I pull on my underwear and continue to towel off my wet hair. I look over into the mirror and give myself a faint smile. It still feels strange, that through all that pain, all that suffering that I went through, this is how I ended up. Comfortable in my own skin. It took years of work and of course, her help, but it’s nice to actually see…myself, in the mirror.

I toss the towel to the side and begin to brush through my shoulder length brown hair. “Ah, fuck!” The brush gets caught multiple times as I try to make myself seem, presentable at least, to some potentially strict anti LGBT parents. I set down the hairbrush and grab my toothbrush. I look into the mirror, I’m not going to be able to do anything about the eyes. I never learned how to do make up so, I’m cursed to look perpetually tired. I pull on the rest of my clothes and head back out into the hallway.

I grab my leather jacket and throw it on to cover up my tattooed arms. As much as tattoos have become widely accepted, and that I don’t care what these people think of me, I’d rather they not try to go to another PI if I can prevent that. Anyone else would just collect the paycheck. Not that I blame them, but if I can prevent even a little bit of gay suffering, I’ll do it.

“Hey, Benny! Who are my clients and when do they get here?” I shout down the hall towards his office. I hear a shuffling of papers and a shout back, “Uh, Mr. and Mrs. Webb, they’re from out of town, about 2 hours away. They should be here any minute, same time as my client.”

“Thanks!” I head back into my office and go over it one last time, making sure I don’t have any other client’s files sitting out. I wish we could sit in on each other's interviews, we always catch at least one thing the other would have missed. Oh well, if I know Benny he tried his best to split them up.

A knock at the main office door breaks my concentration and I head over to answer it. Upon opening I’m greeted by a taller balding man and a shorter woman with way too much makeup. “Is this KBPI?” she asks quickly and sharply. My eyes look at the door who’s glass clearly has “KBPI” and our hours and phone number emblazoned upon it. “Yep, That’s us. I take it you’re the Webbs?” I step aside and motion them inside. “My office is right this way.”

Leading them inside and gesturing for them to have a seat the woman pipes up, obviously perturbed, “On the phone we talked to a nice young man. Are we not going to be helped by him?” I grit my teeth and close the door, “That’s my business partner, Benny. He has his own client meeting going on at this time as well, so I’ll be handling your case.” I step over to my chair and sit, I look them over as I start to talk.

“My name is Kayla Berry, I handle all of our missing persons under the age of 21.” She sits upright, one leg crossed over the other, smacking on some mint gum as she glares at me. My eyes are immediately drawn to all of the crosses, on her bracelet, on her purse, on her earrings, on her necklace. He, on the other hand, sits comfortably in the chair. I don’t notice any “Jesus memorabilia” on him but I do notice the hallmarks of a strict christian father. Well ironed button up shirt, dark dress jeans, also pressed, and those terrible looking tennis shoes that are designed to look like dress shoes but be more comfortable. I feel like I’m looking through a window to my own past… to my own parents.

“Well we weren’t told about this! We assumed we’d be meeting with Benson!” Her shrill voice echoes through my office as I struggle to not kick her out. “Ma’am, I’m a specialist when it comes to finding kids and young adults. Benny handed this case over to me cause he knows that I’m the most qualified for it. And if you don’t mind my assuming, you got our phone number cause you tried looking for your child yourself, and someone recommended us. Is that about right?”

They looked at each other and back to me before nodding without giving me eye contact. “OK, I’m sure you’re worried about your child’s safety and would like to get started right away. Please give me all the information that you can.”

…

The father just sits there, lazily, letting her do all of the talking and providing of information. He probably thinks he looks stoic and manly, but to me he’s just being a lazy asshole. To me, to his wife, and to his child. She, on the other hand, gives me a lot of helpful information. Child’s name, picture, old phone number, some history. She doesn’t look worried though, more, upset, kind of angry, whether that’s directed at me or her child is unknown.

“Ok so your child, Daniel, has been missing for about a month now. Judging by the fact that you’re talking to me, instead of the cops, and Daniel Webb isn’t listed as a missing person, this isn’t a kidnapping or a surprise runaway. Am I correct?” I calmly work through the information she’s given me, pulling up missing persons records on my laptop.

“And how is this going to help you find my son?” She crosses her arms and leans back in her chair, clearly tired of my bullshit. Bullshit that is actually me being quite polite I thought.

“Ma’am. Any and all information you can give me is going to help me find him. Even parting words can help me to figure out somewhere local to start looking.” I dance around directly bringing up that their son may be LGBT in front of them as it may make them leave. I, however, already have Daniel’s social media pulled up. He’s definitely gay, and if he’s trying to hide from his parents he’s not doing a great job. He has a picture of himself at the LGBTQIA equality center on the southside of town. These parents must not really know how computers work if they are hiring me.

“Well I don’t have anything else to give you! He ran away, and disappeared in the night. We tried to talk to the police but they just did a search around town, called his number, and said that there wasn’t anything else they could do!” I do my best to not roll my eyes. Judging from his social media he probably goes to the Equality Center on Tuesdays… or at least he has for the last 2 weeks. If I’m lucky, he’ll be there tonight and I can get this done in a single evening.

