Ghosts of Christmas Past Read Free Page B

the suburbs hang out with the misfits?”
    â€œI am a misfit. I just hide it better than the rest of you.” Al had said she didn’t belong with him; now Cassandra was saying basically the same thing. Ouch. This morning blew chunks.
    â€œSo what’s your latest project becoming, Cassandra?” A change of subject was definitely needed. “Are you going to put it in the big show? You’re cutting it close with the timing.”
    The director of the city’s art museum had decided the best way to encourage new visitors was to have the local artists involved. So for six months, artwork from their group and a few others in the city would share space with the classics at the once-great Charlton City Museum of Art. The opening was in three days.
    Just because they weren’t being paid, it didn’t make all this work a waste of time. Art was made to be experienced. Theirs would be.
    â€œYou can’t rush art, but I’m going to try to have it ready. I’m calling it the Soul of the Double C ,” Cassandra said.
    Lucy tilted her head to get a different angle on the steel monstrosity, um, thing. Sculpture. “It’s twisted and eye catching,” she allowed.
    â€œExactly!”
    Cassandra’s phone, tucked in a sling around her shoulders, sounded a train whistle. She started fumbling for it. The whistle was loud enough to startle Graham out of dreamland. He rolled over, fell off his couch and woke with a muffled cry of pain. Cassandra rushed over to help him.
    Graham waved her off and stumbled to his feet. “I’m fine. Just answer your phone, Cassandra.” He rubbed his eyes, knocking some sleep from them. He scratched his skinny soul patch, black hair against his dark skin. “And keep it down next time, please.”
    â€œIt’s no louder than your Christmas music,” Lucy said.
    â€œMusic isn’t the same as a train whistle,” Graham said and frowned. “Cass, what’s wrong? I was only teasing.”
    Cassandra’s face was pale, with her phone pressed to her ear. She attempted to sit on Lucy’s stool and missed it, knocking it over. Lucy put her arm around Cassandra and led her over to Graham’s couch.
    â€œYes, I’ll call the second I see him. Yes, yes.”
    Cassandra put the phone back in her sling and her head in her hands. Lucy knew that look. Somebody Cassandra loved was in trouble or worse.
    â€œHoney, what’s wrong?” Graham asked.
    â€œSalvatore’s missing. He never showed up for work today,” Cassandra whispered.
    Salvatore. Lucy remembered a short, pudgy guy who sometimes visited the warehouse. He’d beamed at Cassandra. Or maybe doted on was a better way to put it. Cassandra said they’d been living together for two years. “Imagine, love after all my years alone? I’m just so grateful,” Cassandra had said.
    â€œMaybe he’s just skipping work,” Lucy said.
    â€œNo, Sal’s very conscientious about work,” Cassandra said. “And I haven’t seen him since yesterday morning when he left for work. This is bad.”
    â€œDidn’t you see him last night?” Lucy asked.
    Cassandra shook her head. “I went to bed early and he’s been working OT, so I thought he left early this morning to get more done at the office. Why wouldn’t he call me? He always calls when something happens to upset the routine. He knows I worry.”
    She put her head back in her hands.
    A ton of reasons her guy might not call, Lucy thought, and most of them bad, from merely cheating on Cassandra to being dead. “Did you talk to him yesterday at all?”
    â€œHe called from work about two in the afternoon,” Cassandra said.
    So they had a time frame for his disappearance, at least. Last heard from by his live-in girlfriend at 2:00 p.m.—that’s what Al would write down. Then he’d find out when Salvatore had left work. “Did