Chapter 1:

            Jamie woke to the muffled sound of a piano being played. After staring at her alarm clock for a few seconds through bleary eyes, she made out the time.

            “6:30 in the morning?” she thought. “Jesus Christ, why is she up this early?” Lowering herself onto a chair next to her bed, she sat in the early morning half-dark of her bedroom and listened to raindrops beating against her window as she attached her leg. “On a perfect day for sleeping in, too,” she thought as walked to the door.

            As Jamie entered the hall, the music became louder. Rubbing her eyes as she walked to the living room, Jamie saw Griswold sitting at her piano, her fingers effortlessly flying across the keys. Jamie stood behind Griswold in silence for a few moments, but Griswold took no notice of her. Getting impatient, Jamie cleared her throat and Griswold turned to look at her.

            “Oh, hi Jamie!” said Griswold in a cheerful tone.

            “What are you doing?” Jamie grumbled.

            “At the moment, trying to master the piano sequence from South Side of the Sky,” she replied.

            “I meant, ‘Why are you playing this early?’” said Jamie.

            “Oh, I set my alarm incorrectly and couldn’t fall asleep again. By that point, I figured I should just get ready for the day ahead, especially since we have a client coming in at 10:00.”

            “Wait,” asked Jamie, “we have a client?”

            “Yes,” replied Griswold. “Didn’t I tell you last night?”

            “No.”

            Griswold thought for a moment before replying, “Oh, right! I got the call just before Jeopardy! came on. I must have forgotten to tell you.”

            Jamie sighed. “How many days should I pack for?” she grumbled.

            “I’d say at least a week,” Griswold replied. “And look on the bright side! Thanks to me, you now have three and a half hours to pack before he arrives.”

            “Shut up,” said Jamie, turning to head for her room. She then groggily packed and got ready for the day ahead. All the while, Griswold continued to play the piano until her downstairs neighbor banged on the ceiling with a broom and told her to keep it down. Jamie was ready by 8:00 and joined Griswold in the living room. There, they watched the morning news and ate a breakfast of buttermilk pancakes, Jamie topping hers with peanut butter and maple syrup, that Tom had made a few days earlier. After they finished and the dishes were cleaned, the two waited for their appointment. At 10:00 on the hour, someone knocked at the front door.

            Running to answer it, Griswold found a young, skinny teenager a few inches shorter than her. He had curly, brown hair of a medium length, a pale complexion, and a face covered with acne. He wore jeans and a black hoodie. He appeared anxious and looked like he hadn’t slept in days, but something about him betrayed a quiet determination.

            “Mr. August Moran, I presume?” asked Griswold.

            “Uh-huh,” he replied.

            “Come on in,” she said.                                                                                                          

             She ushered him over to a chair in front of her desk. Jamie sat next to him and Griswold took her usual seat behind her desk. “It must be quite a predicament you are dealing with to travel by yourself across the state to reach me,” said Griswold.

            “Yeah,” said August.

            “Wait,” said Jamie, “‘across the state?’ Where are you from?”

            “Youngstown,” he matter-of-factly.

            A look of concern crossed Jamie’s face. “How old are you?”

            “Fourteen.”

            “Okay…” Jamie replied, raising an eyebrow. “So…how can we help you?”

            August blew a heavy, exasperated breath. “Well, my mom’s disappeared,” he said. “She’s been gone for almost three weeks and the cops haven’t found anything. I tried to get other people back in Youngstown to take up the case, but none of them took me seriously. Then I heard about you two.”

            “Yeah, that’s pretty good reason,” Jamie said after a moment of silence.

            “Just out of curiosity, how did you hear about me?” asked Griswold.

            “I’ve heard rumors about you from kids on the playground at school,” August replied with a thinly-veiled smirk.

            “Really?” Griswold asked.

            “Are you kidding me? No!” August said incredulously. “You’re one of those people you just hear about on the streets, so I decided to check you out.”

            “Oh,” Griswold said awkwardly. After a brief period of silence, she took out her notebook and pencil and said, “So, you say that your mother has gone missing? Please elaborate.”

            He nodded. “So, Mom went out one night and said she might be back later than usual. I didn’t think much of it at the time because she’s usually always out somewhere. But, by the next day she still wasn’t back. After calling a bunch of people she knew and hearing that they hadn’t seen her either, I took a bus downtown to the police station and filed a missing person’s report. People have been looking for her since, but nothing’s turned up.”

            “Okay then,” said Griswold. “Let’s try to find some leads. Did…what’s your mom’s name?”

            “Charlotte,” replied August.

            “Did Charlotte tell you why she was going out or why she would be back so late?” asked Griswold.

