Diana Scott

Ian meets the stepdaughter of his house's previous owner in hopes that she can decode the cryptic writing he left all over the house.

Who was Gabriel Watson? I had to know. Maybe then I would understand all of the letters and diaries and documents he'd left behind in my house. All of the writing behind the wallpaper and the identical symbols on the backs of all the photographs he'd left. I needed to know why all of the faces were cut out from those pictures. Why didn't he just take the whole picture with him?

These questions were why I was in Boston now, instead of home in Texas. A woman named Diana Scott had tried to call his house phone, which was in my new house. I picked up and she sounded relieved and happy. "Gabe!" she exclaimed. "You answered!" She had a distinct accent that sounded like New York even though she was from Boston. I explained that I wasn't Gabriel, but that I would like to talk to her. The woman apologized and hung up.

She called back the next day, and I told her that Gabriel had moved out, but I wanted to know anything she could tell me about him. I told her that, in exchange, I would give her anything he'd left behind that might help her find him.

So there I was, at the ridiculously themed Shamrock Pub in Boston, where all the waiters were "little people" with orange beards and green vests and top hats. I sat on the rainbow striped barstool, swiveling around every time the door opened, and waited for a woman to walk in. That's right- the bar didn't have even one woman.

I was starting to think that this was some sort of prank, and that she'd sent me to an exclusively male gay bar. That would explain the hideous rainbow wallpaper.

Just as I was starting to doubt that she ever planned to show up, she did. She was a tall woman probably in her mid-sixties with short blonde hair. She was dressed as if she were meeting me for a job interview. That made me slightly uncomfortable, since I was in a t-shirt and jeans, torn at the knee.

She looked around, as if she was expecting someone. I hadn't told her what I looked like or what I'd be wearing, so I'm not entirely sure what she was looking for. I stood up. "Are you Diana?" I asked sheepishly.

"Yep," she said. "That's me. And you must be Ian."

"Nice to meet you," I said, offering her my hand. Instead of shaking it, she grabbed it and led me outside.

"We should talk somewhere private," she said, taking me to her black Ferrari. "I just wanted to meet you here first to make sure you weren't some kind of serial killer or something."

"You decided that quickly I'm not? What makes you so sure?"

"I just have a good instinct, I guess. But it's hard to tell over the phone, you know?"

"I guess." She motioned for me to get into her car. "Hey, how do I know you're not a serial killer?"

She smiled and laughed softy. "I guess you'll just have to trust me."

I sarcastically said, "You're not going to kidnap me if I get in your car, right? Why should I trust you?"

"I guess it just depends on how bad you want to know about Gabe." She smirked. "Trust me or don't, but I'm not waiting around all night."

I got into the car. She started talking immediately after my door was shut.

"Gabe was a great man. Incredible, in fact."

"How did you know him?"

"He was my step-father."

"Was?" He's not dead, is he?

"Is...I guess. He moved to Texas after my mother died five years ago." She sounded increasingly sadder as she went on. "I've only seen him once since then. He seems to think that without my mother, there's no relationship between he and I."

"Oh. I'm sorry. So why were you trying to call him?"

"I was calling just to see how he was doing, as I do on the first of every month, and on his birthday and holidays. He always hangs up when he realizes it's me, but I call anyway, just to make sure he's alive and well, and in his right mind. As long as he remembered who I was and that he wasn't interested in talking to me, I knew he was sane."

"Oh. Um, I don't mean to pry or offend you, but-"

"Whoa, hold on a minute. Nothing you say is going to offend me, okay? So drop the preface. I'm not some delicate little lady who constantly makes you wonder whether or not you've hurt my feelings, alright? Now get on with what you were saying."

"Okay," I said, slightly taken aback. "Sorry. If Gabriel doesn't want anything I do with you, why do you still check up on him? Why do you care? It sounds like he's not very good to you, and he was just your stepfather, right?"

"He was my stepfather, yes. But he wasn't just that. He was more of a father to me than anyone else ever had been. He taught me how to ride my bike, he pulled out my first loose tooth, taught me to drive a car, walked me down the aisle. He was my daddy. Or the closest thing I had to one. I loved him. I love him."

"Oh. I see. He sounds like a very loving man."

"He was."

"Don't take this the wrong way," I started.

"What did I just tell you?" she said, rolling her eyes.

"Right! Sorry. It's just...it seems kind of weird to me that he was such a good father-figure and took such good care of you and then suddenly stopped caring."

"I guess you're right. I think he just wanted to get away from everything. When he sees me, he sees my mother. He sees what he used to have...what he lost."

"That makes sense. It must have been hard for him, losing your mother. For both of you."

