I start to get up from my stool. “Should I…?”
Lina holds up one hand.
Seconds later, a string of curses, some in English and others in Greek, stream out through the open office door. He’s Greek American, with not much of an accent since he spends most of his days dealing with English customers. If he’s reverting to Greek, then things must be going terribly in there.
Lina lowers her hand and says, “He’s fine. Too much stuff in a too-small office. His hoarding tendencies don’t help. He’ll figure it out.” With a quick, light touch, she sets out checks in black check presenters embossed with Nico’s on her tray, alongwith glasses of water and mints. “And he has to learn to let things go. I can’t get him to listen to Lora or me, so the next best way to learn is through pain.”
Damn.
This right here is why no customer would dare mess with Lina. It’s also why I will never,ever, get on her wrong side. That side lies unimaginable pain.
I sit down and leave Nico to deal with his hoarding tendencies as Lina walks away to serve her waiting customers, a flurry of wide smiles, efficiency, and a briskness that speaks of years of experience handling people. I take a sip of my now stone-cold coffee and wince, pushing the cup away as I ponder what to do about Rose.
“We should be putting the house on the market soon,” Win says, back from checking on something in the kitchen and resting his elbows on the hatch. His white apron is surprisingly clean for having spent a busy lunch period in there on his own.
“I know.” We should have listed it in spring, but the work has taken longer than any of us expected, so it’s looking like we’ll finish at the end of June, just a few weeks away.
We bought the foreclosed six-bedroom farmhouse as a project to flip to get a smaller, more affordable place of our own. The house was run down but gorgeous, and the mortgage is just barely affordable, but absolutely not for the long term.
Murph, a construction worker from Wyoming, decided to stick around Rios after finishing work on the condo down the street. He was happy to help fix up the house in exchange for a free place to stay, though he’s recently started paying rent, or we’d be seriously struggling.
With a couple more rooms to decorate, and a successful visit from a realtor who was ready to bite our hands off to list it with him, it’s looking like we’ve added at least fifty grand to the house, which is much better than any of us could have hoped for.
“We’ll just hold off for a bit,” I say, thinking of Rose and her cute son. “If we can give Rose and Ben a place to stay while they’re in Rios, then I’m in no hurry to sell just yet.”
Win nods his agreement, straightening when an alarm sounds in the kitchen and I get to my feet to return to work while he gets back to cooking.
Chapter 4
Rose
Yawning, I stretch on a hard, lumpy motel bed, my muscles aching.
It wasnota good night, and not only because I think this mattress killed my back.
It took forever to settle Ben down for the night after I made a quick, easy dinner in our snug kitchenette—pasta and jarred sauce for Ben, nothing for me. These walls are paper-thin, and we kept being woken by a too-loud TV from the room next door.
But before that, the meal at the diner and exploring downtown Rios when my morning sickness had eased was nice. The waitress at the diner was weird. Nice, but definitely a bit weird. As I slowly wake up, I reflect on Lina’s less-than-subtle offer yesterday afternoon.
“If you were thinking of staying for my son’s birthday, you couldn’t find a better place than with Joel. He’s a firefighter, in case he didn’t say so, and a nice guy. He lives with Win, who I’ve known forever.” She points toward the kitchen hatch, where a tall, dark-haired man in his late thirties is singing.
He’s yodeling like the feral cat I sometimes heard late at night when I was trying to sleep. It’s bad, but he seems into it, and people sitting at the counter are smiling, so theymust not mind his bad, loud singing. His enthusiasm and unselfconsciousness are making me want to smile too, and Ben keeps looking at him and giggling.
I turn back to Lina, wondering at the sharp turn in our conversation. “I just asked for the check.”
“Right.” She hands it to me. “Here it is. But it felt like the right time to mention Joel, his spare rooms, and the large backyard for Ben to run around in. Well, have a great day now.”
And she takes off before I can say a word.
“She was very strange,” I mutter, staring up at the beige ceiling.
“Ready for breakfast, Ben?” I get up and turn to Ben’s bed in our twin room.
Except the bed beside mine is empty, the sheets are messy, and there is absolutely no sign of my son. My gaze darts around the room.
Our door is open.
I go from tired and slightly nauseous to wide awake and panicking in under two seconds.
