I don’t know where Wyatt went, but I burrow into my quilt with Matty’s head near mine, feeling sorry for myself and weirdly ashamed. She whines a few times like she knows something is wrong and is sad that she can’t fix it. I wipe my tears off on her fur.
“I don’t understand boys, Matilda,” I whisper to her silky ear.
And it’s true. Aside from hanging out with the fun but utterly undateable Jeremy and Roy at work, I’ve had very little to do with guys. I always have to work a lot, and I won’t drink or go to parties, and I won’t kiss on a first date, which means there’s never been a second date. I’ve basically come to the conclusion that all the guys at my school are either boring or jerks, and as such, I’m better off without them. I’ve pretty much decided that I’ll meet some awesome, artsy guy in college, and that’s when I’ll really figure out what love is. It’s not like I had any sort of relationship role model.
But I know that I said the wrong thing, that I made Wyatt really angry. So angry that he would rather storm away into the cold fall night than stay in bed with me, which I can’t even comprehend. I shiver until I fall asleep, half expecting him to be completely gone when I wake up. But there he is in the front seat of the mail truck, drinking a Big Gulp of steaming coffee, his breath coming out in puffs against a lavender sky. A rolled-up fast-food bag and a smaller cup of coffee sit on top of the microwave, and Matty is eyeing it like it’s a lesser god. I didn’t even feel the truck moving, although I remember dreaming that I was on a pirate ship in the ocean.
I roll out of bed feeling grouchy and sad and embarrassed and ugly. And seriously uncomfortable. I can’t remember the last time I slept in jeans, and I think there might be permanent creases all up and down my legs. I want a shower like whoa. And I can smell my hair, which is in no way sexy. Not that I care about sexy, since Wyatt clearly doesn’t want anything to do with me.
Whatever. I don’t owe him pretty.
“Morning, Wyatt.” I take a big, unladylike bite of my sausage biscuit and drink some coffee, which I don’t really like but am determined not to complain about.
“Morning,” he says, kind of mocking and sad and expectant all at the same time.
“Where’d you sleep?”
“Right here, in the driver’s seat.”
“That must have sucked.”
“It did. Thanks for noticing.”
He takes a defiantly deep gulp of his coffee and jerks it away with a muttered, “Shit, that’s hot!” Coffee splatters the inside of the truck, and he looks at his lip in the rearview mirror, to see if he’s burned it, I guess. I smile a small smile when he’s not looking. He’s cute when he’s pissy. But if he wants to ignore what happened last night, I’m happy to help.
“So where are we?” I ask.
“Outside of Ken Belcher’s house.” He takes a daintier sip and grins. “And you’re not going to believe where he lives.”
As I stand and stretch, the bottom of my spine cracks from being curled up on the small bed. Matty almost grabs my biscuit, but I snatch it up as I move to the front of the truck and try not to touch Wyatt as I squeeze between the seats. I plop into the passenger seat, my jaw hanging open.
“This place? He lives here?”
The mail truck is parked in a half-paved turn lane, and just in front of us is a house I’ve passed a thousand times, asking myself a thousand times why it would even exist. It’s a gigantic, immensely sprawling mansion that reminds me of something out of Jane Austen. Like, it actually has wings and a big circular driveway with an outside chandelier, and stables, and a guesthouse, and tennis courts, and its own parking lot. And yet here it is, right next to our Podunk town, with a little sign out front telling everyone that it’s important enough to have a name.
“Chateau Tuscano,” I murmur.
“Like, do they even care that Chateau is French and Tuscano is both Italian and misspelled?” Wyatt says, and my crush on him grows a little bigger, because that’s exactly what bothers me about it too.
“I know, right? And why does it have a parking lot with numbered spaces?” I add. “Like, your billion guests are getting into fights over where to park their limos?”
It’s kind of pretty in the early morning for an oversized blight on the countryside. The horses are long gone from the overgrown pastures, and there haven’t been grand parties in years. The stupid parking lot used to fill up every weekend, but it’s been empty a long time, the snaggletoothed bushes surrounding it taller than me now. I used to imagine Jay Gatsby throwing parties here just to lure Daisy in so she could ruin everything.
