Excluded and Uninvited novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Phone in the Drawer

At a Tahoe cabin Katja cleans his cut and sets her rules; Jo sends a screenshot saying Brandy is telling everyone he ran.

I got to the cabin at four in the morning with my shirt stuck to my ribs.

The lake was black and the porch light was off.

The door code was in the booking message, and inside the stove was cold.

I was still standing in the kitchen in my jacket when headlights swung across the window.

A woman came up the steps with an armload of split firewood and a first aid bag over her shoulder.

She had a red braid down her back and gray eyes that went straight to the cut above mine.

"You're the late check-in," she said. "I'm Katja. I own the place."

"Caleb."

"Sit on that stool, Caleb."

"You don't have to."

"I spent six winters on ski patrol," she said. "I know what a cracked rib looks like when somebody is trying to stand up straight about it."

I sat.

She dropped the wood by the stove, lit it in three quick moves and came back with a basin of warm water.

She tilted my chin to the light.

"Who glued this?"

"The ER in Reno."

"They did it fine. It'll scar anyway." She cleaned around the edge with a cloth. "Did you hit anyone back?"

"Two of them."

"Good."

She didn't ask who they were or why they'd done it.

I noticed that she didn't.

When she was done she washed her hands and leaned on the counter.

"Two rules," she said. "After nine at night your phone goes in that drawer. I don't care if it's the president. Number two, you don't lie to me."

"About what?"

"Anything. Even the small stuff. I have a lot of guests who come up here with a story."

"I don't have a story," I said.

"Then you'll have no trouble with the second one."

She almost smiled.

"And the cabin is booked again a week from Saturday, so you get a week."

"That's plenty."

"That's what they all say."

She left me with a pot of soup she had apparently brought in her truck, which I decided not to ask about.

I slept on the couch in my jacket until the sun came up over the lake.

When I woke, my phone was on the arm of the couch and it was past noon.

Forty-one missed calls.

Thirty-three were Brandy.

Seven were Greg.

One was my captain, and he had not left a message.

I didn't call anyone back.

I went to the window and looked at the water for a while.

A text came in from my sister.

Jo: Call me. Right now. Before you look at Instagram.

I looked at Instagram.

Brandy had posted at 6:12 that morning, from her own account, to her forty thousand followers.

It was a photo of her forearm with a purple smear across it.

I had never touched her arm.

Under it she had written: "Last night three escaped inmates grabbed my boyfriend and I stood there and begged. He left me with them and ran. I'm still shaking. Please pray for me."

Eleven hundred likes.

Under the likes, the comments had already started.

"Coward."

"Who runs from a girl?"

"Hope he can live with himself."

Someone had tagged my station.

Greg's comment was the first one pinned.

It said: "I'm here for you, Brandy. Whatever you need."

I read the post once, and then I read the line that said I ran.

I had been on my knees with blood in my eye, shouting her name.

I called Jo.

She picked up before it rang.

"Tell me it's not true," she said.

"It's not true."

"I know it's not true. I'm asking so I can say I asked." She was already walking somewhere with her heels clicking. "Cal, she's called Mom twice this morning to tell her you've had a breakdown."

I stared at the lake.

"She posted the bruise before the sun came up," Jo said. "Do you know what that means?"

"What?"

"It means she wrote it before she went to bed."

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