Taken: Day 8

Word Count: 48,080

Summary of Events:

Mitchell read the newspaper article and was so infuriated about how he was described that he tore the paper to shreds and ground it into the mud. He meant to also call Odessa and give her a piece of his mind, but Dolly delayed that by taking his clothes to be washed — which confined him to the hotel room because he didn't have a second pair of pants. It was the next morning when he finally headed out to find a payphone on which to call Odessa . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Mitchell inserted a coin and dialled the number. It rang a couple times before a woman answered the phone whom Mitchell could tell by her voice was significantly older than Odessa.

“Hello, you’ve reached the home of Marion Edgar, how may I help you?” the woman asked.

“Hello,” Mitchell replied — trying his best to subdue his accent. “I was wondering if I could speak to Odessa Edgar please.”

“To whom?” the woman asked, sounding confused.

“Odessa Edgar,” Mitchell repeated.

“She doesn’t live here sir,” the woman replied.

“What do you mean she doesn’t live there?” Mitchell asked.

“She lives in Seattle with her mother,” the woman replied.

“Begging your pardon ma’am, but I just read in the papers yesterday about an interview she hosted right at that house you’re in right now,” Mitchell said. “She was there at least on Saturday.”

“No sir, she hasn’t been here in years,” the woman replied.

“She was there a week ago,” Mitchell said. “I met her myself. She was in Los Angeles.”

“I’m afraid you’re mistaken sir,” the woman said. “Odessa Edgar doesn’t live here. She lives with Mr. Edgar’s ex-wife in Seattle, and she hasn’t come for a visit since the divorce years ago.”

“Ma’am I swear,” Mitchell protested.

“I don’t know who you met sir,” the woman said. “But she doesn’t live here. Good day sir.”

The line went dead. Mitchell removed the receiver from against his face and looked at it with consternation before hanging it back in the forked cradle on the side of the box.

Odessa Edgar didn’t live in Los Angeles? But then why had the woman he met pretended to be Odessa Edgar? Was this not so much about destroying him as doing something else? If so, then what was it?

Mitchell stood dazed in the phone booth for several minutes before he finally left it and walked bemusedly down the street.

If Odessa Edgar really didn’t live in Los Angeles, then why had someone created an impostor? He hadn’t known or loved the real Odessa. He’d never been to Seattle — and he’d never met a woman by the name of Odessa until this Odessa Edgar possible impostor on the  pier just more than a week before; in fact, seeing as this was the first of a month following one that had ended in thirty days, it was exactly ten days since he’d arrived back on his homeland soil.

Armed with that information, Mitchell wasn’t sure what he should do next. How was he to get a hold of Odessa Edgar if she didn’t live in Los Angeles? How had the reporter gotten a hold of her and interviewed her at the Edgar Mansion here in Los Angeles — as he was pretty sure Seattle was too far north for palm trees to grow and they’d been mentioned in the newswoman’s description of the house — if she was an impostor?