Page 53 of The Vacancy In Room 10

Monica. The week before he died, he called Monica four times in two days. And she called him five times?

I swallow hard. My heart feels like it’s in my throat, and I can hear the blood whoosh between my ears. Why would he ever have any reason to call Monica? They’ve never had a reason to talk in all the years we were together. They don’t even like each other. What the hell does this mean?

20

CASS

The phone was a mistake, fine. Okay. But the plan is to never be in a position where they would even question me. I pour what’s left in the coffee maker from yesterday over a cup of ice and take a couple of deep breaths.

They have no reason to think I even know the guy outside of a cordial nod of recognition in the parking lot or something—handing him a package from FedEx in the front office now and again. I can’t overreact. Fine, we are probably bad at this and maybe left clues, but I need to stay rational and know that there is no reason for anyone to connect me with Eddie Bacco. There are a lot of bad people he’s connected to, and they’ll probably chalk it up to some drug-related inside job once they find out who he is. If they even find him at all.

I have to replace the blinds in 106 and patch some drywall in 119, and I told Sinatra he could tag along, so I have to somehow—some-fucking-how—pretend none of this happened and try to act inconspicuous.

As I clutch my coffee and keep my head down when I cross the pool deck to open up the office for the day, I realize that I already look awkward and suspicious. So I lift my head to smile at Babs, who I can hear chattering away near the pool, and then I see something unexpected. Babs and Crystal and Jackie and even Tina and Mary are standing in a cluster, quietly. They’re never quiet, and their posture looks bent and strange.

I see Callum walk out his apartment door, lock it, pull his messenger bag over his head, and start toward his car, and then he stops cold when he also sees the group of women. I stop cold when I see him stop cold, and I watch them.

When Mary sits down, I see Rosa is in the middle of this cluster, sitting on her usual folding chair at the card table, but Babs’s hand is on her shoulder, and Rosa is crying. Holy shit.

Callum notices me, and we exchange a glance. There is a moment where neither of us knows what to do, but acting normal is top priority, so he clutches the strap of his bag across his chest and walks quickly to his car in the parking lot.

I continue to the front door of the office to unlock it. I drop my keys, and they make a sound that gets Jackie’s attention. She looks over and gives me a solemn shake of her head. She stretches out her bottom lip in an expression that reads, Yikes, something is not good. I should go over, right? Acting normal would mean taking an interest in this, right? Of course. Yes. So I put my things down, pick up my tools, and walk over to the group as casually as I am able.

“Everything okay? What’s going on?” I whisper to Jackie in the back of the huddle, with my best playing-dumb voice.

“Girl,” she says and sees my tool bag in hand. “I’ll walk with you.” And so we head over to unit 119, and she lets the other women console a crying Rosa for a few moments. When we get far enough away, she says, “Eddie’s gone missin’.”

“What?” I manage to say with a gasp.

“Right? Yeah, it’s the craziest thing, too, ’cause he don’t call Rosa that much from the road. We always joke that he actually went off to another family, oh that’s terrible at a time like this. Sorry. We never say that in front of her anyway. Well, it’s been a few days and not even a text. Then she gets something out of his truck and sees his phone is there. Nobody leaves their phone behind.”

“Oh, God. That’s awful,” I say, eager for all the information she has.

She continues, “Yeah, but then...oh my God, you won’t even believe it. I can’t believe it, that’s for sure.”

“What?” I say, trying to keep the impatience out of my voice.

“Rosa calls the trucking company he works for so she can try to find him—see if something happened. They say they never heard of him! Nobody by that name works there. I always knew he was shady. Sorry, that’s inappropriate, but it’s true. Lying to her all this time. The guy doesn’t even work there. He’s just vanished.”

“That’s...crazy. So Rosa reported him missing?” I ask.

“Yeah. Just this morning,” she says, and this is an important point, because Rosa would not report him missing if she knew who he was and what he did. Wouldn’t that get her killed by the cartel for drawing attention to his identity? Wouldn’t that make her a target? If she was part of it, she would never get authorities involved or close to any of it. I think this is a good indication that she doesn’t know who he really is. Maybe he did just lead a completely double life, and she was his cover, unbeknownst to her. Damn.

“That’s just awful,” I say.

“I guess,” she says, opening a bag of donuts from her purse and stuffing one into her mouth. “Sorry, it would be rude to eat in front of Rosa, but I’m starving.” And if an opportunity to gossip and eat donuts are what’s motivating Jackie to talk, I’ll take all the information she’ll give me.

“What do you mean, you guess?” I ask.

“Well, of course it’s awful. Of course, it’s just... Crystal pointed out some injuries, bruises and stuff on Rosa a few times, and I just got the feeling that maybe it was from Eddie. Now, I can’t prove that. It’s just nobody’s that fond of him. I mean I hope he ain’t dead, but if he took off, maybe that’s not the worst thing that could happen to her. But you didn’t hear that from me,” she says.

“Right. Of course. Wow, I don’t know what to say. Is she okay? That’s a stupid question, of course not,” I say.

Jackie eats the last of the powdered sugar donuts from the plastic-wrapped package and dusts off her hands. “She’s got us girls, but I don’t know. I better get back. Hopefully we get more news.” She squeezes my elbow as she goes, then she pauses. “Girl, what happened to your hands? Damn,” she asks, and I instinctively pull my blistered hands away, which makes me look suspicious, I’m sure, but it’s already done. “They work you too hard around here,” she says before I can even answer. Then she’s off, and I numbly walk to 119.

I can’t tell Callum. No calls or texts, we said. He’ll be going nuts all day. I guess that’s not my problem. Of course, we knew he’d be reported missing at some point. A man just can’t disappear, and they won’t know exactly when he vanished. And now it’s out in the open that he has a job that doesn’t exist, and he’s been lying about who he’s been with and what he’s been doing, this might actually be okay. This is okay. Don’t panic.

Of course, Callum and I figured out his trucking job was a front, but if he’s a liar who goes somewhere for weeks on end, for years, and nobody knows where, well, hell. Anyone could have had a reason to kill him. We don’t even know this whole other life he’s living. This must take any potential focus off The Sycamores, and me. It must.

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