After a minute, I knock again.
The door flies open and an old Hispanic man with a belly so round it sags out from under his dirty T-shirt answers.
“Qué?”
I glance quickly around to be sure I have the right apartment. “Did Caiden Brenner move?”
He shakes his hands at me like windshield wipers. “No Inglés.”
I wipe my palms on my skirt and look around again. At the other end of the parking lot are a bunch of guys. Probably the same ones who wanted me to come out and play when I was stalking Caiden before Christmas.
“I’m sorry,” I tell the man in the door, then spin and skip down the stairs.
I’m not even halfway to the group when one of them sees me coming. He starts strutting toward me and his hombres follow.
“Pretty white girl be slummin’ it? Tired of missionary and come lookin’ for a real live bad boy to satisfy you, Peaches?”
I stand my ground. “Do you know what happened to the guy who used to live in that apartment?” I ask, pointing back the way I came.
“The Professor?” He grins, showing me his gold teeth. Yep, same guy. “I might got some information.” He starts unbuckling his belt. “What the pretty girl willin’ to give me for it?”
“I need to know where he went.”
Desperation causes the words to come out a little choked, which only spurs Gold Teeth on. “You ever suck Mexican dick, Peaches?” He grins. “We’re spicy. You like it.”
He’s got his junk half out of his pants when one of his hombres comes up behind him and smacks him upside the head.
“Why you always gotta be a fuckin’ asshole, Manuel? Nobody want to see your fuckin’ junk.” He steps around Manuel and looks at me. “The Professor, he moved some shit outta here around New Years. Otis let us take the rest of the shit he left in there. Ain’t none of us seen him or his sweet blonde since then.”
“Who would know where he went? Maybe someone in the office? Otis?”
“Ain’t no office. Otis runs the place when he ain’t fuckin’ passed out. He don’t know nothin’.”
I take a deep breath to settle the acid rising up my throat. I look around the lot for Caiden’s car, knowing I’m not going to find it.
I turn back to the guy. “Was the blonde here a lot? Before he moved out?”
He gives a loose, whole body shrug. “None of them been around much since last summer.”
“But when he was here, so was her fine ass,” Gold Teeth interjects with a shit-eating grin, grabbing his junk, which he’s thankfully put away.
My stomach sinks through my shoes. They’ve been together since last summer. Probably since he got out of jail. “Thanks.”
I go back to my car and stare at my phone for about a year before working up the nerve to dial. I throw my phone into the passenger door when the message says Caiden’s number has been disconnected.
There’s only one thing I can think to do. Out of sheer desperation, I drive to Sierra State. If it means finding Caiden, I’m willing to face Professor Duncan again. I knock on his door, but it’s locked and there’s no answer.
The next door down the hall is open. The nameplate next to the door says Dr. Gerald Garret. I stick my head in and find an older guy, balding with horn-rimmed glasses, sitting behind the desk. It looks like he’s falling asleep over some papers he’s reading.
“Hi,” I say and he jumps and straightens himself in his seat.
“Can I help you?”
I step into the door. “I know Caiden Brenner isn’t at this school anymore, but he’s moved since he worked here. Do you know if there’s someone who might know where I can find him?”
His face twists as if he just ate something rotten. “He’s been gone a year. If he’s not at the address in his employment record, we wouldn’t have had any reason to update it.
So, that’s it. He’s gone. He’s moved on with his life.
“Thank you,” I say, already turning for the stairs.
I drop into my car and pull out of the lot as the first tears roll down my face. When the road ahead of me gets so blurry I nearly hit an oncoming car, I pull over to the shoulder. I fold my arms over the steering wheel and rest my forehead on them as sobs hitch up from the deepest part of me. Every muscle clenches as my body vomits out the pain in a river of tears, leaving me raw and bleeding inside.
This is when I know what Nate did for me. I traded this pain for the numb humiliation being with him brought me. A voice slithering through the darkest corners of my mind whispers to me to go back to the numbness. But that’s sick, and I’ve already been sick for too long.
So I pull my head up, scrub my face clean with my sleeve, embrace my mangled life, and drive home.
I’m relieved to find that neither of my parents’ or Nate’s cars are parked out front when I pull up to the house. I unlock the front door and when I push it open, the first thing I see is Marcus, sprawled on the family room floor with an ice bag on his hand and his other elbow crooked over his eyes.