“Ok well if there’s not any more information to give me then I suppose we should talk billing. Benny already took your payment info down to pay for this consultation and you’ll be billed for that once we are done talking here. As for actually taking the case, we have 2 payment methods, hourly, and upfront. Hourly will just be a flat rate of $115 an hour. We bill our hours only for hours we spend on your case specifically. So if I find your son in a couple of days but I only spent 10 hours on your case specifically then the bill would come out to $1,150 + consultation fee. The up front method is $2,500 up front, your consultation fee is included. If after 1 full week on the case, I’m not confident I will turn anything up, I’ll ask if you want to continue hourly or drop the case. If I feel confident, then I will let you know, and remain on task at no extra charge. Any questions?” 

He doesn’t move. She thinks for a second before piping up, “And you’re confident in your ability to find him and bring him home?” I stare at her for a second before responding, “I can’t legally lay a finger on him, and I won’t, but if he’s in this city, I will find him.” I stare directly into her eyes as she nods at her husband who finally moves to get up. “Then we’ll go with the hourly rate I suppose.” He says in a tired voice. “OK! I’ve got you all notated down here and I’ll check back in with you all at the phone number you gave Benny! Are there any more questions?” 

…

After the Webbs leave I sit back and relax in my chair. I frown as I look to see that this kid still has 7 months till his 18th birthday. The writing is on the wall with this one. He came out as gay, his parents didn’t accept it, hell they won’t even mention it to me, and he either ran away or they kicked him out. I’m not sure if they were lying about going to the cops or if their small town cops just didn’t file anything on it, but it does seem strange they waited a month to come looking. It leads credence to the ‘kicking him out’ theory.

I pull out my phone and dial the number for the Equality Center, it barely rings before it’s picked up. I smile at the lovely voice coming through the line, thanking me for calling the Equality Center. “You know your voice sounds even better when you’re moaning my name.” There’s a pause on the line before I can hear the phone being physically picked back up off the desk. “Kayla… It’s nice to hear from you. You get that gift I sent your way.” I smile, hearing her struggling to keep her voice calm in front of me. “I did, Faeth, Thanks! Pretty shitty gift if you ask me though… like looking into my own past almost.” Her voice calms as we continue our conversation.

“Yeah well… I thought you could help the kid. He’s pretty naive.”

“OH YEAH, I can tell. I already found him before his mom stopped bitching me out. He should be there today for one of your help groups if I’ve got him figured out right.”

“Wow, that's a quick one, even for you.”

“Don’t praise me too much on this one, Faeth. He may have to skip town. It was way too easy, he’s lucky his parent’s don’t know what a computer is. If you could check when his group ends, that would be super helpful.”

“Yeah! It looks like he should be showing up at about 3pm and the group ends at around 5, but he usually hangs out and tries to make friends afterward. So you have a few hours till you need to be here. Have you eaten yet? Drank water?”

I roll my eyes at her motherly questioning, “Hey now, last I remember, you were the one that called me mommy.” I hear her make a small gasp, “Relax, Benny brought me some sausage rolls this morning, I’m fine.”

“Uhum uh. Yeah. You know it’s almost 2pm now right? And have you not drank any water?! Kayla!”

“Fuck! Time is my worst enemy.”

“I assume your dodging of the question means you haven’t had any water today. DRINK SOME DAMN WATER! What is it with you trans girls and not drinking water? I do not understand.”

“OH! Speaking of ‘wet!’”

“I didn’t say wet.”

“I trimmed my nails yesterday.”

There’s an audible silence from the other line.

“What do you say? My head, between your legs? Tonight?”

“... Lemme text Mason first and let him know… but yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes please.”

“Yes please…?”

“... Yes please, Mommy…”

“Good girl, I’ll bring my extra helmet.”

I hang up on what I can only assume is the cute stammering of my bed partner for the evening. I step over and grab myself a cup from my water cooler. She was right, I wonder why us trans girls have such a problem with water. I look back at my laptop and pull out my file on the Sanders cold case and go over it for a while.

After an hour or so of lightly going over the case while also scrolling through cat videos on my phone, I finally get up. I place both the Sanders and Webb cases in my bag and grab my helmet. I step into the spare room, grab the extra helmet and head over to Benny’s office.

“Oh hey I was just gonna…” He takes a pause as he sees the extra helmet in my arm. “Faeth?” He asks while rolling his eyes. “Yeah, you really are a PI, I can’t believe it.” I smile as I mock him. “Usually when people start dating someone, they stop the whole ‘friends with benefits’ stuff. But maybe I’m just ‘old fashioned’ I guess.” He physically makes air quotes around his words. “Anyway, I already found the Webb kid, sadly, so I’m gonna see what I can do for him.”

“Hey.” He raises his hands back up, he looks as if Al Capone was surrendering behind a mountain of paperwork, it’s almost uncanny. “You know what you’re doing, Kay. I know better than to get in the way. You do you, just… try not to get us into trouble, yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah, I hear ya. Also, I’m taking the Sanders case with me-” I raise my hand as best I can while holding these helmets, and continue before he can interrupt, “AND, I’ll check out the scene before I head back into work tomorrow. I’ve got Faeth tonight so I’ll actually be staying at my own place. You should be proud of me.”

He shrugs, “You know, I’ll take it. Safe riding and safe… uh riding, I guess.”

I giggle a bit as I turn to head out into the city.