Page 106 of Nave
The light went green.
We were in.
“Alright, glove up,” Junior said, tossing the finger back into the cooler, then handing out disposable gloves. I struggled to getit over my cast, but with a little wiggling and some help from Nave, I got it on.
Then we were all walking in.
“It’d be a nice place if it didn’t belong to such an evil fuck,” Junior declared, looking around.
He showed no sign of it, but I got the feeling he noticed every single camera around the space.
“Office?” Junior asked.
“Upstairs. The second room on the left.”
Without another word, he was off in that direction.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“It almost feels like this part of my life wasn’t real now,” I admitted. “I want to check out my old room.”
Nave followed me through the house, helping me pack up my old things. Not because I wanted them, but because we wanted to erase every bit of me from the house.
As Nave took all of those bags to the car, I moved back to the kitchen, going into the fridge to grab all the food, then taking it outside to toss around. Whatever the wildlife didn’t eat, the bugs would.
“What are you thinking?” Nave asked when all the obvious work was done.
“This is going to sound crazy. But I think I should clean this place one last time.”
“That’s not crazy,” he decided after a minute. “In this case, to make sure there isn’t a single trace of you around. I mean, the place seems clean.”
It was.
Even without me, standards could not slip. The whole place smelled like bleach and lemon. I didn’t see a speck of dust or dirt or a stray hair anywhere.
But I wanted to be sure.
I never wanted anything to trace me to Ben ever again.
This new life I was starting with Nave, with my baby, with all the new friends who already felt like family, it was pure and perfect and none of the ugliness of my past should ever be able to taint it.
I went slowly, methodically, room by room, starting with Ben’s space, even though I’d only ever been allowed inside to do cleaning. I wasn’t taking any chances.
It was a slow process with only one good hand, but I managed well enough with some adaptations.
I closed his bathroom, then his bedroom, before going into my old bathroom, then bedroom.
Junior eventually finished up the office, so I went through there, cleaning every surface, then pulling out each drawer to clean them and their contents.
Which was how I found the first envelope.
Full of cash.
Then the second one.
The third.
Fourth and fifth.
