Catch up on the previous chapters here
He often thought about hiring someone to clean his house, maybe once every other week to take care of the dusting and the vacuuming and those chores that didn’t need to be done every day but still needed to be done. What stopped him most times was the thought that he’d have to let someone in, perhaps with her own key, and he wouldn’t always know what she was up to if he was out. The laptop was password-protected and didn’t contain his most personal documents, but those were in his desk. He could lock that room, but then he’d still have to clean it himself, anyway, and just ask Bluebeard: locking a room was the surest way to make sure someone forced her way inside.
The second reason was the fact that he didn’t want to have to endure all the chuckles. They all thought of the irony—oh, the guy with the cleaning service wants to hire someone to clean his own house—and not the fact that most people came home from work and got to do something other than work. Besides, he was expensive. Paying someone to do it technically cost less than taking the time to do it himself.
He was past the usual everyday or every week sort of cleaning, anyway. If someone was desperate, he’d take a job cleaning an apartment between tenants, but he didn’t do that if it was just the normal wear-and-tear. His specialty was deep cleaning, the kind of thing where people didn’t have the supplies on hand, or maybe you couldn’t even get them at Meijer.
Crime scenes. A number of his jobs were crime scenes, after the tape came down and the scene was released but before the family or the landlord was comfortable coming back in.
Landlords were better than family members. He knew just how hard to push to up the price but keep the job. Families were harder, because usually they were grieving, which either meant they were too lost to know if he asked for too much or they felt the world owed them.
Maybe the world did. He could certainly relate to the feeling that things were sometimes entirely unfair, and that other people—bad people—had too many good things happen to them. It defied that deep-seated sense of balance. And yes, he knew what it was like to have someone taken away from you, without notice. Without the chance to even say anything. So sometimes he bent, but never too much.
People talked, and if they heard you were an old softy at heart …
He lived alone and couldn’t remember the last time he’d had anyone over. FedEx and UPS didn’t count, especially since they never got past the entryway. Sometimes they’d open the front door, if he was home, and stick a package inside if the weather was iffy. That was fine. He had cameras on all the doors, anyway. There was the one on the doorbell, the popular kind everyone seemed to have these days—everyone practically had to have these days if you didn’t want kids stealing your packages—but the others were his usual: the kind that so many people overlooked.
Okay, there were some drawbacks to not being the guy cleaning out apartments between renters, but what was he looking for? He’d already found her. Found her, lost her, and now he was looking for her again, this time looking for a very specific her instead of this nebulous, perfect idea of her.
A very specific her that people were making sure stayed far, far away from him. There was a whole group on that side, with all kinds of specialties and expertise and degrees to make that end of the seesaw plant itself on the ground. If he tried asking outright, going around and saying her name, then all was lost. They’d vaporize him and she wouldn’t even know it. She’d just be stuck there, waiting for him, and he’d never come.
The book tour was just about finalized. He was coming.
He couldn’t be absolutely positive she’d know about it, but everyone was raving about the book. Since You Went Away—what a stupid title. They were trying to make him into the next Wally Lamb, stealing song lines for titles, but whatever. That was fine. Wally Lamb was big. Oprah’s book club big. The bigger the book got, the more likely she’d see it, no matter how small of a town she lived in.
It was that patience thing again. He had to wait, and keep his own spirits up even if he didn’t see her on this tour. There might have to be another book—hell, he’d already started working on another book—and another tour, to give her time to find it and realize and make plans to show up. He didn’t know how short a leash they had her on, after all, so she might not even be up to date on world events.
That wasn’t a topic he liked to dwell on. What about the COVID lockdowns? Had she been alone, with maybe only a single agent as her lifeline? Did they use that international event to make her world even smaller? And what about after? Did they squish her down in a box, a single room, and make sure she never wanted to leave it?
It was the doom thinking getting to him again. The need to plan for the worst-case scenario so he had a reaction at the ready. It didn’t matter that he so rarely had to use such a plan—the point was that having one made him feel better. It calmed him, and centered him, to make sure he wouldn’t have to think if the worst actually happened. He was prepared for it, so anything else would be easy.
