“Good.”
She reaches out and takes Alexander’s hand, giving his palm a gentle squeeze. He lets her. Alexander adores the feel of her fingers, warm and soft.
“Parsons was... Well, for the most part, he was good to me. Bare minimum effort, parenting-wise, but I was old enough to take care of myself at that point.” She leans back into the couch cushions behind her. “The only problem was that I wasn’t of age to take over financially. All money had to go through him.”
“And?”
“Parsons had a very bad gambling habit.”
Alexander looks to the money. “So you do owe a debt.”
“No. Well, sort of.”
“That makes no sense.”
“I wanted to attend Gagnon-Allard for as long as I could remember. It was always my plan to pursue my love of cooking, even after my parents went missing. So I applied for a scholarship. I didn’t think I’d get it, but I did. I was over the moon.”
Alexander’s heart sinks. “Don’t tell me he...”
She nods slowly. Sadly. “The money was sent to Parsons’s account for safe keeping since he was technically my guardian. I went off to Gagnon-Allard, fully expecting him to have used the money to take care of my tuition. I really did attend. That wasn’t a lie. I really did study with Charlie Zhao. I made it two weeks before I was called into the registrar’s office. They told me that the payments for my program hadn’t been made.
“So, I called Parsons to see what the hell was going on. Turns out, he’d spent it all. Every penny. Lost it betting on the ponies or something, not that that’s important. What was important was that the money that was reserved for me was gone and I couldn’t stay. There was no way the money could be retrieved. There was no way for my scholarship to be re-issued. I was forced to drop out.”
Eden wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. “And it sucked. It really sucked because I loved all of my classes and I was learning so much and...” She glances at him. “And I met some really nice people there. Specifically one boy named Shang.”
Alexander’s face drops. Suddenly, everything clicks into place. He can’t believe it.
The familiarity. The flashbacks he’d been getting. Everything makes sense and yet —at the same time— it doesn’t.
“You were the girl,” he realizes.
“You didn’t seem to remember me when I first got here, so I didn’t say anything. It was a long time ago, so I didn’t think it would do any good to bring it up.”
He stares at her, taking her in. “I remember more now,” he says slowly, images flitting through his mind. “I’ve been getting flashes here and there. Little, random things. You had a spatula in the shape of a whale.”
Eden lets out a huff of a laugh. “Oh, shit. I’d totally forgotten about Toby.”
He snaps his fingers and laughs—oh so gently—with her. “Right. Toby. I remember picking on you about naming the damn thing.”
“You thought it was stupid.”
He smiles. “I did. But then you proceeded to name all of your utensils just to spite me.”
The girl from his memories has been here all along. It’s no wonder Eden felt so familiar to him. Now he remembers. He remembers her bright smile and eagerness to learn. He remembers her sitting beside him in class, answering questions left and right. She was brilliant. She was the best of the bunch. A little bit of a sassy know-it-all, but Alexander remembers liking that about her.
And now she’s here, lying her way into La Rougewith piles of cash on hand.
“How does the money fit into all this?” he asks, curious.
Eden swallows. “Missing persons cases never close. They just go cold. But I think... I think my parents are still out there. Somewhere. I was swept into the foster care system really quickly. Maybe they’ve been looking for me this whole time. So...” She gestures to the money. “I want to hire a private investigator. When I was younger, I heard about this PI, Maxine Kendo. She’s apparently really, really good. The best PI in the world. She’s solved hundreds of cold cases.”
Alexander blinks, incredulous. “And she’s going to cost...” He gestures to the money, too. “What? Fifteen grand?”
“Well, a little more than that, actually.”
“What the fuck? That’s so much.”
“She charges per hour, and her rates are obviously much higher than the average PI because... Well, she’s the best. My parents’ case is over a decade old, so I’m sure there’s a lot of information she needs to sift through. I need to have as much saved up as possible so that I can be prepared for however long this drags out. Hopefully not too long, but still.”
