I’m about to head into the elevator when I have an idea. I need to think like Naomi. I take the stairs instead, hoping the stairwell will offer me a clue, but it’s another dead-end. I make it to the lobby. Joel is sitting at his desk, ignoring me in favor of his newspaper. I already know the answer, but I have to ask.
“Naomi didn’t tell you where she’s moving, did she?”
He frowns over the top of his paper. “Thought you two made up or something.”
“I’m guessing that’s a no.”
He nods in the direction of the front door. “I saw her talking to the kid earlier.”
I look outside and spot Caitlin squatting on the wet sidewalk, searching a bush for caterpillars. The rain has stopped and the sun is out now.
“Thanks,” I say to Joel. I step outside. “Hey, kid.”
She spins around to face me, a bright smile on her face. “There’s a cocoon in this bush!”
“Neat. Hey, did Naomi say anything to you about where she was moving?”
“No,” she says without any hesitation. She starts to turn back to look at the cocoon, but pauses to face me again. “Oh. She wanted me to tell you that she was going to the diner.”
“The diner?”
“Oops. I mean, she didn’t want me to tell you that. She just…” The kid groans. “I’m messing it all up.” She takes a deep breath, composing herself. When she speaks again, her tone is completely changed, like she’s been practicing this: “She might have mentioned that she was going to the diner.”
“The Spanish diner?”
Caitlin nods. “The one with the really yummyhuevos rancheros.”
I smile, amused by her exaggerated accent. I thank her for the information and take off down the street. When I reach the restaurant, I glance around the dining room, looking for Naomi. I don’t see her. I’m about to leave, but something holds me back. I head over to the booth where we had breakfast a few weeks ago.
On the table is an assortment of jelly packets and coffee creamers arranged in the shape of two big smiley faces. For a second, I think a kid must have left this here, but then I take a closer look. It’s a replica of the faces I drew in the sand the day that Naomi and I went to the beach. She even used strawberry jelly packets to represent her own red hair.
“Can I clean this up now?”
I’m startled by the waitress. I didn’t realize anyone was standing there watching me. She has her hands on her hips, her eyebrows raised.
“Yeah. I think I have what I need.”
With this new clue, I head back across the street to the parking garage to get my car. I think I know where Naomi went next.
When I get to the beach, I don’t bother taking my shoes off before I run into the sand. I think of Naomi and how she screeched while running over the hot sand barefoot, and I smile. By the time I reach the top of the dune, my shoes are filled with sand. There are a lot more people here today than when it was just me and Naomi. I scan the crowd for a minute, looking for her red hair, but she’s not here.
I step closer to the water, weaving my way between families and children playing. I’m not sure what I’m looking for, but I know that I’m supposed to be here. I stop when I reach a pile of seaweed that seems to be separated from the mound of seaweed by the water. I take a step back so that I can see the whole thing. It’s been arranged in the shape of a number: 1372.
There’s no other context. Just the number. I frown, then look around the beach, searching for something to give this context, but I find nothing.
There’s a woman lying on a towel nearby, sunbathing.
“Excuse me. Did you see who did this?” I ask her.
She looks my way, seeming annoyed that I’m addressing her. “I don’t know,” she says with a shrug.
I look back at the number. It’s not part of her phone number. I already have that. Maybe an address? But there’s no street name, no city, no zip code. I take my phone out and type ‘1372 Miami’ into the address bar. A number of possible addresses pop up with several different street names.
I sigh, realizing that I’m going to have to visit every one of these properties to figure out where she is. I head back to my car and put the first address into my GPS. It takes me fourteen minutes from the beach to a store that looks like it’s been closed for a while. I get out of my car anyway and walk up to the boarded-up front door, hoping to find a clue here, but there’s nothing. I go back to my car. This time, instead of just driving to the next address on the list, I put each address into Google and check whether these are businesses or residential properties.
If Naomi gave me part of her new home address, I don’t want to waste my time driving around to old stores.
I put each of the residential addresses into a real estate website and search again. My new search narrows down my options. There’s a house in a neighborhood about ten minutes from here that matches the address, and the real estate website has it marked as recently sold. I think this is it. I punch the address into my GPS and drive there.
