The name had been edging around Andy’s thoughts for the last few hours. She had never, ever heard her mother mention a woman named Paula. As far as Andy knew, all of Laura’s friends were in Belle Isle. She never talked to anyone else on the phone. She wasn’t even on Facebook because she claimed there was no one back in Rhode Island she wanted to keep in touch with.
I could talk to Paula Koontz.
I hear she’s in Seattle.
Austin. But good try.
Laura had tried to fake out Hoodie. Or maybe she was testing him? But testing him for what?
Andy searched for Paula Koontz Austin TX.
Nothing Austin-specific came back, but apparently, Paula Koontz was a popular name for real estate agents in the northeast.
“Koontz,” Andy whispered the word aloud. It didn’t sound right to her ears. She had been thinking more like Dean Koontz when Hoodie had said it more like “koontz-ah.”
She tried koontze, koontzee, khoontzah...
Google asked: do you mean koontah?
Andy clicked the suggested search. Nothing, but Google offered khoontey as an alternative. She kept clicking through the do you means. Several iterations later brought up a faculty directory for the University of Texas at Austin.
Paula Kunde was currently teaching Introduction to Irish Women’s Poetry and Feminist Thought on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. She was head of the women’s studies department. Her book, The Madonna and Madonna: Like a Virgin from Jesus Christ to Ronald Reagan, was available in paperback from IndieBound.
Andy enlarged the woman’s photo, which had been taken in an unflattering side profile. Black and white, but that didn’t help matters. It was hard to tell how old Paula was because she’d obviously spent way too much time in the sun. Her face was worn and craggly. She was at least Laura’s age, but she did not look like any of her mother’s usual friends, who wore Eileen Fisher and sunscreen every time they left the house.
Paula Kunde was basically a washed-out old hippie. Her hair was a mixture of blonde and gray with an unnatural-looking dark streak in the bangs. Her shirt, or dress, or whatever she was wearing, had a Native American pattern.
The sunken look to her cheeks reminded Andy of Laura during chemo.
Andy scrolled through Kunde’s credentials. Publications in Feminist Theory and Exposition, several keynote speaker slots at feminist conferences. Kunde had earned her undergrad at the University of California, Berkeley, and her master’s at Stanford, which explained the hippie vibe. Her doctorate came from a state college in western Connecticut, which seemed weird because Bryn Mawr or Vassar would’ve better suited her field of study, especially with a Stanford master’s, which was to Andy’s unfinished technical theater arts degree as diamonds were to dog shit.
More importantly, there was nothing in Paula Kunde’s résumé that indicated she would ever cross paths with Laura. Feminist theory did not overlap with speech therapy in any way that Andy could think of. Laura was more likely to ridicule an old hippie than befriend one. So why had her mother recognized this woman’s name smack in the middle of being tortured?
“Hey, hon.” The librarian smiled down at Andy. “Sorry, but we’re gonna have to ask you not to drink coffee around the computers.” She nodded toward the old guy, who was glaring at Andy over his own steaming cup of coffee. “Rules have to apply to everybody.”
“I’m sorry,” Andy said, because it was her nature to apologize for everything in her orbit. “I was leaving anyway.”
“Oh, you don’t have to—” the woman tried, but Andy was already getting up.
“I’m sorry.” Andy stuffed the scribbled directions to Idaho into her pocket. She tried to smile at the old man as she left. He did not return the gesture.
Outside, the intense sunlight made her eyes water. Andy had to find some sunglasses before she went blind. She guessed Walmart would be the best place to go. She would also need to purchase some essentials like underwear and jeans and another T-shirt, plus maybe a jacket in case Idaho was cold this time of year.
Andy stopped walking. Her knees went wobbly.
Someone was looking inside the truck. Not just glancing as he walked by but looking with his hands pressed to the glass the same way Hoodie had peered through the garage door a few hours ago. The man was wearing a blue baseball cap, jeans and a white T-shirt. His face was cast in shadow under the brim of his hat.
Andy felt a scream get caught up in her throat. Her heart boxed at her ribs as she walked backward, which was stupid because the guy could turn around any minute and see her. But he did not, even as Andy darted around the back of the building, her throat straining from the scream that she could not let out.
She ran into the woods, frantically trying to summon up the Google Earth view, the high school behind the library, the squat storage facility with its rows of metal buildings. The relief she felt when she saw the high fence around the football field was only dampened by the fear that she was being followed. With every step, Andy tried to talk herself out of her paranoia. The guy in the hat hadn’t seen her. Or maybe it didn’t matter if he had. The black truck was nice. Maybe the guy was looking to buy one. Or maybe he was looking to see how to break in. Or maybe he was looking for Andy.
You think I can be scared?
Depends on how much you love your daughter.
The Get-Em-Go office lights were off. A sign on the door read CLOSED. A chain-link fence, even taller than the one at the high school, ringed around the storage units. The low one-story buildings with metal roll-up doors looked like something you’d see in a Mad Max movie. There was a gate across the driveway. A keypad was at car-window height, but it didn’t have numbers, just a black plastic square with a red light.
She unzipped the make-up bag. She found the white, unlabeled keycard. She pressed it to the black square. The red light turned green. The gate screeched as it moved back on rubber tires.