Page 1 of Healed
Chapter 1
“Open the damn door!” Brandt yelled. Clenching his jaws in irritation a small grumble left him as he started around the house, looking for a way in.
“Hey,” Abby said, from her front porch as he stepped off Remi’s porch and into the grass.
Brandt glanced her way. “Hey, Abby.”
“Can I help you with something?” Abby asked.
“Only if you can get Remi to get his ass up and to go to work,” Brandt snidely answered.
Abby smiled. “Afraid that’s not quite something I have any control over.”
“Yeah, me either. And I’m supposed to be all about the control.”
“If it’s any help, he was up just a few hours ago.”
“It’s 10:00 A. M.! He should still be up.”
Abby kind of shrugged a shoulder and looked away as she pressed her lips together.
Brandt stopped splitting his attention between Remi’s house and Abby and concentrated on her. Everything about her indicated she knew something he didn’t. “What aren’t you telling me?”
She seemed hesitant to tell him whatever it was she knew, but sure enough to not go back inside.
“There’s obviously something on your mind, Abby,” Brandt said, walking slowly toward her.
“I really don’t know anything exactly,” she said, her gaze bouncing back to Remi’s house before landing once again on Brandt.
“Okay. What is it exactly that you don’t know?”
“It’s not my place to speak about something I don’t know for sure,” Abby said.
“But you know enough to feel bothered about it.”
Abby sighed. “He lives right here, Brandt.”
“Doesn’t matter. Nothing’s going to fall back on you.”
“I don’t know for sure. It’s just a feeling.”
“People have been saved on just a feeling,” Brandt said.
She looked at Remi’s house again, then lowered her gaze to the ground. “I worry about him. He’s not himself.”
“No, he’s not. I can’t even make him get up and come to work before noon anymore. I thought maybe he was working on the accounting side of things before coming in, but when Angelle checked for me, she said it looks like he hasn’t signed in in weeks.”
Abby nodded. “I think maybe he’s been keeping late nights. He had a few different friends over all night, but the last couple of weeks, it’s the same friend. Lots of loud music, lots of drinking, all kinds of things happening right up until dawn.”
“If he’s keeping the kids up, tell him to turn it down!” Brandt said.
“I have, and he does. I don’t think his new friend likes it very much, because it’s not very long before the music is up loud again.”
“Maybe he just forgets.”
Abby shook her head. “No, from the looks I get from her when I knock on the door. And then later when I see her out and about while me and the kids are walking or playing outside, I’m pretty sure it’s her, not him.”
“So, you’re getting shit in your own home, in your own yard, from somebody that has no right to be here, and he’s doing nothing about it.”
