Back to her case.

How long we spent in each other’s arms I do not know. It was an eternity that ended far too soon. We got up and helped each other get dressed and went back to work.

I was more focused on helping her than ever. I felt a twinge of guilt as I realized that I was trying to help harder now, as if before we made love I was holding something back. Maybe I was. Hell, I’m man.

After several hours of sorting through some paper I found something. It was something that I would eventually come to curse. It was the first clue to her past.

There was single receipt from her credit card to a gas station far upstate. The date was from almost two years ago. A tank of gas, two bottles of water and two bakery rolls. Nothing else I had gone through showed that she ever went upstate.

I showed it to Victoria and asked her about it. She shook her head, “I don’t know why I would go there. I don’t have any family or friends that live up there. Hell, the only thing up there are the casinos and I don’t even like to gamble.”

I asked, “Well maybe going up there will jog your memory. Care to go for a car ride?”

She smiled and within the hour we were off on the road. It was roughly midday and the traffic was light and the skies were dark, the beginnings of rain. We talked about the receipt.

“Judging by what you bought, I think that somebody was with you then, “ I said.

She nodded, “Yeah, I thought of that too.”

“Any idea of who it might be?”

She paused and then shook her head, “None. It could be anybody. Let me make a few calls.”

She pulled out her cell phone and started dialing numbers. Six calls and thirty minutes later she said, “That’s everybody who I think of who might have gone on a road trip with me. They all said that it wasn’t them.”

After a few hours of driving and questioning, we came to the station the receipt came from. We got out and took a look around. I asked if anything seemed familiar. She shook her head. “Well then, let’s go inside. I’m going to ask the clerk or manager if anybody might remember anything.”

Victoria raised an eyebrow, “Whisper, after two years? I really doubt it.”

I just smiled and headed for the store, “Believe me, you’ve got a face that isn’t easy to forget.”
I went in first and saw talked to the kid behind the register. He told me what I expected to hear. These places had a high turnover rate, even the manager had only been working here for the past nine months and that aside from two robberies, nothing of interest had happened to the store in the last couple of years. I thanked him and turn to leave. I saw Victoria standing in the doorway, eyes closed and her body frozen. She took a deep breath and said, “That smell…I remember that smell…cinnamon rolls…I remember cinnamon rolls….”

The kid behind the counter said, “Yeah, this place is kinda famous for those rolls. Personally, I think they’re overrated, but people seem to love ‘em.”

A first clue. We were on the right track…