Page 61 of Worth of Waste

Karen made sure to toss that goddamn card in the garbage as she left the café, and she didn’t bother going back to work, either. She called in sick, saying something hadn’t agreed with her and she would be back tomorrow if all was well in the morning. Thankfully, her boss didn’t question her on the sudden call.

She picked Junior up from daycare, no longer appreciating the snow or the festive decorations lining the streets.

Her mind was somewhere else entirely.

The taste of fear hung heavily on the back of her tongue.

It was only when she was back at home, her son was sleeping soundly in his crib, that Karen finally felt like she could take a breath. Not a good one, though. No, that only came after she had called Dino.

As was the usual for him, the call went to voicemail. Since his release a little over a month before, he made every attempt to visit her and the baby a few times a week if he could, and he always brought something along for Junior to have when he came.

Karen let him into her bed every time, too.

She wanted something normal with Dino. She needed stability.

And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to ask, for fear of how he might respond to her. She didn’t want to tell him that she needed more than someone who just came and went, just in case he stopped coming altogether.

That … that would kill her.

So, she took what he gave.

She didn’t ask for more.

When Dino’s name lit up the screen of her phone, signaling he was finally calling her back twenty minutes after she had called him, Karen took a huge breath in that didn’t hurt.

No, it felt like relief.

And that was every reason why she didn’t ask for more.

Even getting as little as she did from him, he was still giving her something.

Something that felt like home.

More could wait.

For now.

Dino arrived at Karen’s apartment less than an hour after hanging up the phone. He didn’t even knock, just used the spare key she had given him to get in, shrugged his coat off, and found her in the living room. She had found a comfortable spot sitting in front of the bay window beside the lit up Christmas tree, watching snow fall outside on the walkway in front of the apartment building.

“I didn’t see you park,” Karen said.

Dino came to stand in front of her, kneeling down and placing his hands on her thighs. For a long moment, he stayed like that, touching her softly and being silent as he did so. It was enough to ground the anxiety that had been rushing her nerves like a tidal wave for the last hour.

“I parked a couple blocks away and came in the back,” Dino explained. “Just to be safe—seems you’re on someone’s radar, now.”

Karen frowned. “Am I?”

“You did say it was a detective, right? Not an agent.”

“That’s what he said.”

Dino’s expression gave nothing away. “Okay, tell me everything that happened. Don’t leave anything out, huh?”

Karen did as he wanted, going over the strange encounter with the detective and how it had seemed as though it came right out of the blue. Dino waited her explanation out, never speaking until she was finally done.

“You haven’t been approached at all before this?” he asked.

“No.”