Page 43 of The Vacancy In Room 10

I see Cass walking out the glass double doors with a confused look on her face, and I flag her over.

“Sorry, I gotta go. I’ll call you back.” I hang up and wonder what the hell would make him that concerned for her.

By the time Cass is sitting in my car, she looks pale and shocked that I’m the one who’s shown up. I’m probably just as nervous and uncomfortable as she is, really not knowing what to say to her if, in fact, she is my husband’s...what? Mistress? Lover? Muse? She has a rough-around-the edges way about her. I would describe her having a delicate beauty until she opens her mouth to speak, and then it’s usually curse words or sarcasm accompanied by a grimace—maybe it’s just her tomboy demeanor in general that’s so incongruous with her looks that it throws me off. She’s really quite mysterious.

“How’d you get roped into this shit?” she finally says as I pull away from the county facility parking lot.

“Your friends were...short on funds,” I say, and she nods.

“Well, thank you. I’ll pay you back a little with every check. I’m sorry I don’t...”

“Honestly, don’t worry about it. You got my AC fixed, thanks,” I say, and the look on her face tells me she thought I was stupid enough not to know she sent Callum to help. “I heard you pushed a girl into a big cake,” I say, trying to get her talking.

“The bitch deserved it,” she says. “I mean, it was an accident, but I don’t regret it. You probably don’t know what it’s like to be cheated on because Henry was a great guy and all, but let me tell you, if you are threatened in a bathroom stall by the teenager you were replaced with, you’d push a bitch into a big cake, too,” she says.

The deep pain she’s feeling shows through the almost humorous delivery. It doesn’t sound like something a person would say if they’re sitting next to the widow of the man they had an affair with. It seems like the last thing they’d bring up, actually, and I immediately start to think I might be wrong about her. Then I get a glance at her phone she’s been distracted with since she just got it back, I assume, and notice nine missed calls...from Callum. What the hell? I don’t know what to think.

What I am starting to think is that it’s more likely something is going on between these two than with Henry, but I jump in anyway.

“I was going through Henry’s things, and I saw a painting of you,” I say.

“Oh, yeah?” she asks, distracted, texting furiously on her phone.

“Did he paint you a lot?” I ask, and she laughs.

“Fuck no.”

“You seemed really happy in that painting. It’s a good piece,” I say, and she stops texting and looks at me.

“Oh, really? I never saw it. He asked me if I’d sit to be painted, like he asks everyone, and I said ‘hell no’ and ‘why would I wanna sit still for hours without getting paid.’ Who the fuck does that anyway? We’re not in seventeenth-century England, just take a photo, and he laughed at that and said that I know nothing about art history but that that was fine and to forget the idea because I always look constipated anyway, so no big loss...and I laughed ’cause it was funny. I probably do always look constipated, and he took a snapshot of me when I was laughing. And he said, there, I took your advice, can I paint your portrait from the photo then, and I said it’s a free country. That’s it. He said I could see it once, and I said ‘hard pass.’ Does that answer your question or whatever you’re getting at?”

“I guess so,” I say, because it’s a pretty detailed explanation to be a lie.

“I’m a pro at getting to the bottom of what a sneaky snake man is up to,” Cass says. “I’m not an idiot. I know you’re probing around for something, but you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

I guess I am pretty surprised she picked up on that. I wasn’t accusing her of anything, but I suppose she has spidey senses after whatever it is she’s been through.

“Do you know what tree I should be barking up?” I ask, feeling like she knows something.

She hesitates, then just says, “No,” and goes back to her phone, but there was a split second where I thought she was gonna tell me something.

“Okay, then. Last question. Do you know a girl named Mira?” I ask, and she looks up again.

“A high school kid?” she asks, and my heart starts to race.

“Yeah,” I say.

“I mean, no. I don’t know her, but there was a Mira who kept parking in the lot at The Sycamores, smoking pot and just hanging out there all the time in the handicap spot, so I had a couple run-ins telling her to get lost,” she says, and I feel a nauseous wave come over me.

I just nod, and she’s back to her phone, and my heart is in my throat. Holy shit. This girl was at the apartments all the time? Holy. Shit.

When I drop Cass off, she thanks me again in that genuine but resentful tone that I don’t exactly blame her for, and then I speed off to the Dairy Queen with trembling hands and a stone in my chest.

I park on the far side of the lot under a shady oak and watch for a little while first. It’s one of those smaller stores where the front has a couple large walk-up windows and red plastic tables and chairs out front. There isn’t an inside you can enter, so the handful of patrons who are there—mostly families—sit at the tables while the younger kids run wild on sugar highs with Dilly Bars and Blizzards melting all over the place.

When the line dwindles, I see Mira standing at the counter just inside the window. She’s picking at her nails and talking to a girl her age who’s leaning on the take-out counter and stabbing her straw into a parfait. Mira looks just like Anne of Green Gables but with rounded swimmer’s shoulders and a nose ring. She’s just a kid. Jesus. I probably shouldn’t be here, but it’s just a few simple questions. I don’t plan to harass her or make her cry or accuse her—nothing like that. It’s just a few questions.

I get out of my car and walk up to the window. Her friend moves aside while I order a cup of coffee.

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