A Small Gray Dot

Reason number one? I needed money and Madison Effingham had it. She walked into my office and she exuded money – in the high-end jeans and stylish fur jacket she wore along with the designer shoes and purse. In her perfectly coifed auburn hair and impeccably manicured nails, in the chauffer driven Mercedes that brought her to my rather seedy side of town. Admittedly, like all flight capable cars, it could no longer fly but it was still impressive. Three bodyguards accompanied her.

Reason number two was one that often induced me to take a particular case: someone searching for the only remaining member of their family. On the day of the Event, she lost everyone in her family except her then fourteen-year-old sister, Morgan Effingham. Madison Effingham was the one to find her parents dead along with everyone in the household except her sister. She was a twenty-one-year old college student at the time and she had to handle everything afterwards, including her family’s shipping business.

She didn’t tell me any of this but I knew one of her bodyguards. Buster Trent worked with me clearing rubble and sweeping streets before he left to go to Wilmington at about the time I began tracking. Wilmington was where the Effingham’s lived and did business. He’d joined her army of guards but occasionally came back to Charlotte to visit and we’d get together for drinks. He told me her story some time back and it struck a chord with me. Not the part about handling the business but the one of finding everyone dead. He was probably the one who told her about me.

When she came in, she glanced around my office, which was still in the front of my two-roomed flat over the smoke shop. It was shabby but I kept it clean. She checked out the paintings of Missy’s I hung on the wall studying the one of the window. I changed a couple of them out occasionally though I always kept the one of the window in place. I got compliments on those pictures and questions about the artist. I even had a couple of clients make me an offer, which I respectfully declined, as I had no wish to sell any of my sister’s paintings.

I’d never moved anywhere else because, one, I was comfortable where I was, and two, being the best tracker around had never made me rich. I was fortunate to be able to pay for and keep those two meager rooms, keep my heap of a car cobbled together, and not have to sell my jeep. And, there were the contributions to folk I sometimes made because… well, because they needed it and I had it at the time.

Besides, I lived alone and didn’t need much space. Maybe someday I would trip over a pile of cash or gold and jewels, and get a better place. Or not. I liked the place. Besides, Lowell gave me slack on the rent in lean times.

To her credit, she didn’t turn up her nose at my digs, or assume I would know who she was. I didn’t mention that I did. After we introduced ourselves, and she complimented the window painting, she came straight to the point.

“I don’t live in this city, Mr. Murray. I’m here on business and my sister Morgan came with me on this trip because she has friends that live here that she wanted to see. She’s missing and I have been told that you are the best tracker in the state,” she said after taking the chair I kept in front of my old wooden office desk.

“Yes, I am.”

She stared at me with ice-blue eyes. Then she gave a faint smile.

“You, know, I thought you’d give me some sort of self-effacing, half-assed denial, and say something like “you can’t believe everything you hear”. You’re saying you’ve really found everyone for whom you’ve searched?”

I shrugged. I don’t brag but a fact is a fact. “I have.”

She gave a short nod. “Competence. And, confidence. I like that.” She pulled a photograph from her purse and handed it to me. “This is a recent picture of her.”

I studied the image of the young woman. Pretty. She resembled her sister a lot, the same auburn hair except she wore hers in a pixie cut, and her eyes were brown. “When was the last time you saw her?”

“Thirty hours ago. She left to go to a nightclub with a couple of friends, and before you ask, no, I don’t think she’s decided to make herself absent for a while. She’s grown and can do whatever she wants but she either comes home or calls me when she’s not going to make it. She’s never been gone this long without a call.”

I didn’t ask why she hadn’t gone to the police. Like the rest of the government, law enforcement was barely hanging on. Somebody’s adult sister missing for only a little over a day wouldn’t have been anything about which they’d get excited. No matter how prominent the family.

“How’s your relationship with her?” Maybe they didn’t get along.

“We have a good one, Mr. Murray. We’ve always had a good relationship, even before… well, we’ve argued but we always make up, and no, we’ve not had a recent disagreement.”