Page 60 of The Vacancy In Room 10

CASS

In the few weeks since I returned from Colorado, things have been quiet in a way where it felt, maybe deceivingly so, like everything might be okay for a while. Like I could lie low at least for little bit. Until, that is, Anna came into the office.

Callum and I check in most evenings around six when he checks his mail, and I make sure I’m out watering the shrubs so we can have a casual conversation about the weather or maybe any life-altering news, but there hasn’t been any yet. He doesn’t know about the housing development ground breaking, or me moving the body. I am just grateful every day there is no movement, nothing new to tell each other. No cops, no news trucks appearing in the lot with armed cartel, no body, and no more notes from the mystery person who knows what we did.

Rosa and the pool girls have put up missing posters around town and their days at the card table next to the pool are quieter lately, but they still have a gaggle of children to attend to, so they still sit with sweating mason jars of iced tea and paper fans and watch them each afternoon, playing their cards, but with softer voices and a more watchful eye.

But what Anna said started to make all of the pieces fall into place—the hunch I had. I think I was right about it, and I think I probably can help her find out what happened to Henry, but I’m scared shitless if I’m honest, and there’s something I need to do first to make sure I’m safe when the shit hits the fan. And oh boy, will the shit hit the fan if what I am piecing together turns out to be right.

I need a day or two, but I definitely have a piece of information that is going to be hard for her to hear about Henry.

On Thursday afternoon, Frank brings over his checkerboard, and we sit on the concrete slab in front of the office, cross-legged in flip-flops, sipping instant lemonade, and playing the game. While he’s plotting his next move, my phone rings.

I stiffen the way I instinctively do now any time there’s a knock on the door, a phone ping, a cough next door—pretty much over anything. And when I see it’s just Reid calling again, I silence my phone, put it face down on the ground next to me, and smile at Frank who says, “King me.”

Reid has been calling a lot lately, and I know it’s because he’s pissed about his tools and the way Callum made him leave, but those tools are Frank’s now, and it’s over my dead body that he gets them back. Maybe he’s actually trying to sue me the way I told him he’d have to do. I mean, Reid putting together an IKEA crib? Sure, that’ll happen. He’s just being a colossal, controlling prick, and I refuse to respond. I asked him to hand me an Allen wrench once, and he handed me a torx key, I mean, seriously? Maybe if the crib were made out of LEGO, but there’s no way, and he can stay the hell away from us.

I feel a twinge of protectiveness over Frank when I think about this. It also feels good to have maybe finally let go of Reid and his...pregnant, adolescent fiancée. Maybe that’s what I needed to see to move on. Maybe I should even be grateful I can put it behind me. And maybe I was getting close to doing so, but it’s not helping that he’s all of a sudden calling after months of nights where I’d have done anything on earth to see his name pop up on my phone. Now, the fact that it makes me cringe is...progress. Okay, Reid, you got nothing better to do with your time, and with a baby on the way, than to harass me for the precious tool set? Sure, keep callin’, bucko, see how far it gets you.

I see Callum cross to the mailboxes and call out to him. It’s not his usual six o’clock time frame. “Hey,” I say, and he sees Frank, too, and comes over.

“Wanna play?” Frank asks.

“Oh, thanks, but I’m headed out. I have basketball at the Y tonight. I’ll take a rain check, though,” he says, and Frank agrees.

“Is your faucet still leaking?” I ask, because usually we make painfully idle talk at the 6:00 p.m. mailbox check-in, but yesterday, he actually had something new to say when he told me about the faucet dripping at night.

“I think so. I shut the bedroom door now so I don’t hear, but I’m guessing so,” he says.

“I’ll fix it, I promise,” I say, and he nods a skeptical okay and waves at Frank as he goes to his car.

“Can I help?” Frank asks, and he’s so excited, I can’t say no. So he rushes off to get his tool belt and meet me there, and I grab my workbag and go over to Callum’s apartment and let myself in.

I poke around in some of his cupboards like anyone probably would out of curiosity. Nothing interesting. Just an absurd amount of Hamburger Helper and frozen dinners, and a six pack of beer. I take one and offer him a mental IOU after I do. I look at the bathroom faucet and see it’s the one that’s leaking, then I nose around under the sink and clear a space to access the plumbing and make room for a bucket in case I need to open the pipe.

My heart aches when I see some of Lily’s old hair bands and a curling iron in a plastic bin next to Callum’s razors and aftershave. It’s hard to imagine her here. She lived a whole life before this place, and then one day she starts to cough, thinking it’s a cold and just like that, it’s a death sentence. I didn’t know her well, but I still think about her and feel the void she left behind in Callum’s life.

Now I feel like a snoop and an asshole for being in here, so I go outside and wait for Frank because it’s an easy fix, and I don’t want to do it without him, and as I do I notice Anna walking over, very surprised to see me here.

“You looking for Callum?” I ask, and her face flushes.

“Yeah, just—I was just gonna talk to him, but...” She seems nervous, and I know she’s looking at me for answers—she wants to know what I know, and if I were her I’d want to scratch my eyes out, too, for being cryptic and making her wait, and I can also tell that she likes Callum in some way she probably feels guilty about. I’m no idiot. I can see it between both of them, so I throw her a bone.

“I’m fixing the faucet. He’s not here.”

I’m not giving anything away just yet. She’s just gonna have to trust me because I have something she’s going to want to see, but I need to make sure one more thing is in place—a little insurance policy so I don’t go down with this sinking ship I somehow got myself on.

“He’s playing basketball or something, I think. He’ll be back later,” I say just as Frank saunters past me, walking inside like he owns the place with his tool belt on.

She looks at me so intensely that it makes my skin prickle with uneasiness. “I actually wanted to talk to you,” she says.

“Can’t now. I’m on a job,” I say. “Sorry, later, though.”

“Oh...okay, yeah,” Anna says timidly and retreats to her apartment.

I let out the breath I’ve been holding and feel myself trembling. I squeeze my eyes closed and try to pull myself together while Frank is setting up his things. I feel so bad for her. Goddammit. I’m really sorry, Anna. I screwed up.

Frank and I fix the faucet pretty quickly and head back down to our lemonade and checkers. I know what I’m doing, I tell myself. I look around out of the corners of my eyes for Anna, but she’s nowhere in sight. “This is the right thing to do,” I mutter.

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