"It was hard. It still is sometimes. But I think it was harder on him than on me. And I knew it was hard for him. I knew he was struggling. That's why I continued to call and make sure he was okay. But last month, he stopped picking up. I called him every day of that month, sometimes even twice a day, and nothing. That's why I was so excited when you picked up."

I sat awkwardly, unsure of what to say. She pulled up in front of a large, expensive looking house and parked the car. She motioned for me to follow her inside.

I took off my coat and hung it on the hook, then looked around the spacious house. I followed her into the wine-colored living room, and sat down beside her on the beige couch. She got up to make a cup of coffee for herself and offered me one, but I politely declined. I wouldn't dare risk staining her expensive furniture.

Now that she was out of sight, I looked around the room. It had a hardwood floor and a chandelier dangled above the glass coffee table in front of me. There was a huge flatscreen tv across from the couch that was attached to the wall above a wood burning fireplace. I wondered how she payed for such a house when her stepfather was living in a house that was s****y by comparison.

"So," she said, her high heels clicking on the floor as she returned. "Why are you so interested in Gabe?" She took a sip of her coffee and set it down on the coffee table, then stared intensely into my eyes, as if she was searching for something.

I cleared my throat, unreasonably nervous. "Well he left a lot of things behind when he moved. A lot of papers and letters, stuff like that. And I'm just...curious, I guess."

"Hm. A grown man who's curious enough to come all the way from Texas to find out the story behind a piece of paper?" She seemed suspicious of me, but she looked over my face a couple times and her expression changed to amusement. "Are you a writer or something?" she asked.

"No, I'm an exterminator. Why?" She laughed.

"An exterminator," she smirked. "I don't know, I just thought maybe that's why you were so curious. Are you curious about everything?"

"Not really? I'm just...I don't know, I just-"

"It's okay," she cut me off. "It's good to be curious. Just rare. Rare for somebody to be interested in a person's life and motives unless it somehow affects you."

I nodded, pretending to understand. She smiled, saying, "Most people are just a lot more self-centered than you, that's all. It's refreshing."

"Oh, uh, thanks." She smiled warmly.

"So exactly what kind of papers were they? What did he write about?"

"That's the thing, I don't know." I stood up to get the tattered piece of paper from my coat. "I didn't understand any of it. It was like it was written in some kind of code or something. See if you know what it means." I handed her the paper. She read over it out loud a couple times, then seemed to study it more in her head before finally sighing and giving it back to me.

"I have no clue. He sounds like a complete lunatic in that letter! Are there more?"

"Sure, dozens more at home. More of the same sort of thing."

"I'm sorry, I can't help you there."

"Well thanks anyway," I said, folding up the paper and putting it in my pocket.

"Hold on," Diana said, picking up her coffee. She took another sip, then patted the spot next to her on the couch. I reluctantly sat down. "I can't let your whole trip go to waste just like that. What else do you want to know about him?"

"Well..." I stopped to think. "Do you know who Tommy Hancock is?"

She sighed. "I'm sorry, I don't. Why?"

"One of his letters was addressed to him. He never sent it or even wrote an address on it. And he's written that name in a lot of other things too."

"That's funny. I wonder why he would do that."

"What about Jacob Fitzgerald?"

"Jacob? That's his great nephew, he used to babysit him all the time because his father was an alcoholic. The year before my mother died Jacob practically lived with him, he was at his house so often. Let me see, he'd be...fourteen now? I think that's right. Gabe wrote to him too?"

"Yeah. He mentioned his name in a couple of other things besides letters too, but they were indecipherable. Do you know where he lives?"

"I think I have the address written down somewhere," she said, and walked down a hallway with a hardwood floor and I wondered why she didn't take off those shoes.

She stopped at the end of the hallway in front of a desk and opened the middle drawer and took out a small address book. She flipped through it and stopped, then ripped a page out. She clicked back in and she handed me the paper.

"Thank you," I smiled, accepting it. "I really appreciate it."

"Of course." She walked me over to the door and I put my coat back on. She opened the front door and stepped outside.

"One more thing, if you don't mind," I said following her to her car.

"I don't mind," she smiled, getting into the driver's seat.

"He mentioned an Eleanor repeatedly in his writing, and addressed several letters to her as well, but he never included her last name. Do you have any idea who that could be?"

She stopped checking her makeup in the mirror and looked at me. "Eleanor? That was my mother's name."

I frowned. "But why would he-"

"Write letters to a dead woman?" I nodded. "Maybe he wasn't as sane as I thought."

The drive back to the Shamrock was awkward as we both silently pondered the new information. We didn't say another word until we got to the parking lot and I thanked her for everything. She was still sitting in her car, confused, when I backed out.