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“We can tell certain things even from a picture. He’s a bad apple. You don’t want to believe it, that’s your choice. You asked what the look was, and that’s what it was. We all saw it.” She shrugged and went back to sucking on her lollipop.
She was right. I’d asked. I couldn’t get mad that she’d told me something I didn’t like, and definitely disagreed with.
“Thank you for telling me the truth.” I wanted to get up and leave. This day was already too much, and this was the last straw, but I wasn’t going to skulk off, so I sat, sucking on my lollipop.
The silence spread until Dice stood. “I got a thing I gotta get to.”
Connor stood. “I’ll help you out with that.”
“Yeah, I’ve got a thing to do,” Cookie said, getting up.
They all bailed on me. My heaviness must’ve been spreading outward. I sat there for a few minutes, staring at my phone, which didn’t ring. Then it hit me. Kaden wasn’t rushing back in here, and I’d scared the rest of them off. For the first time since I’d been here, I had the place to myself, and I wasn’t going to waste this gift.
Chapter Sixteen
As far as I was concerned, Kaden’s pronouncement this morning that I was a possible spy had drawn a line, a big, ugly line. Before today, there had been no trust but a thin layer of civility. After that conversation, there was no doubt we were fully on opposite sides. Another small movement or two from either side and it would be an all-out war. As far as I was concerned, the enemy didn’t deserve any loyalties, and this morning, that was what he’d declared himself to be.
I walked around the lounge first, checking every drawer and shelf. That search only turned up a bunch of old-style phones, a video store’s worth of DVDs, and more remotes than made sense for a single television.
I continued down the hall, toward my bull’s-eye. There was no way Kaden would leave the door to his office unlocked. I’d have to find a screwdriver or something to jimmy it open. If that didn’t work, there were probably videos of how to pick a lock. You could find a video on how to perform heart surgery these days.
I grasped the handle, and it turned. Well, this was interesting. I swung the door open, and then jumped back, waiting for some sort of trap that would spring out.
Nothing. I tossed my phone a foot into the room, seeing if something would get triggered. Still no ax swinging down, so I jumped in headfirst, grabbing the first folder on the nearest shelf.
Flipping it open, I saw the pages were empty. I went through the entire folder, not finding anything but blank pages. I grabbed another, and more empty pages. Another file, and more nothing. None of these folders had anything in them. What kind of sham was this? I went through every single piece of paper in there and couldn’t find a single line of writing.
There were papers sitting on his desk, but they were all blank. The drawers had papers that were blank. I combed every inch of the room and only found blanks. As far as gathering an arsenal of information against him, things weren’t going well.
I was about to abandon the office to see where else I could search when my phone lit up with the landlord’s number. I leapt for where I’d left the phone on the floor.
“Jose? This is Billie from your rental on 222 Franklin.”
As soon as I was greeted with dead air, I knew exactly how this conversation was going to go.
“Billie?” he said. “I don’t have a renter named Billie over there. I’ve got Georgina, and her mother who died. Who are you?”
How many times had I met this man? Seen him as he bubblegummed something together in my house? Wanted to vomit as he stared at my ass? Yet he’d completely forgotten me already. It was pointless to remind him when he might just forget me in a few minutes.
“I misspoke. I meant my mother rents your house. I need to take care of the rent there for…” I had a bag full of money, more than I’d need, since right now, I had no bills. “I’m going to send you rent payment for the next six months, all right? It’ll go out today.”
“You are?” he asked, stunned enough that it was clear this wasn’t a typical thing for him.
“Yes. All I ask is that you don’t send the rent statement to the house, okay?”
“Where do you want me to send it?”
The door to Nowhere was opening.
“The garbage.”
I hit end and slid my phone in my pocket as Kaden walked in, finding me in the hall, the door to his office open.
He stopped beside me. “How’d that work out for you?” he asked, tilting his head toward his ransacked office.
“Not very well. You think you’d bother to fill out a few of those papers just in case,” I said. If he could insinuate I was a spy, I wasn’t above calling him a con artist.
He laughed.
