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“To check out the place. Aren’t you curious if the inside is as messy as the outside?”
Actually, I had darker curiosities. “Of course.”
“Come on, then.” He pulled me inside.
“Harvey, stop it.”
Donna walked through the arch in the dining room. She stopped at the sight of us.
“Can I use your restroom?” I threw out the first thing I could think of, guilt frying my cheeks over an open flame.
“She has a weak bladder,” Harvey explained.
I shot him a glare for his help.
“Oh, sure.” Donna pointed toward the kitchen. “There’s a small bathroom in the utility room, past the pantry.”
“Why don’t you wait outside for me,” I told Harvey. I didn’t want him snooping around—with or without me.
“Fine.” Harvey growled low in his throat. “But make it quick. It’s hot out there.”
“Can I get you something to drink, Mr. Schwarzenegger?” Donna followed me into the kitchen.
“A beer would be great.”
Donna’s laugh had a sharp edge. “You sound like my husband.”
I turned down a short hall just off the kitchen, rushed past a washer and a half-opened dryer, and shut myself in a small bathroom. Unfortunately, I couldn’t hear a thing going on in the other room between Harvey and Donna, which made my nervous perspiration turn into a full-on anxious sweat.
Where was Jeff? Where was Kelly’s baby brother? And why hadn’t Donna cleaned the toilet in the last year?
I hovered in the opposite corner of the corroded toilet and counted to twenty, then flushed with my shoe. Turning the doorknob through a protecting layer of dress, I tiptoed back into the laundry room.
As I walked by the half-opened dryer door, I froze on my toes. A suitcase sat on top of the Maytag, its top unzipped and half-filled with pastel-colored clothes. I crept over to it, taking a closer peek. They weren’t little-girl clothes, as I’d initially thought. Donna was going somewhere, and in a hurry based on the way she’d just tossed in her clothes instead of folding them.
Did Jeff know? Maybe Kelly would.
I stepped back and glanced down at the trash can next to the dryer. The back of my neck prickled at the sight of a bouquet of mixed flowers crammed in with lint wads and dryer sheets. Red roses, yellow carnations, and white daisies stared up at me. A little purple envelope lay crinkled on top of one of the daisies. I reached into the can.
“What are you doing?”
I jumped at the sound of Donna’s voice behind me. With my body drumming, fright and flight pushing and shoving inside me, I whirled around. “Sorry. I saw the flowers and …” flight won and my mind flew off with any good excuses. “Sorry.”
“I gave Kelly’s backpack to Mr. Schwarzenegger.”
“Great.” I squeezed past her into the kitchen, my arms wanting to flap on out of there, too.
Harvey stood by the open front door, drinking a can of beer. His gaze was questioning as I approached. I shook my head slightly. Something was definitely wrong at Kelly’s house, and I couldn’t escape to my Bronco fast enough.
The hot sunshine did little to remove the chill covering my back. “Thanks for letting me use the restroom,” I said on my way down the steps.
Donna followed us outside. “Would you mind letting Kelly stay two nights with you?”
I nodded. Sure, whatever, just let me get the hell away from this place. “I’ll bring her back Monday morning.”
“Monday evening will work better for Jeff.”
Where was Donna going to be Monday night? “Evening it is,” I agreed from my driver’s side door.
