Enid Cardiff's Story

So much for getting a good night’s sleep. It was just one of those nights where time dragged on. Enid sat on the couch her back to the soft black leather, her feet curled in around her legs. The tv was on, muted so all she got was picture. It usually calmed her nerves and kept the memories at bay. Tonight it wasn’t helping.

She had tried every trick she had used growing up. The only other option she hadn’t tried was going outside. It was night time. Her house was surrounded by woods. There was no way she had going outside. While she loved being on the outside of the tiny town in the middle of nowhere, there were times when she didn’t like it. Now was one of them.

Her mind wandered back to the missing girl. They had never found her. Such a small town usually crimes to this degree never happened. The whole town had been in frenzy for a few days, lost budget, and called everything off. She hadn’t given up her money while she could have helped them. No one in the town really knew her. She came in once a week for groceries and was gone again. Besides of the random days when she needed things for shoots or extra material for her jewelry no one in the town really knew who she was.

The young woman was okay with it. But on nights like this she really did wish that she had someone she could call. She couldn’t burden her grandparents, plus they were already in bed and in a whole different time zone. So she was stuck trying to work out the unnerving feeling that something was wrong. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she remembered the last time she had felt this way. It hadn’t ended well.

“So long as the power stays on… I’ll stay here. Otherwise, I guess the bar is still open.” She whispered to herself as she flipped channels trying to find something to settle herself down.

She was reading underneath of the lamp on her loveseat when the phone went off. Enid jumped slightly before she calmed herself down and reached over to the stand and grabbed her phone. She pulled up the text message and read it before her brows furrowed.

“Colin Davis… oh yes, the man who had to approve the stuff for the house. That’s right. I had forgotten I’d had his number from when I first moved in. Wow… two years.” Then she remembered her own comment about the bar being open. At least she wasn’t the only one.

Should I go though? I’m not exactly a socialite and no one really knows who I am… Guess it could be a good first attempt right?

With a shrug of her shoulders she placed the phone down on the stand again, put a marker in the book and laid it beside of the phone. Standing up, she stretched and then headed upstairs cutting on lights as she went.

Once inside of her room she grabbed the mid drift, long sleeve, black pull over she had on earlier in the day and slipped it over the teal tank top she was wearing. She still had on her jeans with the large hole in the right knee, but she didn’t much care. It was only a bar after all and wasn’t like she was meeting a potential client or anything.

Slipping on her boots, she grabbed her keys and wallet from the nightstand beside of the bed and headed back down the stairs to the living room. She grabbed her phone and slipped it inside of her left pocket before heading to the garage. She pushed a button on the side of the wall and the garage door started to open.

Unlocking her car door, she slipped into the seat of the silver Dodge Caliber. Taking a deep breath, she started the car and backed out of the building before putting the door back down with the remote in her car. Finally clear, she started for the bar. It wasn’t a long drive; the bar was the first thing that she came across in the town. Though it was on the outer reaches of the town to begin with. Enid didn’t quite live inside of the small, rural town.

Less than fifteen minutes, she was pulling into the bar. She cut the engine and glanced around. Everything seemed perfectly normal, but she still couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. She didn’t know if it was just her nerves considering it was getting close to the anniversary of her parents’ deaths or not. She hoped that was all it was.

Getting out of the car, she locked it and headed into the building. It was a typical bar, she knew. Though she had never been one for going into them very often. Since she had turned twenty-one she was sure she could count on one hand the number of times she had had a drink or even been inside of a bar.

It didn’t take her long to locate Colin. He was the same as she remembered him from when she was building her house. Nodding to herself, her curly locks falling slightly into her face, she made her way over to him. Pushing her hair back she took a seat one down from the man. She didn’t know if she should say anything at all, but hey he did text first right? And it wasn’t like she had replied back.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Enid figured that was a good place to start the conversation, which was something she had never been good at. She preferred business contracts where they expected her to be a bit distant. Here she never quite learned what people expected from her. Not like they knew much about her at all. She preferred to keep it that way, but she didn’t want to come off as a total weirdo.

Enid listened to Colin as he spoke. She took in his appearance that looked very much like she vaguely remembered it being when he had come to the house's building location. She hadn't been happy when she found out she had to have things approved before the could be built. She was tired of living out of hotels and wanted her own place already. Plus, the locals hadn't really understood why she just didn't buy one of the existing houses or how she had the kind of money being so young that meant into building the type of house she had. She had just shrugged her shoulders at them. Let the small town talk, much like it was doing now with Faith.

Nodding her head she turned to the bartender and ordered herself something to drink. She was never a heavy drinker, she much didn't like it, but it was something to do to pass time and she sure didn't need caffeine in her system so coffee was out. "I don't see why they never asked for donations." She wasn't implying she would give money if someone had asked her. She would have, but again she didn't want to hint at the kind of money she had. If they knew... she understood small towns and as towns were dying, she wasn't it. It was a bad blood idea she didn't want to venture into because she wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Once the young woman received her drink she took a swallow before turning to face Colin again. "So why my company?" She wasn't an very social person. She had been surprised he even had her number. Maybe it was that small town thing again. She didn't always understand small towns at least not everything about them. There were some things she understood perfectly. Then as she listened to his explanation, a small smile spread across her face. She took another drink to hide the fact.

"You wouldn't be getting anywhere near my bed." She muttered. No one had been near her house since its completion two years prior. They didn't know anything about it except those like Colin who had approved certain things she had wanted to build. The interior design would be a mystery to even him. It pays to get to know people? Really? I never thought of it like that. Enid shook her head at the thought. She was a loner and she didn't plan on changing that anytime soon. There were just some things she didn't want or need other people finding out about her.

"You could say that..." She replied. Sleep came easy most nights. But recently even before Faith's disappearance she had been getting much more restless. She was spending more and more time outside of the town and away from home. She was coming up with any excuse that she could. She didn't quite understand why, she just knew she didn't want to be here. Something was telling her to get out while she still could.

It didn’t take much to realize that she wasn’t the only one Colin had texted and she couldn’t blame him. How many people would actually be up this late and even willing to go out? Not many. Enid smiled lightly at the male not really sure how to react or respond to the situation. She didn’t really recognize him, but there was no shock. She didn’t know a whole lot of people in the town she’d lived in for two years.

But what he was suggesting was the very thing that Colin and she had just been talking about. They weren’t on a date. This is why she never went into public if she could help it. People tended to get the wrong idea. It was the look on the firefighter’s face in reaction to Niko that made the situation even funnier and she found herself trying not to laugh.

She listened to them banter. Yeah she was used to people getting the wrong impression and while she was never comfortable in social situations, she figured this was a crowd that she could handle. She barely heard Colin’s next words as her eyes landed on the newcomer’s camera. Her eyes light up and she went to grab it before she stopped herself.

“Sorry, may I?” She asked pointing to the camera. She wanted to compare it to the ones she owned. While she knew his equipment wouldn’t compare to her professional stock, it was nice to see people who liked photography. In a small town it was hard to find interests the same as other people. Maybe this outing wasn’t going to be so bad after all. It wasn’t like anyone knew her job, so it worked to her advantage. They didn’t know she knew anything about the world other than having money from somewhere to build her house. Working outside of the town was coming in handy because she loved showing people up and impressing them. Which was one thing she hoped she could do here in front of the two men who seemed content to pick on each other.