Page 75 of The Coworker
I tug on the cloth until it comes free. That’s when I realize it wasn’t a cloth at all. It’s a green silk scarf, which had blended into the fabric of his green sofa.
Whose silk scarf is this? It sure as hell doesn’t belong to Tim. I bring the fabric close to my nose, inhaling the scent of a woman’s perfume. The smell is vaguely familiar.
“The sauce is fine,” Tim declares as he returns to the living room. “I’d say the food should be ready in about ten minutes. I hope you’re hungry, because I made way, way too much.”
I can’t even manage to force a smile. My fingers are wrapped around the silk scarf in my hand. “Tim, whose scarf is this?”
He barely glances at it. “I don’t know. Yours?”
“It’snotmine.”
He looks more carefully at the green fabric in my hand, his eyes narrowing. “It doesn’t look familiar to me. Maybe it’s my mother’s?”
Of course, that makes sense. This is, after all, Tim’s parents’ house. It shouldn’t be suspicious to find a piece of women’s clothing stuck in the furniture. Maybe the perfume I was smelling seemed familiar because it was the same one that Mrs. Reese used to wear all those years ago.
Yes, that must be what it is. After all, it’s not like Tim is bringing other women here. He wouldn’t cheat on me.
Tim tugs the scarf out of my hand and tosses it onto the coffee table. Then he slides onto the couch next to me, so close that his thigh is pressed against mine. “Listen,” he says, “there’s something I want to talk to you about.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.” He reaches out and squeezes my hand. “I just… I’m crazy about you, Brooke. I always have been. And I know we haven’t been together that long, but I hate being away from you for even one night. So I was thinking… maybe…”
Is he asking me if we should move in together? If that’s the question, I don’t know what to say. I’m crazy about him too. But I have Josh to think about. I can’t uproot his life by having another person move in with us, just to have it all fall apart. I can’t give my son a father and then take it away from him.
And there’s another reason why I’m not sure I’m ready to take things to the next level with Tim. I can’t shake the feeling that he’s hiding something from me. Why has he been so evasive every time I have tried to ask him about Kelli? He already told me he went out with her. Why won’t he admit it?
And who does this scarf really belong to?
Tim must notice the look on my face, because he releases my hand and backs away on the sofa. “You know what? Let’s talk about this later.”
My shoulders relax. “Good idea.”
“Hey.” He squeezes my knee. “Why don’t you grab a bottle from the wine cellar? I think we could use a drink.”
It’s sort of adorable that Tim calls their basement a wine cellar—but he’s already run off to the kitchen to take care of whatever is burning, so I don’t have a chance to tease him about it. It’s not a wine cellar—at all. It’s a basement with like a dozen bottles of wine and a wood rack that his dad built. But I suppose if he wants to call it a wine cellar, I won’t begrudge him that.
While Tim is in the kitchen, I turn the knob to the basement door. Like my house, his house is old and the door sticks, so I have to wrench it open. And of course, the basement is pitch black. I feel around for the drawstring to turn on the light bulb. After grasping around blindly for about thirty seconds, my fingers make contact. A single bulb flickers on, dimly illuminating the basement.
The basement of Tim’s house feels colder than it is outside—almost frigid—and the air is slightly moist. As soon as I enter, I identify an unpleasant musty odor that wasn’t here the last time I retrieved a bottle of wine from the basement—he’s probably growing mold down here. I make my way down the lopsided wooden stairs, holding onto the icy metal banister so I don’t go flying. It’s dark enough down here that I am nervous about the placement of my feet on the ground.
When I get to the bottom, the wine rack is waiting for me. He seems to have added a few extra bottles since the last time I was down here. Not that Tim is any sort of wine connoisseur, but he just gets a kick out of having a wine cellar.
After pulling out a few bottles to check the labels, I select a bottle of Merlot. Does Merlot go well with spaghetti and meatballs? I have no idea. But it will taste good and give us both a nice little buzz.
Just as I’m about to go back upstairs, I notice a gray tarp rolled up on the floor of the basement, in the corner of the room. I hadn’t noticed that tarp the last time I was down here looking at the wine collection. What is Tim doing with a giant tarp?
I creep over to the rolled-up material—the strange smell is stronger over here. Even in the dim light of the basement, I can tell something is sticking out of the end. I bend down and realize what it is—it’s a shoe. No, not just a shoe, it’s a high-heeled red pump.
And it’s still on a woman’s foot.
I stare at the foot sticking out of the tarp, unable to comprehend what I’m seeing. I look closer and can make out another shoe peeking out of the tarp as well. Does Tim have a manikin wrapped in a tarp in his basement?
Don’t kid yourself, Brooke. You know exactly what you’re looking at. Her scarf is lying on the coffee table upstairs.
I’ve got to get out of this basement.
I drop the Merlot on the ground, and the bottle shatters into dozens of pieces. I run for the stairway, taking the steps two at a time, not bothering to be careful this time. I place my hand on the knob and…
