Other People's Things: A Novel by Kerry Anne King

Author:Kerry Anne King [King, Kerry Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2021-09-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

HAWK

The text message from Nicole rolls in Sunday morning. Sorry, family thing came up. Birthday dinner. Can’t meet up today

I ought to have known she’d blow me off at the last minute. Thank God for text messaging, so I can play it cool. I respond with a shrug emoji, following that up with: No worries. Happy Birthday to whomever.

She texts back: Me. Only it’s not my birthday.

To which I send an exploding-head emoji, and she returns a crazy face, and that’s it.

Obviously, she’s made up the whole lame excuse. If there’s a family birthday dinner, she would have known about it long before now, especially since the birthday in question is apparently her own. More likely, she didn’t want to hang out with me. Or, she’s casing a neighborhood garage so she can walk off with a shovel or a rake or wind chimes.

But my instructions to myself to forget about her, to let this all go, fall on deaf and stubborn ears. Late that evening, before I crawl into bed, I text: How was the party? I don’t really expect an answer, but one pops up almost immediately.

Nicole: Disastrous.

Hawk: That bad?

Nicole: Seriously. You can’t make this shit up.

As if my fingers have a will of their own, I tap in: Let me buy you a piece of b-day cake and you can tell me all about it. Tomorrow? 4 ish?

God. That sounds too much like I’ve asked her out on a date. I add: We’ve got those stories to work on. I promise not to sing Happy Birthday to you in public.

The dots of a reply come up, go away, come up, go away, and then nothing.

I’m about to put my phone away and go to bed when she answers: I like cake

Perfect. I’ll pick you up.

I fall asleep asking myself: Why? Why this woman? Do I have no sense of self-preservation at all? She’s a thief. Her husband being a jerk doesn’t change that. Nothing changes that. What is it that is driving me to know more about her, to spend time with her? For one thing, she’s not afraid of me. And she’s unpredictable and surprising and unlike anybody I’ve ever met. When I’m with her, I feel like a wide-eyed child, full of the sense of wonder that was uprooted from my childhood way too early.

On Monday, time is elastic and erratic, stretching and contracting. I’m absorbed with digging into the missing person case I’m working on with the police department, one that could be a matter of life and death, but even so, I arrive at her apartment a good fifteen minutes early. When she emerges from the front door, I feel like the gray skies have parted and the sun is shining directly on me.

All rational thought deserts me when she opens the door and climbs into the passenger seat, and I can’t think of anything to say. Finally I settle for “What kind of cake? So I know where to take you?”

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