Page 13 of The Whisper Place
“I live above the store,” she explained as we walked up a narrow, dark flight of stairs that made me instantly anxious. It opened to a bright, four-room apartment washed in whites and neons and I breathed a little easier seeing the living room had a sliding glass door that opened to a rickety wooden deck. Two ways out meant I couldn’t be trapped, at least not by one person.
Blake opened a door to a room that held a stripped bed, a dresser, and sad-looking twinkle lights half hanging from one wall.
“I sometimes rent this room out, until my last roommate took off with half my jewelry, including my mother’s engagement ring.”
“Oh god. I’m sorry.”
She waved off my sympathies, shrugging her pink braid behind her shoulder. “If you wanted to stick around town, on a semipermanent basis, you could stay here.”
For a second I could see it so clearly—cooking dinners together, watching all the movies we could possibly consume,both of us in bed before sundown and waking each other to drag our butts downstairs by four o’clock—and I wanted it. I wanted to be Blake’s roommate, to be her friend. I wanted to deserve a friend like her.
“How do you know I won’t run off with the rest of your jewelry?”
She laughed, sizing me up, and I saw my own reflection in her eyes. Dishwater blond hair. Pale, sun-starved skin. Forgettable Target clothes. Downcast gaze. No one to worry about, or even remember. No one who would be missed.
“You’re not a thief,” she told me, leaning against the back of the bright pink couch.
No, I wasn’t. I was something else.
“We can knock the rent off your paycheck,” she said.
My heart rate immediately kicked up again. The vision I’d had of living here shriveled back into the shadows. “I don’t do paperwork. I can’t . . . work for you. Not officially.” Out of nowhere, tears sprung into my eyes and I walked to the sliding glass door trying not to let her see. It was ridiculous—I’d only known Blake a few weeks. But then again, she was the only person I knew. The only companion in my once again uncharted world. I tried to shrug off the thought. “I should probably move on, anyway. I didn’t mean to stay so long.”
“Darcy.”
I made a questioning noise, hoping it sounded casual and not like my heart was breaking.Every now and then I get a little bit lonely.Fucking Bonnie Tyler. I’d never be able to listen to that song again.
Blake stepped up next to me. “I don’t know what your plans are or where you need to go. But if paperwork is the only issue, wecan get around that. It wouldn’t be the first lie I told my accountant.” A gleam lit her eyes, making her winged eyeliner pop. “We all have secrets.”
Something good sparked in the air between us, an unspoken agreement to not look too closely at the secrets we both needed to keep.
So I stayed.
Or, Darcy did.
Max
“Secrets will kill a relationship.”
The woman pushed the photos back across the table and I tucked them into a folder that held a flash drive, our final invoice, and a comprehensive report on her husband’s infidelity. The pictures Jonah had taken of the guy at the hotel turned out perfectly. Full face, easily identifiable. Thanks to his complete idiocy it was some of the easiest money we’d made yet. Or at least the easiest we’d worked for.
“He doesn’t have as many secrets now.”
The woman signaled the waiter and ordered a complicated coffee that might or might not have had alcohol in it. She’d never met me at the office, preferring to conduct our check-ins at various five-star restaurants around town. Today she wore a crisp, pale pantsuit and oversized sunglasses that surveyed the restaurant’s flowery patio.
“If you need any continuing assistance, we offer asset identification services, too.”
She waved a manicured hand. “I handle all our finances. He doesn’t own a dollar I don’t know about.”
“I’m sorry he’s put you in this situation.”
The waiter set a mug in front of her and she stared at the froth swirled into a flower design. This place loved flowers. The folder with its incriminating photos sat next to it, closed. “Are you married, Mr. Summerlin?”
“Yes.”
“It’s funny, isn’t it? You can’t remember how anything started. It all becomes a series of moments, petty grievances and stupid fights, silence that lasts for days, until you don’t know who stopped talking first. Who turned away quicker. And you stop recognizing yourself. You don’t know where the coldness has come from, and the words coming out of your mouth don’t sound like yours. You slip further and further inside yourself, like a voyeur to a life you can’t stop from happening. Until it’s too late to change it.”
Tears slipped underneath the sunglasses. She didn’t touch the coffee, didn’t lift her head. I awkwardly offered her a napkin, wishing I’d ended this meeting five minutes ago.