And then one day I noticed a For Sale sign in the front yard, the kind that was made just to advertise the exotic allure of Chateau Tuscano. Then that sign was replaced by a standard RE/MAX sign. And then a For Sale by Owner sign—like anyone would just drive on up and knock. And now, for the last few months, a big sign with a Valor Savings Bank logo and FORECLOSURE/BANK OWNED stamped across it in angry red letters.
I gulp the last of my biscuit and swallow it down with coffee. It burns, but I don’t mind that. I need all the help I can get keeping the food in my stomach where it belongs. I would have preferred to take my time this morning, to get cleaned up with my wipes and maybe throw a stick for Matty for a while before turning on the GPS machine to find Ken Belcher.
But whether he did it out of malice or kindness, Wyatt brought me here instead. The red clock on the dash gives me a little more than three hours to kill or compel this guy, and my phone is finally dead and can’t tell me the actual time.
“Would you mind driving up closer?” I ask.
Without a word, Wyatt cranks the truck on. It rumbles slowly up the long driveway, and he parks just outside of the overhang. Like me, he’s probably worried that the rusty chandelier will fall on the truck and flatten it. The concrete is uneven and cracked, with chunks pulling up here and there. The property looks so grand from the street. But up close, it’s falling apart like Miss Havisham’s cake in Great Expectations.
Under the shade of the building, it’s even worse. The chandelier is missing crystals, the shards of which glitter on the bricks below. The bushes are overgrown and half-dead. The paint is peeling, and some of the windows are cracked as if they’ve been shot out by BB guns. It’s almost as bad as Uncle Ashley’s house, really.
How low the mighty have fallen.
“Are you ready?” Wyatt’s dropped the pissy act and just looks worried for me.
I shrug and tuck the gun into my jeans and find the envelope, pulling out Ken Belcher’s card. Wyatt says, “Here,” and hands me the shirt from under his seat, the signature machine and button still carefully wadded up in the center.
“Thanks.”
I shrug it on, stretching my shoulders against the itchy fabric that doesn’t get any more comfortable with each wearing. My hand stays clamped around the top button. The damn thing feels like a ticking time bomb with no visible fuse. Half the time, I feel like Valor knows all about Wyatt and is going to swoop in with a SWAT team at any moment to punish me by pumping him full of holes, but most of the time I’m just hoping it’s like the security cameras at the store—always recording but rarely watched. Like maybe there’s just some crappy mall cop camped out in front of a hundred Valor monitors while he eats his sandwich, occasionally staring when something exciting happens on one of his screens. Maybe they just fast-forward through each tape at the end to make sure I hit the entire list. Maybe they’re grading me. Or maybe the button is just a button. Just another lie.
Maybe it’s just another bite of their bullshit pie that I keep swallowing down with a fake smile. I shake my head. I’ve got to get better at covering that button, just in case. And I have to get on with the next name on the list. Three hours doesn’t feel like enough time, even though I’m already here.
The hat feels nasty as I slip it over my greasy hair with one hand. After kissing my lu
cky locket, I jump out through the front of the truck so Matty can’t follow me. I don’t want her anywhere near me when I’m holding a gun. I don’t want her to get hurt accidentally, but I also don’t want her to see me kill someone. The way she looks at me, her brown eyes soft with unconditional love and worship—I don’t want her to think any less of me, even if she doesn’t really know what’s going on. I need her, and I need her to look at me like I’m awesome.
The front door is taller than it should be, as if daring me to press the doorbell. Bluff called, Tuscano. Inside, an unfamiliar tune plays, something that sounds fancy and French. I roll my eyes. So Ken Belcher’s too good for a regular old ding-dong bell, huh? Footsteps click crisply within, and there’s a moment while I wait for him to inspect me through the peephole. I smile innocently. Cheerfully. And the door unlocks and opens, revealing a thin and angry old man with ruddy skin and graying white hair. I can tell from his pooched-front khakis and slick penny loafers that we would never see eye to eye.
“What is it?” he says sharply, one soft and manicured hand held out expectantly. “Is it from Valor?”
