Page 2 of Half Baked

She walked away, and I moved around the room, trailing my finger over the back of the gray vinyl sofa. This place was the polar opposite of Aunt Deidre’s home, where she’d lived her entire life. I couldn’t imagine sending her to live here alone. She’d hate the décor—she loved her vintage furnishings, and this place was very modern—plus she’d be incredibly lonely without me, Mallory, and her next-door neighbor Margarete.

Then again, half the time she thought I was the live-in help my deceased uncle had hired. Two weeks ago, she’d thought I was a burglar and had called 911 to report a break-in.

No, Aunt Deidre wouldn’t be lonely for me. She’d be lonely for Uncle Albert, and my mother, and a whole host of family members who were long since dead. My aunt’s mind was burrowing deeper and deeper into the past, and no matter where she lived, she’d be lonely for the people who couldn’t be there.

Tears burned my eyes, and I hurried back into the hallway. I had known this would be hard, but not this hard. Mallory had offered to come, but she’d already taken off the day from work yesterday. I hadn’t wanted to ask her to take a couple of hours off this afternoon too.

Noah should be here with you.

I shut that thought down immediately, both because Noah had made it crystal clear that he was wrapped up in his own issues and because visiting a residential care center wasn’t something you did with your new girlfriend. It was something you saved until you had at least exchanged I love yous. Which we hadn’t.

Even if Ididlove him.

That’s what hurt the most about the whole situation. While he’d warned me that he ran when he got scared, I’d figured he might need a few days to get himself together, not weeks. Still, I was giving him his space, hoping his therapist would talk some sense into him.

In all honesty, Mallory might knee him in the balls if and when he came back, but that was a worry for later.

I needed to stop thinking about Noah. This visit was about my aunt, which was causing me enough pain. I didn’t need to borrow more.

I started down the hall toward the reception area, taking in the décor. I could have been walking down the hallway in an apartment building. There were wreaths and decorations on the doors, nameplates, and doorbells. One door was open, revealing a man on a recliner who was staring at a blank TV screen. His head swiveled to face me, and he shouted, “Hey, you! Girl! Come in here!”

He was rude enough that I almost walked away, but I reminded myself of how rude Aunt Deidre could be at times and decided to ignore it. “Do you need help with something?”

“I can’t get the damn TV to turn on.”

I almost told him that was because he was trying to turn it on with a cell phone. Instead, I walked into the room, picked up a remote control off the end table, and clicked the power button.

“How’d you do that?” he asked, shaking the cell phone.

I handed him the remote. “You needed this one.”

His brow furrowed as he looked down at it, then stared at the home screen on the TV with a frustrated expression.

I sat on the edge of the sofa next to him. “What would you like to watch?”

“I wanna watch the damn football game,” he grumbled.

I suspected there weren’t any live football games playing on a Tuesday afternoon, but my ex-boyfriend Steve had watched old games on ESPN. I searched for an ESPN channel, found an old college game, and turned it on. “How’s that?”

His face scrunched. “I wanna watch the Falcons.”

“They’ve got a bye week,” I said, proud of myself for knowing what that meant and using it correctly. But I continued my search and found an old NFL game. “How about the Cowboys?”

He didn’t answer, just made a face and sank back into his chair.

I took that as a yes and left the TV on that channel. When he seemed as satisfied as was likely possible for him, I stood. “You have a good rest of your day, Mr.…” I let the sentence trail off since I didn’t know his name and realized he might not know it either. Something to get used to in the memory ward, I guess.

“That’s Detective to you,” he snapped. “Detective Bergan. Show a little respect.”

My jaw dropped, but thankfully he didn’t seem to notice my reaction.

Howard Bergan was the detective who had investigated my mother’s murder. From what I’d learned, he’d bungled it. It had been a cold case until November. After joining the police force last summer, Noah had tried to reopen it, but no one had managed to find the file. He and his partner Lance suspected Bergan had taken it. Detective Bergan’s wife had let them search his old home office, but it hadn’t turned up. Nor had they found it in their search of a storage unit that had contained multiple other official files. Noah and Lance had closed my mother’s case because they’d found evidence indicating a recently murdered high school teacher/sexual predator had killed her. But they were wrong, because soon afterward, I learned that Martin Schroeder had an alibi for the night my mother was murdered. Noah and Lance knew, but they’d been tied up in other, more current murder cases, so they hadn’t done anything about it yet. That meant her case was in limbo. Officially closed, but unofficially unsolved.

And the answers might be locked in this man’s brain.

“Do you know who I am?” I asked, barely above a whisper, but it was loud enough for him to hear me.

He looked up and scrunched up his nose. “The afternoon nurse who’d rather wander the hallways than do any damn work?” he asked in a snotty tone.

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