Chương 10
“That’s never reassuring.”
Three minutes later, my phone rang.
Kyle.
I answered.
“What?”
His voice was low.
“Why are you checking the cameras?”
“Because your friend entered the house at six thirty.”
“He had permission.”
“To get headphones.”
“Yes.”
“From the patio storage bench?”
Silence.
“Kyle.”
“Just leave it alone.”
I looked at the screen.
“What did he take?”
“Nothing.”
“I watched him take something.”
“You don’t know what you watched.”
“Then tell me.”
“It’s not your business.”
“Normally, I’d agree.”
I glanced toward the open gate.
“But I’m the one physically here.”
Kyle exhaled angrily.
“Jesus, Dan.”
“What?”
“You always do this.”
“Do what?”
“Turn everything into some management problem.”
I almost admired the timing.
“Your friend entered the backyard before sunrise and removed something from Mom and Dad’s property.”
“It’s mine.”
“Okay.”
That changed things.
“What is it?”
“None of your business.”
“If it’s yours, why didn’t you take it on the cruise?”
He did not answer.
I heard voices behind him, then a door close.
When Kyle spoke again, the defensiveness had thinned into something else.
“Just forget you saw it.”
I stopped leaning against the doorframe.
“What did Evan take?”
“Daniel.”
“What?”
“For once in your life, can you not make something bigger than it is?”
The words were almost identical to Mom’s.
Different voice.
Same instruction.
Stay quiet.
Stay useful.
Don’t create difficulty.
I looked across the living room at the sign beneath the blank display.
Eight restaurants.
Hiring.
Training.
Safety.
Operations.
Budgets.
Facilities.
Compliance.
People.
At work, when someone told me not to make something bigger than it was, experience usually meant it was already bigger than they wanted me to know.
“I’m not doing anything,” I said.
“Good.”
“But I’m not forgetting it either.”
Kyle swore under his breath.
Then he hung up.
Owen said, “Well, that sounded healthy.”
“I think something else is going on.”
“Probably.”
“Do I want to know?”
“No.”
I nodded slowly.
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
Buddy pushed past my leg into the kitchen.
I followed him and put the cream shoe on the counter.
Then I looked at it again.
Gold buckle.
Mud on the sole.
Women’s size seven.
Not Megan’s style.
Not Mom’s either.
Inside, near the heel, someone had written a tiny letter S in black marker.
I stared at it.
Spencer.
No.
That made no sense.
Unless the S belonged to someone else.
I set the shoe down.
For the first time since waking up, the restaurant furniture stopped feeling like the strangest thing in my parents’ house.
I left the shoe where it was.
Not because I had decided it mattered, but because touching it again felt like volunteering for somebody else’s problem.
Buddy drank noisily from his bowl while I stood at the kitchen counter and watched my phone remain silent.
Kyle did not call back.
Neither did Megan.
Mom sent one message that said, Put the room back today.
I did not answer.
At nine, I drove home with Buddy in the passenger seat despite his opinion of both elevators and parking garages.
He spent the entire trip sitting upright like a disapproving old man.
When we reached my building, he planted all four paws on the concrete and refused to enter.
“Come on.”
He looked at the garage ramp.
“Nothing has ever happened to you in there.”
Buddy backed up.
“You live with people who drink celery juice voluntarily, but this is where you draw the line?”
A woman carrying groceries laughed as she passed.
“Need help?”
“He’s negotiating.”
She looked at Buddy.
“He’s winning.”
She was right.
I ended up walking him around the block to the lobby entrance.
He accepted the elevator only after a maintenance worker got in with us carrying a bucket of tools.
Buddy pressed himself against my leg and stared at the changing floor numbers as if memorizing our route for a future lawsuit.
My apartment felt smaller with him in it.
He sniffed every corner, inspected my shoes, discovered his reflection in the dark television screen, and barked once at himself.
“Good.”
I dropped my backpack.
“Now I live with two idiots.”
He wagged.
I had barely made coffee when Priya called.
“I know you’re on vacation.”
“I’m not.”
There was a pause.
“Okay.”
“I mean I’m still off work.”
“Less okay.”
“What happened?”
“The Tukwila walk-in is warming.”
I closed my eyes.
“How warm?”
“Forty-four and climbing.”
“Compressor?”
“Vendor thinks maybe evaporator fan.”
“Move everything high-risk.”
“Already doing it.”
“Renton has freezer space.”
“I called them.”
“Of course you did.”
“I’m not completely helpless when you leave.”
“That sounded worse than I meant it.”
“It sounded exactly like you meant it.”
I smiled despite myself.
Priya had run restaurants longer than I had been a regional manager.
She was fifty-one, terrifying with payroll, patient with teenagers, and unwilling to pretend incompetence for anybody’s comfort.
“Do you need me?”
“No.”
“Then why did you call?”
“Because you replied to my message at eleven last night with just Thanks.”
“So?”
“You use punctuation when you’re annoyed.”
I looked at my coffee.
“That is ridiculous.”
“You also answer complete sentences unless something is wrong.”
“I hate that you notice things.”
“It’s my job.”
“No, your job is keeping Tukwila from poisoning people.”
“That part is handled.”
She waited.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“Full sentence.”
“Priya.”
“I’m done.”
“You’re not.”
“No.”
I sat at the kitchen island.
Buddy pushed his nose against my knee.
“My family left without me.”
Priya did not speak.
I continued before I could regret starting.
“They went on the Alaska trip.”
“The one you’ve been planning for months?”
“Yeah.”
“And you didn’t?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“They gave my cabin to Megan’s boyfriend.”
Another silence.
This one had weight.
“That’s why you’re not in Alaska.”
“Correct.”
“Where are you?”
“Home.”
“And the dog?”
I looked down.
Buddy looked up.
May you like
“How did you know about the dog?”
“You mentioned your mother’s dog three times during planning calls because you were worried the kennel wouldn’t take his medication schedule.”