“I think so.” I hand him the signature machine. He signs with a long flourish, and I check to make sure it says Ken Belcher. I had completely forgotten to ask him his name. I can’t read the scrawl. “Are you Ken Belcher?” I say, just to make sure.
He hands the signature machine back and says, “Dr. Ken Belcher,” with a snotty insistence on doctor.
“Dr. Ken Belcher,” I say, “you owe Valor Savings the sum of . . . Jesus. One-point-two million dollars?” I look around at the house towering above and around me. “Seriously?”
“Is this some sort of joke? Give me the envelope and get off my property immediately. I’m a high-level board member of Valor Savings Bank, and that information is personal.”
“Okeydokey.” I hand him the envelope and card without really thinking; I’m just so programmed to respond when important-acting guys talk to me like that. “So you really don’t know why I’m here?”
“To deliver an empty envelope and a ridiculous forgery?” He holds it up and looks at me like I’m dog crap on his shoe. “Was there a check? Did you steal it?” He glances over my head at the mail truck and stares at my chest like my embroidered name will appear if he just watches my boobs long enough. “I’d like to speak to your supervisor.”
But he just stands there. Doesn’t go for a cell phone or walk inside or call for anyone.
“So do it,” I say. “Go ahead and call.”
He gets flustered, licking his thin frog lips. “I don’t get a signal out here. I’m sure your manager’s number is programmed into your cell.” He holds out a hand, fingers wiggling in a “give it here” twitch.
“They turned it off, didn’t they?” I say. “Valor cut you off.”
“That’s a serious accusation, young lady. You don’t know who you’re dealing with.” His face is an ugly shade of orangey-red now. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave my property, or I’ll be forced to call the police.”
But still he doesn’t go for a phone.
“Good luck with that.” I pause and peek around him. “Are you here alone?”
He gasps and tries to shut the door in my face, but I wedge my foot in and step closer. I’ve been scared every other time I’ve done this. It was always in residential areas, near nosy neighbors and kids. But now we’re out in the middle of nowhere. This guy spent millions of dollars that weren’t his to buy his own private country estate, and now there’s nobody left to hear the gunshots.
“You need to leave now.” His voice is quavering, petulant, almost begging. He may have been powerful and untouchable once, but now he’s alone and scared of a skinny seventeen-year-old girl.
“Ken Belcher,” I say firmly, leaving out the doctor part just to make him angry as I dig fingers into the door to force it open. “You owe Valor Savings a shit-ton of money, and they’re calling it in. Can you pay this sum?”
It’s not what I’m supposed to say—not by a long shot. But he’s still got my envelope and his card, and I can barely remember my own name as we fight for control of the door.
“How dare you.”
“Are you willing to work it off as a bounty hunter?”
He shudders and drops the envelope on my foot. He knows now. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about, but—”
“I’m pretty sure you just said no.”
I pull out the gun as he lets go of the door and turns to run away. The world goes into slow motion. He slips on the polished foyer floor, and I pull the trigger, ready for the recoil and the explosion of echoes in the marble room. The shot slams into him, right under his armpit, and he takes a few lurching steps toward the hall, trying to get away. I remember how to move, how to breathe, and push through the open doorway right behind him, my sneakers squeaking on the marble. The old man is gasping and rattling and holding his side, and I know just enough from watching action movies to guess that I shot one of his lungs.
“This is insane,” he splutters, blood bubbling from his lips. “I work for Valor. I’m on the executive board. They wouldn’t do this to me. John wouldn’t let them. They know I’m . . . solvent. They gave me today off for my birthday, for Chrissakes.”
“Of course they did. They wanted you to be home when I got here.”
Dr. Ken Belcher’s loafers slip in his own blood, and he falls forward, landing on his hands before crumpling on his side like a dead spider. He rolls onto his back, puts his hands up in supplication. I aim my gun at his chest, wanting it to be over, wondering if my hands will ever stop shaking. If anyone deserves it, this prick does; he’s part of the debt problem and, if he really was on the Valor board, part of the machine that destroyed my life. But he’s also a terrified old man pissing himself on the marble while he drowns in his own blood, and what he deserves now is mercy. I pull the trigger, and his body thrashes backward, his head bouncing against the tiles.
