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When I got there, the small lot was mostly empty, save for the car I’d begun to know as the audiobook narrator and the van that belonged to a local death metal group that had changed their names so many times in the past year that I didn’t even know what to call them anymore.
And, of course, Carl’s vintage Dodge Charger from the sixties, its black paint and chrome in pristine condition.
My steps felt a bit heavy as I made my way through the lot and toward the door, finding no one behind the front desk.
Figuring maybe Carl was in the bathroom being sick, I went behind the desk, making a fresh pot of coffee, and starting to clean up the disaster that the desk had become with Carl and Andrew mostly manning it since I’d been gone.
I was nobody’s neat freak, but there was chocolate stuck to the desk, and a pile of mail that included sensitive financial information, and could be grabbed by anyone who happened in the building.
By the time there was some space to actually rest my phone, the audiobook narrator was walking out.
She stopped short at seeing me, giving me a surprised smile.
“You’re back!”
“I am. I was forced into a vacation,” I admitted.
“It looks like it did you well,” she said. “You’re all glowy.”
Glowy.
I waited until she was done to grab a mirror I kept in the drawer, checking out my face, making sure I wasn’t, you know, glowing.
As in with child.
I was on the Pill, of course. And we’d been using condoms… almost all the time.
Shit.
Only almost.
I was never careless about that kinda thing, but I was also never as serious about someone as I was about Finn.
The thing was, I didn’t get a monthly cycle. Not since I changed which Pill I was taking a few years back. I maybe got a few a year, so it wasn’t like I would know I was late if that was the case.
Maybe I would take a quick stop at the pharmacy on the way home, grab a test, and take it. Just for the peace of mind. Then grab some extra condoms if it was negative.
I mean, it wasn’t like I would be horribly upset if it was positive, not if Finn was the father. But I was hoping we weren’t at that point yet, that we had more time alone together.
When another twenty or so minutes passed with no sign of Carl, I decided to move out from behind the desk, and go down the hall to the bathroom.
I mean, no one liked being bothered when they were having stomach issues, but I wanted to make sure he hadn’t passed out or something in there.
I walked past the closed door of the first studio. Even with the thick soundproofing Carl had put up, you could hear the guitars, the drumbeat, and the screaming vocals of that metal band as they practiced a song that sounded like an ode to a serial killer.
On the door was a sheet of printer paper that they’d taped there, likely so their friends could show up to listen to their practice without walking into the wrong room.
Macchiato Murder was, apparently, their new band name. Which was better than their last one: The Furious Fistfuckers. And leaps and bounds better than their original name: Syphilitic Scrotum.
“Progress, boys, progress,” I murmured to myself as I moved further down the hall. There at the end was the bathroom, but I didn’t quite get there.
Because the door to the next studio was left slightly open.
And inside was a sight that had my heart dropping to my feet.
A crumpled form of a man over near the couch at the side of the room.
It wasn’t like there was never any violence at the studio. Sometimes the bands came in drunk or high. And artists are known for their egos at times. Sometimes things got ugly and people got hurt. We’d needed to call the police more than a handful of times over the years.
It wasn’t sheer panic that rose in my system right away, thinking someone got hurt, and their friends booked it out of there.
Serious? Sure. But not a first for me.
It wasn’t until I saw the shoes—big, clunky, ancient Docs with a bunch of paint splatter on them from spray painting a wall outside of a concert venue once, that the panic surged through me.
Carl.
Had he… collapsed?
Had a heart attack?
Stroke?
He was old enough for either. Years of living hard and fast would have made it more likely than it was even for the average person.
Was that why he hadn’t been feeling good? Had something been off with his heart or brain?
Guilt mingled with the panic, immediately thinking this was my fault, that working was too stressful for him these days, that he never would have collapsed if he hadn’t been working for me.
