I Thought Love Had to Be Earned Through Chores, They Hugged Me novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Champaign Thursday

Wesley looked at my price list for a long time.

"It's one in the morning," he said.

"I know. Overnight rates are the same. I don't do surcharges."

He almost laughed.

He didn't, quite. But he stepped back from the door, and I went in.

His room was the messiest room in the house.

Books on the floor. Coffee cups on the windowsill. Maps taped to the wall over his desk, with pins in them.

Red pins. Dozens.

Rockford. Peoria. Galesburg. Decatur. Champaign.

Every town I'd ever lived in had a hole in it.

I sat on the edge of his desk chair.

He sat on the bed with the binder.

"Okay," he said. "What's the job?"

So I told him.

All of it, in order, with the dates.

He listened with his face going harder and harder.

When I said Odette's name the third time, he stood up.

"Stop."

I stopped.

"Odette cried for you." His voice was low and furious. "Every night, for years. When nobody else in this house could even say your name, she said it. She lit a candle on your birthday. She was eleven, and she lit a candle."

"I'm sure she did."

"And you come in here at one in the morning and tell me she's what? Noreen's spy?" He shook his head. "You've been here five days. You don't know her."

"You told her where they were going," I said.

"What?"

"Every time. You came in here with the binder, and then you went to her room and told her." I kept my voice flat, like reading a bill. "She said you cried, and she held you, and then she went downstairs and called her mother."

"That's insane."

"Champaign Thursday," I said.

He went still.

"The new guy's going to Champaign Thursday. He's got a photo." I watched his face. "That's what you said to her. You can check it against your own email."

Wesley sat down on the bed.

He didn't decide to. His legs just stopped.

He put a hand over his mouth.

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