Page 24 of Forgotten Path
She moved on to the next cabinet. It was stuffed full of old employee records. The next held purchase orders, invoices, and receipts.
By the time she’d worked her way around the room, her hair had escaped from its elegant twist and was hanging around her face, her breath was ragged, and sweat stained the armpits of her cream-colored silk blouse. The files she needed—andonlythose files—were gone.
Now what?she asked herself, defeated.
She didn’t have an answer.
CHAPTERSIXTEEN
The small juice shop was bright and busy. Most of the high-top tables were occupied by groups of twos and threes. Every stool at the long bar along the front window was taken. Upbeat instrumental music filtered into the room from hidden speakers. In a stroke of luck, the queue at the counter was only four people deep. He joined the end of it and waited his turn. First, he studied the chalkboard menu hanging on the wall behind the counter. Then, when he’d settled on a beverage, he studied the young woman behind the counter. He put her somewhere in her early to mid-twenties. She wore her hair in long dark braids piled high on her head. A smattering of blonde braids were woven into the updo. The effect was striking. She wore a bright pink t-shirt with the shop’s name emblazoned in lime green lettering across the front. Her brisk and cheerful efficiency made him think she might be Steffi herself. His hunch was confirmed when the pair of teenagers in front of him greeted her by name.
After they’d received and paid for their shockingly pink Malibu Manias and wandered away in search of seats, he stepped up to the cash register.
“Welcome to the Juice Joint. What can I get started for you?” Steffi smiled broadly.
“The Tupelo Tonic looks interesting. What is it, exactly?”
“Oh, good choice,” she enthused. “You’ve heard of tupelo trees?”
“Sure.”
“Well, here on the Forgotten Coast, we have a rare species—rarer than black or swamp tupelo. It’s the Ogeechee tupelo—the only tree that makes the famous tupelo honey. The tonic includes the tree’s fruit, a red teardrop-shaped berry called the Ogeechee lime because it tastes like a lime. I blend that up with some mango, some fresh oranges, and ice and finish it off with a big swirl of tupelo honey. You’ll love it.” She flashed him another grin.
“I’m sure I will. Could you hold the honey?”
Her smile morphed into a grimace. “You don’t want me to do that. Ogeechee limes aretart,much tarter than real limes. Some might even say they’re sour.”
“Hmm.” He glanced back up at the menu board.
“You a vegan?”
He blinked at her. “I am.”
“Sort of figured. Nobody passes up tupelo honey, not unless they have ethical concerns about stealing the bees’ food source. I can use raw monk fruit sweetener if you want. It won’t be as good as the honey, but it’ll be good.”
“Let’s do it.”
While she bustled around, dumping chopped fruit and sweetener into a blender full of ice, he leaned on the counter.
“Is this your shop?”
“Sure is.” The pride in her voice was unmistakable.
She hit the button to blend the fruit, and they fell silent until the powerful blender stopped whirring.
She poured the concoction into a plastic tumbler and rang it up. After she handed him the cup, she gestured to a Lucite card holder near the register, filled with loyalty cards like the one he’d found in Joel’s car. “Are you going to be in town long? Take a rewards card if you want.”
He paid for his drink and shook his head. “I don’t expect to be here long enough to earn a free juice. But I have a question if you have a minute.”
“Hit me.”
He reached into his wallet and took out the card he’d picked up from the Jeep’s floorboard. “I’m in town looking for a friend who’s gone missing. I found this in his car, and I wondered if you have an index of customers or any way to track purchases digitally. Could you match the card to a person?”
“No, it’s not like that. We’re low-tech. I looked into getting an app developed so folks could use their phones, but I don’t have that kind of scratch. I punch the cards with a hole punch, the old-fashioned way. Can I see it, though?” She held out her hand.
He handed over the card without any expectation. He highly doubted she’d be able to divine anything from it—unless Joel was the only customer to be three drinks away from a free juice. If this was even Joel’s card, he cautioned himself.
He’d been almost halfway to Oyster Point when it occurred to him that the person driving Joel’s Jeep might have dropped the card. Without a way to match the card to a customer, this trip would almost certainly turn out to be a twenty-three-hour roundtrip wild goose chase.
