Finding Beauty (Rewrite)

Chapter 35

~The Hunter~

He had dropped the bomb on Mrs.Rodriguez.

The mug fell onto the floor with a resounding clank that filled the emptiness of the room. It's handle went flying off, flinging itself over the kitchen counter and into the living room. Grayson was relieved Mrs.Rodriguez hadn't poured any of the freshly brewed coffee into it or the scorching hot liquid would have spilt all over her work pants.

Her expression darkened. "What? How did you know?"

Grayson had shown up at her apartment in the early afternoon not knowing what to expect. She had been back from rehab for a few weeks and though she had stayed for the longest amount of time she ever did before, it didn't mean the end product would be different. If anything, he'd understand if rehab hadn't helped at all this time. Her daughter was gone and it was all her fault. She had as good of a reason as she could to not get better.

There was also the added factor that the last time the two had talked, he went on a long-winded rant insulting her which added salt to the wound that was already bone deep. He didn't know if she'd be willing to return his phone calls, let alone answer the door for him. Still, he took a chance because the success of his search for Beth was dependent on it.

The note the woman at the magic shop gave me implied that Beth's mother had a vision when she touched the rose. Whatever she saw in the vision had to have incredibly useful information Grayson could use to find Beth.

He understood why Beth's mother hadn't mentioned the vision to aid the police on their search for her daughter. She probably didn't want to sound like a raving lunatic.

Grayson cut straight to the chase. He was sorry about what he had said on the phone those weeks ago - not really but she didn't have to know that - and told her that he knew the rose he took from the Beast gave her a vision. When she began to laugh at him, with a straight face, he recounted his own experience with the rose. He described how it felt to be sucked into an alternate reality, having your surroundings peeled back and your senses accumate to an entirely new place. The vision played like a movie before your eyes but you felt the temperature of it, you could feel the ground beneath your feet but you were motionless.

That was when she had dropped the mug.

"I've had my own experiences with the roses," Grayson said, turning away from her gawking and peering at the incredibly organized living room. The only thing that was out of place were four outfits laid out on the couch with an iron resting on the table. It appeared as if he had come over while she was getting her clothes for the work week in order. He raised his eyebrows. It had been years since Mrs.Rodriguez had a steady job.

"You touched one too? And saw who the rose was?" She placed what remained of the mug on the counter, pressing her fingers to her lips. "I thought . . . I thought I had made it up."

"What do you mean?"

"I believed what I saw was real until I got home . . . until I was sober." She scratched the back of her neck and turned to grab another mug from the cupboard.

"Then you convinced yourself it was just part of the trip?" Grayson didn't even want to imagine what she was taking to have chalked up an experience like that to drugs.

"What else was I supposed to think? That I had accidentally stumbled upon a supernatural phenomenon?"

She poured him some coffee and slid the cup to him. Mechanically, she reached into the drawer and placed some sugar packets in front of him. She kept herself busy but he knew her mind was racing. He knew because it was the same way Bethany got when she was thinking. He hated to say it but where Beth lacked physical resemblance to her mother, she had an abundance of the same mannerisms. Their thinking faces, their habit of chewing on their lips, their laughs. It was amazing how he could romanticize these same traits in Beth and despise them in her mother.