Chapter 5: Terms

I told Brett I was covering the late shift for a coworker.

He said, "You're a saint, babe," and kissed me goodbye at the door.

At eleven I stood at the back gate of the Hartwell house, in the dark, with the lake black behind me.

The gate opened before I touched it.

Tony stood in the light of the kitchen door in a gray T-shirt, with a dish towel over his shoulder.

"You came," he said.

"You asked."

"Lila is at the shop until two. She's doing flowers for a wedding."

"Is she?"

"There's a wedding," Tony said. "I checked."

He let me in.

His kitchen was enormous, all pale wood and steel, and it smelled of butter.

A banker's box sat on the island beside a stack of lumber invoices.

"Sit," he said.

"I'm not hungry."

"You look like you haven't eaten since yesterday."

"I ate."

"Sit down, Valeria."

I sat.

He put a grilled cheese in front of me, cut in triangles, with the crusts gold.

I ate all of it.

He leaned on the counter across from me and watched with a satisfied look.

"Don't smirk," I said.

"I'm not smirking."

"You are. It's in your eyebrow."

"My eyebrow is concerned for your blood sugar."

I almost laughed, and it hurt, because it had been a long time since a man had made me almost laugh.

He pulled the box toward him and lifted the lid.

Inside were credit card statements, highlighted in yellow.

Each highlighted line said Calloway.

"Six weeks of this," he said. "Eleven nights. Always the nights she said she was at the shop, or Duluth, or her choir."