisfaction explodes inside him. God rest her soul, but trust him: ever since he moved away, his life has been better without her in it.

But the feeling doesn’t last long. If she were dead, the boxes would have been addressed specifically to him and sent with an explanation. A phone call giving him a heads-up that he had inherited her belongings would have been nice. A letter informing him of her passing would have been sufficient. Anything but this inconvenient and unwanted surprise.

Only one way to find out what’s going on and stop this impending train wreck.

He calls the number on the label, reading the return address. Weird, they were shipped from Pasadena. His grandmother lives in Beverly Hills. She inherited her house from Matt’s great-grandfather, a producer who made his riches during Hollywood’s golden age. Matt can’t imagine she would have sold the place and moved out.

A woman answers after the fourth ring. “Rosemont Assisted Living and Memory Care, this is Julia. How may I direct your call?”

Ah, that explains the address.

Matt mentally calculates Elizabeth’s age, putting her at eighty-three. He wonders what she did with the house.

“Elizabeth Holloway.” Matt keeps his tone neutral. Inside, his stomach churns at the thought of having to speak with her. This is not how he planned to start the evening. He’s starving and has to curate the several thousand photos he took at the International Auto Show. After a seventy-two-hour, whirlwind trip to New York and back to Santa Fe, he still has a long night ahead.

“We don’t have an Elizabeth,” says the woman on the other end of the line.

“You sure? Because someone there sent me—”

“Wait, do you mean Liza? We have a Liza Holloway.”

“Yeah, that’s her.”

A light, self-deprecating laugh comes over the line. “I blanked out there for a second. Long day. Forgot Liza and Elizabeth are the same. She goes by Liza here.”

He should have remembered that. Everyone called her Liza. Everyone but him. He wasn’t allowed. To him, she was Grandmother Holloway. Always formal, never familiar.

“One sec. I’ll transfer you.” She puts him on hold.

Matt switches the phone to his other ear, ruminating on how succinctly he can tell his grandmother that she isn’t welcome at his house and neither is whatever’s inside the boxes.

He doesn’t have to wait long before the line connects. But his grandmother isn’t the one who picks up.

“Liza’s with her nurse at the moment. May I take a message?” says the woman he was speaking with. “She’ll call you back.”

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