“Uh, Ms. Owens?” Bea sounded confused. “I’m just down the hall at Ms. Albright’s AP Lit study session, like we talked about yesterday. Why are you calling me?”
Damn. She’d forgotten. And she hated to interrupt a study session, especially one led by Candy Albright. The ringleader of the Frankenstein IsNotthe Monster Initiative never forgot, never forgave, and doled out vengeance the likes of which Bianca and the girls’ softball team couldn’t even imagine.
Didn’t matter. Candy could plot Rose’s death later.
“Are you staying with your father right now?” No point checking her reflection in the rearview. A disaster didn’t magically repair itself when you stared at it. “Because he was out today with back issues, and Ms. Williams said he might not return this week.”
“Hold on.” Rustling, and the sound of a door creaking open, then closed. “I had no idea he stayed home today, Ms. Owens. I’m with Mom this week, and Dad sounded fine on the phone last night. I just figured we hadn’t crossed paths today by chance.”
The girl’s words began to trip over each other. “I’d get over there now, but this study session counts as extra credit, and my grade is right on the edge between an A and a B. Mom and I had plans for tonight, but maybe I could—”
“Honey.” When Bea kept talking, her voice getting higher and higher with stress, Rose repeated herself. “Honey. It’s okay. I’ll take care of your dad. I’m at your house now. My main question is: How do I get in?”
Once Bea had shared the location of their extra key—if Martin insisted on using a fake rock, he really needed to buy a more convincing specimen—she told Rose a little more about how her father’s back issues usually manifested themselves.
“Sometimes when he wakes up, he instinctively tenses, and it makes things a million times worse. You should definitely just go in, instead of calling ahead or ringing the doorbell. And if he tries to tell you he’s fine and you can leave, don’t listen. He’s a great nurse but a terrible patient.” Bea paused, her tone changing in a way Rose couldn’t quite define. “Also, I’m not sure I should tell you this, but…”
“What?” Rose wanted all the information she could get. “What, Bea?”
The girl immediately gave in. “Sometimes he needs stuff in the middle of the night. He gets sooo thirsty, Ms. Owens, and he has to take his muscle relaxants and ibuprofen at certain times. Is there any way you can stay there tonight? It would really ease my mind.”
Rose winced. All night?
“I know that’s a lot to ask. You don’t have to,” Bea said, her voice growing forlorn. “He’ll probably be fine all alone. Or I guess I can tell my mom she can’t see me tonight, even though she’s made all those special plans.”
What kind of monster could ignore such a sincere plea? “No, no. I’ll do it.”
“You promise?”
Bea sounded oddly excited. Or maybe that was relief?
“I promise,” Rose said.
After ending the call, she walked up the front steps of the small, tidy home and let herself in, even though it went against all of her privacy-obsessed instincts.
At the sound of the door shutting, Martin called out from somewhere in the house, “Bea, I’m fine, and you need to be at your study session. Go back before Ms. Albright puts a hit out on you. And another on me for distracting you from your studies.”
She slipped off her heels just inside the door, loath to damage his gleaming hardwood floors, and followed the sound of his voice.
“Not Bea,” she called back.
Utter silence.
She passed an eat-in kitchen. Bea’s messy bedroom. A gray-and-white bathroom.
Still no response.
The poor man was probably too dazed from pain and drugs to understand what was happening. “That said, Candy may still put a hit out on you and your daughter. Not to mention me, for interrupting Bea’s study session.” She knocked on a half-open door, the last one at the end of the hall, forcing herself not to look inside. “Are you decent in there?”
“I guess.” He sounded befuddled. “Rose? Is that you?”
“It’s me. Unless the robotics team has gotten really, really sophisticated. May I come in?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Yeah.”
Poking her head around the edge of the door, she braced herself for whatever currently awaited her within his bedroom. “See? Not a robot.”
Her introductory eyeful of Martin in his natural habitat was definitely memorable.
