She shrugs, and my gaze dips down. If she ever showed off her cleavage like some of the customers did tonight, I’d forget every damn order.
“I had a late breakfast.”
I don’t have to ask if it’s me she doesn’t want to be around. Why am I trying to make nice? She’s not my family, and she’s not my job. She doesn’t want to be around me, and I need it to stay that way. It’ll be easier in the end, but it’s harder now.
“Night, Meredith.” I open the fridge and dig out ham, cheese, and lettuce, and I feel like a jackass the whole time.
When I turn around, she’s gone, stealing upstairs so quietly that not a stair creaks. Her light footsteps move around above my head, and the comfort of hearing them loosens the knots in my muscles. I’ve gotten used to hearing her in this house that used to be such a big part of me. But the shriek of my name from upstairs as I linger in the kitchen is entirely new.
FIFTEEN
CALDER
I ditch the food and rocket upstairs, skidding to a stop in front of my old room. Other than Meredith standing in the middle of it, doing a slow spin, the first things that register are the warm, cheerful colors. My room did not look like this twenty years ago. It seems like a sunset vomited on the walls, but I can’t tell what has her frozen in place.
“What’s wrong?”
“Were you in here?”
Alarm dings faintly in my head. “No. Why?”
She pivots in a slow circle. “I can’t…It’s just…My stuff has been moved.”
Clothing hangs half out of a laundry basket in the far corner. A lacy white bra is draped over at least three jewelry boxes on top of the dresser. Meredith hasn’t even worn earrings since I’ve been here. A pair of cowboy boots props open the closet door. Her bed is unmade, and her nightstand is covered with all sorts of lotion that probably smell like a field of wildflowers in June.
“How can you tell?” I believe she thinks someone tampered with her disorder, but…could she just be seeing ghosts?
She hugs herself. “It’s not that messy.”
Yes. It is. “Just asking.”
“Don’t you smell that?”
I inhale. Only her wildflowers-in-June scent caresses my nose. I shake my head.
“It’s like cologne.” She sniffs. “Aftershave? It’s really faint, but I can smell it.”
“You sure it’s not mine drifting through the vents?”
“Yours is a mix of citrus and cedar and probably, like, bergamot or something expensive like that. This is cheaper.”
I cock a brow, and she scowls at me. She knows my smell? I’ve worn the same aftershave for years, used the same soap, and I don’t like cologne.
“Anything been”—I look at her unkempt surroundings—“moved?”
She gestures to the clothes on the dresser. “I always set my pajamas on top of my jewelry box if I’m going wear them again, but they’re draped over the books.” She crosses to the closet, swings the door open, and kicks the boots aside.
Her untidiness is refreshing. Her room is more lived-in than my place in Denver. Meredith’s room is disordered, but she has a system. Yet it’s possible, with the high emotions of the past week, she shifted her clothing a foot to the left. If she’s right, what does that mean?
The shadow from the night I arrived at the house runs through my head. Could it have been an animal? I clench my teeth at the thought of someone coming into this house, into her room, touching her things. Why? Who had their hands on her fucking pajamas?
When she squats, I have to look away. Too late. The image of her hips flaring and the waistband of her jeans tugging down while her polo rides up to bare a swath of skin is branded into my head.
“I have a safe in here.” Her words are muffled. “I don’t lock it.” She rises. “I can’t tell if the shoes I keep on top of it have beenmoved, but I want to say yes. Nothing inside is missing, though. But I just keep my birth certificate and Social Security card in there.”
“If they got up here, they went through the rest of the place. Come with me.”
“Where are you going?”
