“I insist. If I leave, you are going to continue to work, and I can tell that you are exhausted. Now move it.”
I smiled at her. We just met, and she already knew my intentions. I was already thinking that I could get the walls washed before I went to bed. “I’m going to grab a shower, and I’ll be over.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
I didn’t wonder anymore why Lauren had picked the house on the other side of the road, rather than the one by the ocean. Her house was quite a bit bigger. She had it decorated with modern décor. The walls were like mine and painted two-toned but with beige and chocolate brown. There was a black and white, female country music singer hanging behind the couch. I knew I had seen the woman before, but couldn’t tell you her name.
“You play?” I asked, eyeing the guitar on the couch.
“Yeah, I mess around a little,” she said, modestly.
She was dressed in flannel pants and a t-shirt just like me. She yawned and showed me to her spare bedroom. It was a queen sized bed with a fluffy green comforter. I couldn’t wait to crawl into it.
I lay in bed and stared out at a branch blowing back and forth in the window. I had a million and one thoughts going through my mind, and they wouldn’t seem to settle. I thought about decorating my new house and making it my own. That thought led to the mansion that I had just fled from. My whole house was the size of my suite there, but already it was more inviting than the ice cold castle. That thought led me to thoughts of Drew, and I betted that he had at least five P.I.’s looking for me.
Would he find me? Was there any way that he could trace my whereabouts? I wondered what my friend Jena had told him. She knew nothing. I made sure of it. She had no idea where I was either. I talked to her the night before I had disappeared, and we even talked about the weekend charity event that we would attend, tomorrow. I wondered if Drew was sly enough to report me missing. I had made my intentions perfectly clear with my short, to the point, note, informing him that I hoped he rotted in hell.
It was a good possibility that he never even found the note.
I had typed in my e-reader. I told him not to try to find me, but I knew that was like pissing in the wind. He had everyone he knew on it, and then some.
I thought I had covered my tracks well enough though. I didn’t once talk to Ms. K on my cell or the house phone. The only telephone that I had ever used to call her was the pre-paid one that she had given me, and once from Drew’s desk phone, but that was months ago. He made so many calls from that phone he would never put it together, not to mention I didn’t even know Ms. K’s name. All she would ever give me was Ms. K.
Chapter 2
I woke later than I had wanted to. I had so much to get done yet, and here I was still in bed at almost nine. I wasn’t sure what time the exhaustion had finally won, and I fell asleep, but I did feel rested. I walked out to Lauren’s living room, and it was empty. Her bedroom door was opened, so I peeked in, it was empty too. Maybe she had to work.
I walked down the hall and took in the portraits down the left side of the wall. I knew that Lauren had a much better childhood than I had. There were several pictures of her and her sister, I assumed. They both had the strawberry blonde hair and were built with the same short but not too short build. There were two other pictures of the two girls and their parents. I presumed that Lauren was the older of the two by the graduation picture.
I slipped on my flip-flops and walked across the road to my own house. My own house, I said, smiling to myself again. Panic struck once more when I noticed my front door open. I relaxed almost immediately the closer I got. I could hear the country music playing.
I looked in the smaller bedroom, and it was empty, but the walls had been washed, curtains hung, and the wood floor shined. I laughed when I heard Lauren singing something about having friends in low places. She was singing in a deep voice, not her own I was sure. I opened the door with a grin.
“What on earth are you doing?” I asked, seeing her on the floor with a bottle of Murphy’s oil soap and a rag.
The curtains were hung there too, and I loved them. The white curtains with the black, willow tree pattern accented the gray walls perfectly.
“Sorry, I hope you don’t mind. I am used to getting up at four in the morning for work. I was up by five and didn’t want to wake you.”
“You should have woken me,” I claimed. “What on earth do you do that you have to get up at four in the morning?”
“Lauren and Levi,” she said. Like I knew what that meant.
“Uh?”
“Oh, sorry I forgot. You’re not from around here, Lauren and Levi in the morning. I’m a radio host.”
“Really? You talk on the radio?” I asked, intrigued. “Now I know I have to go buy a radio.”
“Yup, I work from five am to one pm.”
“I bet it’s country too, right?” I smiled.