Well. The worst would be if she were dead. That was something he didn’t like to think about because, if that were true, it was all pointless. There was no coming back. No getting her back. Just … nothing. If she were locked up, someone’s prisoner, he could get her out. Find her—somehow, find her—and get her out, but if she were dead …
Death was the end. You couldn’t just turn the page on that, forgive and forget and whatever else they might have to do once they finally reunited.
It was possible she thought he didn’t want her anymore. It was possible—another idea that was hard to grasp, not that he ever really tried—that she’d given up on him and moved on. Sure, he’d been there for her and helped her, stepping up the way no one else had, but then … this gap. They took her away, some nebulous they, and he couldn’t find her. He could watch out for her and protect her, but he couldn’t find her.
Maybe he simply wasn’t good enough. If he’d been good enough, he would’ve found her.
Everyone wanted to know they were worth fighting for. She was, honestly and truly, but it probably didn’t look that way to her. Wherever she was.
He shook his head and went to sit down at his desk, reaching not for his laptop or the legal pads but a spiral notebook he’d bought at Meijer. The new book. He’d written the first one longhand, so he figured he might as well do that for the second. Even though it wouldn’t need as many drafts before he typed it up.
This one was a love story, too, but he’d make it have a happy ending. Thom didn’t mind that Since You Went Away—God, such a stupid title—didn’t have one, but of course it bugged him. She deserved a happy ending, especially after everything else that happened to her. All the people who’d used her and couldn’t care enough to even look for her. Hell, maybe she’d run because she couldn’t stand any of them anymore. Just because the worst sea lampreys were gone didn’t mean others couldn’t swim up and take their place, so maybe she’d finally put herself first and laid down some boundaries.
That was distressing, because he really should have found her by now if she was escaping the others. The bloodsuckers. Maybe she thought he was tech savvy in a blanket sort of way, instead of knowing his way around some specific pieces. Or that he’d have connections or …
It didn’t matter. He had the first book, and he had to work on this second one. Thom was expecting it, and there’d be buzz on the tour, and Thom was all about leveraging that into an even bigger book deal. He’d need it, because he probably wasn’t going to keep up the business as things moved forward. Especially if moving was in his future.
Moving somewhere closer to her.
He opened the notebook to the page where he’d left off. This woman’s name was Catherine, but that didn’t matter. It was still her, just under a pseudonym, and he wasn’t the first to wonder what was in a name. Skimming the last few lines, he reminded himself where he’d left off: Catherine at home, changed into a nightgown and curled up on the couch, book in hand … and utterly unaware that someone was outside, looking in.
He wasn’t entirely sure who that someone was yet, or how he fit in, but he knew who’d come to Catherine’s rescue, so that was all right. Picking up his pencil, he continued getting a little closer to finding out.
To: MathyMart
From: LidaRoseElizabeth
Sent: October 26, 2018 12:07PM
Oh my God. I just saw the paper and now I feel like such a terrible person. You know why Margaret wasn’t there yesterday or today and the whole bus route was even later than usual? Her freaking boyfriend murdered her Wednesday night. They only just found her. She’s in freaking pieces and I was making heartless jokes.
To: LidaRoseElizabeth
From: MathyMart
Sent: October 26, 2018 1:38PM
You are not a terrible person and you’re not heartless. If you weren’t in class I’d call you. I’ll call after school, okay? Take an hour and just talk.
To: MathyMart
From: LidaRoseElizabeth
Sent: October 26, 2018 2:14PM
You have to say I’m not terrible or heartless because otherwise you’re dating someone terrible and heartless. Don’t you have a bunch of grading and lesson planning to do?
To: LidaRoseElizabeth
From: MathyMart
Sent: October 26, 2018 3:24PM
I have to say you’re neither terrible nor heartless because I am bound by the curse of the blue fairy to only speak the truth. And yeah, I’ve got a shit ton to do but they can’t just bleed me dry. One hour. Tell me when you’re calling and you’ve got exactly 60 minutes. I’ll be coming back in tomorrow anyway.
Chapter Thirteen – coming January 13
Rebecca Frost 