I loom over him, lean past him to take back the envelope he’d crushed in greedy fingers. His shoes probably cost more than my mom used to make in a month, and his collared shirt is utterly without wrinkles. His hair swoops over shiny red skin, and more hair curls out of his ears and nose. I’ve never really been around someone this wealthy before, but I now know that being rich, or pretending you’re really rich, doesn’t make you any less gross when you’re dead. And it definitely doesn’t make you a better person.
I look up at the grand balcony where the curving staircases meet, twenty feet overhead. The house is unnaturally silent.
“Hello?” I yell. “Is anybody here?”
Nothing. No faraway footsteps or slamming doors or the gasp of a fainting maid. I walk in the direction that seems like the logical place for a kitchen, and eventually I find it. It’s big and airy and filled with rich textures, from shiny stone to raw brick to unused copper pots that gleam like art. The phone on the wall was made to look old, and when I pick it up, the line is dead.
Still jacked up with that weird mix of adrenaline and nausea and horror and giddiness, I rip off my mail shirt and wad it up inside my hat. Jumping over the puddle of blood, I run outside, chandelier crystals crunching under my sneakers.
“Come on in!”
Matty barks joyously from the back, and Wyatt scratches the back of his head and stares at the huge house like he expects it to slowly collapse. “Seriously?”
“It’s empty.”
He shrugs and hops out of the front seat while I let Matty out of the back. She yips happily and slurps my hand and lopes into the tall grass, her tail making huge circles like a helicopter’s rotor.
“I always wanted to see what this place looked like on the inside,” Wyatt says. “You okay?”
Genuine concern is written in his smile, and I wonder if he’s forgiven me for whatever he thinks I did or said wrong last night. I want to ask, but I
don’t know how. Not having a dad in the house means I don’t even know how couples fight. My blueprint for a relationship is a quiet woman, alone, struggling to get by and failing. And I’m not going that route. So I just smile back and comically bow Wyatt toward the door like everything in the entire world isn’t completely wrong.
“After you, milord.”
It’s not until I’m standing in the ginormous shower, washing my hair with a forty-dollar bottle of shampoo, that the irony gets to me. That the guy in the million-dollar mansion wasn’t actually a millionaire and the poor girl from down the street is now enjoying his big-ass house. I spin under the two showerheads, practically melting under the steaming hot water. I was half surprised to discover that the house still had electricity and plumbing after finding the phone cut off. Then again, it seems like Valor wanted him to be here, thinking nothing had changed. Thinking nothing was wrong but a messed-up phone. They wanted him to die holed up in the beautiful house he had no business buying. And for all his importance, he died here, alone, still thinking he was superior and untouchable right up until the last possible moment.
I rinse the conditioner out of my hair and wonder how to pronounce “babassu oil.” What the hell is it, and why does a mostly bald old dude need it? It sounds like it comes from some exotic bird. I’ve never used any shampoo except Suave, but at least there were lots of different scents to try. When I step out onto the heated floor, the towel waiting for me is so huge and fluffy that it’s got to be made of dreams. I wrap myself in it and feel like a child when it falls below my knees. It’s a shade they don’t carry at Walmart, a strange, rich mauvey plum, perfectly matched to the thick wallpaper. Curling my toes against the cozy-warm tile, I wish I could just hole up here for days, painting my toenails and taking bubble baths and pretending I’m richer than my wildest dreams and that I don’t know what worry is.
Matty pads into the room, wagging her tail. There’s dark red staining her muzzle, and I sure as hell hope it’s not Dr. Ken Belcher’s blood. Leaning close, I catch the scent of hamburger and ketchup and breathe a sigh of relief. I scoot her over with a towel-covered knee and realize that I failed to bring a new pair of undies and a new T-shirt in here with me. It’s gross, shrugging back into dirty clothes that still smell like sweat and the peculiar tang of the metal mail truck. But at least I find fancy deodorant and scented lotion in the cabinets.
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