            “No,” he said with a sigh. “She comes and goes so much that I don’t even notice she’s gone half the time. I thought it was just business as usual and that someone needed her.”

            “Do you know when she left?” asked Griswold.

            “Around 9:30 at night,” said August.

            “9:30?” asked Jamie as a puzzled look crossed her face. “What does your mom do?”

            August hesitated, struggling to find the right words. “She’s…how should I say this…she’s a ‘lady of the evening’ as it were.”

            “Gotcha,” Jamie replied as she slowly nodded her head.

            “Anyway, back to my line of questioning,” said Griswold, “was there anyone that might have had it out for Charlotte?”

            “Wait,” said August, “that’s it? You don’t have any questions about what my mom does for a living?”

            “Uh…no?” Griswold replied.

            “It’s all good, man.” Jamie said nonchalantly.

            “Okay. Cool,” August said as he quickly nodded his head. “So, to answer your question, I don’t think she did. But, she also never told me about her work life, so I can’t be sure.”

            Griswold thought for a moment. She then asked, “On the night she disappeared, did you notice any changes in Charlotte’s mood that might have suggested there was something nefarious afoot?”

            August stared at Griswold in confusion. “‘Nefarious?’”

            “That something bad might happen,” Jamie said.

            “I mean, she did seem more nervous than usual,” said August, “but she always gets that way when money is tight, so I thought it just had to do with that.”

            “Alright,” said Griswold as she finished scribbling something in her notebook. “Now, can you please tell me what the police found relating to Charlotte’s disappearance?”

            “Nothing,” said August.

            Griswold paused. “You mean to say the cops found absolutely no trace of your mom?”

            “Well,” said August, “from what I overheard, there were some people in this one apartment building that saw her running down the street late at night. It hasn’t gotten the case anywhere though and they haven’t found anything else.”

            “Oh, I see what you mean,” said Griswold. “You just meant that what they found didn’t appear useful. Well, let me assure you, my dear, that looks can be deceiving and anything could provide us with crucial information to help us locate your mom. Now, you said something about people in an apartment building that saw your mom running?”

            “Yeah,” said August. “A number of people in the building said they saw her running down North Champion Street at around 10:30 PM. It was pouring rain, too.”

            “Wait, how did these people recognize your mom when it was dark and raining?” interjected Jamie.

            “They know her very well,” said August. “I was around the station when the police were interviewing them and I recognized them as some of her ‘regulars.’ Trust me when I say they know her at a glance.”

            “Anyway,” said Griswold, “did any of these residents see why she running in such conditions?”

            “No. They were all either heading for bed or getting ready for graveyard shifts, so they weren’t paying attention to her.”

            Griswold covered her mouth with her hand and a pensive expression crossed her face. Jamie stared at her in anticipation. After a moment of silence, Griswold said, “Well, it seems that we shall have quite a lot of investigating to do. However, I have a hunch that this case is not quite so hopeless as it appears.”

            “Really?” asked August.

            “Absolutely, my dear,” said Griswold as she rose from her seat. “Even the most inscrutable puzzles can be easily solved by a few key pieces of information. But enough chatter. I believe it is high time we head over to Youngstown and get on with the task before us.”

            Griswold went to her room to get her luggage, leaving Jamie and August in the living room. As Jamie stood up to get her own luggage, August nervously asked in a hushed tone, “Do you really think we can find her?”

            Jamie went silent for a moment and crossed her arms. “I’ll put it this way. It does seem like an impossible case. But, I’ve seen Griswold solve cases like this one before. It may seem like a longshot now, but…I have faith in her.”

            August thought for a moment. “Okay,” he replied. “If you say so.”

            Griswold then returned with her bag and Tickler. “Ready to go?” she asked.

            “Just let me get my stuff and then we can leave,” said Jamie.

            A couple of seconds later, Jamie returned with her bag and stepped out into the hall. After Griswold locked the door to her apartment, the three then walked down the stairs and stepped out of 511 Bishop’s Lane into a cold and drizzly morning. The sky was light gray and a slight wind blew tiny raindrops in their faces, sprinkling Griswold’s glasses. They walked over to Cheryl and removed her tarp. On both sides, the black chassis was still dented and two long, rough sets of silver scratches remained, etched lengthwise along the body of the car, from their last adventure.

            Jamie and Griswold loaded their bags into the trunk as August got in the backseat with Griswold’s myriad of tools and other assorted items. After Jamie got behind the wheel and Griswold took the passenger’s seat, Jamie backed out while Griswold rummaged among some tapes she had in the car’s glovebox.

            “So,” said Griswold as she popped a cassette into the car’s tape deck, “does Aerosmith work for everyone?”

            “Sure,” said Jamie and August concurrently. The car then turned onto the road and the long journey to Youngstown began.

*****