The location Andy gives me is a pin, no address. The satellite view is a gigantic house, the sort of house twenty million dollars buys, but Andy can’t pull up any information on it. It’s at an intersection, set far back in the woods on the edge of a pond, and the driveway meanders to both roads. It’s a couple miles from anything, so it’s impossible to guess at the number. The street view shows a plaque on one of the gates, but the image isn’t legible.
“You know, you just kind of vanished off the earth for a few months there,” Denny says when the silence must get to him.
“Yeah, sorry. It wasn’t anything against you, I swear. It was just . . .”
“A lot. I get it. Blaise Sinclair with a kid. That’s wild.”
“Is it?” It feels like the only normal thing anymore. That and when I hold Tilly just tight enough that I forget everything.
“It’s cool. Kids are fully not my thing. They’re gross and weird and loud and smelly, and if I ever just had a surprise like—well, obviously I’m never going to have a surprise like this. But it sounds like you could dip and no one would care, but instead you’re fighting for him. What’s the deal with you and the mom, anyway?”
Most of my friends are my teammates. Their girls are all close to Tilly. In general, I appreciate it. I saw what Joss went through last year because Allore’s girl had an issue with her, and Joss is rock solid. Tilly is . . .
Tilly.
“Remember that girl I told you I hooked up with at Ani-Con?”
“The one you had to save from the pervs? The one you were all gaga over?”
“I wasn’t gaga over her.”
“Girl, you were obsessed with her. And all sad and lame. It was kind of embarrassing.”
“Cool, thanks. That girl was Tilly.”
“Oh.Ohhh.”
“Yeah. And remember that bye week when I was going to go on that big trip to Vegas, but instead, we just played Smash Bros for a week and a half?”
“You’re about to hurt my feelings, aren’t you?”
“I did want to hang out with you. I was going to take you to Vegas. I thought you’d be a cool trip buddy. It was going to be a surprise. I’d already gotten tickets to RuPaul’s show.”
He glances from the highway to me. We’re in the middle of nowhere, so it’s fine that he’s a little distracted, but I wish he weren’t staring at me at this exact moment.
“But I ended up not being able to afford the trip because Tilly was blackmailing me. I’m broke.”
I tell him everything. It’s good. He doesn’t interrupt except to ask for more details, and he doesn’t make any rude comments. He just hears me out. And when I get to now, this exact moment, he doesn’t make any assumptions; he just asks, “What do you think we’ll find at this place?”
I let myself sit on that question. The GPS directs us off the highway, and we really are in the middle of nowhere. There’s only one gas station at the exit, and it’s the kind of place I wouldn’t feel safe walking into. Not saying all these places are filled with racist assholes, but enough are and can be dangerous enough I’m not about to risk it.
“I want to find out she’s visiting a friend. A girlfriend. A friend.”
Denny raises an eyebrow at me, but there’s no way I’m explaining about that Emerson prick. She’s been wearing that damn wig every time she goes out with the WAGs, a slap in my face. And as soon as I corrected togirlfriend, I knew I was being a dick. She can have guy friends. Just not that guy friend.
“But I’m worried that this house is going to explain where all the money went.”
The house is even more impressive than Google made it seem. If we were in better mountains, I’d call it a chalet, but we’re in Appalachia. It’s definitely an estate, maybe a castle. And it’s ridiculous, I can’t even imagine Tilly wanting a place like this.
It’s gated, and Denny asks what he should say into the box. I shrug. “We’re here to see Tilly, I guess? Tilly Washington? Natalie Washington?”
Denny tries it, and the gate opens automatically. It’s only after we’re past the gate that I remember there was a plaque in the image of the property, but it’s too late to check it out. As we approach the house, I notice that Tilly’s car isn’t here, at least not parked outside, but six other cars are.
“Staff?” Denny suggests, parking in front of the giant entrance. He offers to go in with me, but I ask him to stay for now. I don’t know what I’m walking into, and I don’t need witnesses for what may happen.
The person who opens the door is not a butler. It’s an older woman in a nurse’s uniform that immediately gives me the warm feeling of Gammy, who’s still a nurse at a retirement home despite being the same age as some of her patients. And this lady — Nurse Becky, her tag reads — opens the door to aplace that even gives me the vibes of a retirement home. But incredibly opulent and like they’re trying to hide what it is. This is a place where rich people go to die. I feel it in my bones, confirmed when I take a couple steps in and look past the front hall, where a reception desk has been set up, and see two decrepit white ladies playing chess, one with a tank of oxygen next to her, the other in a wheelchair. There’s a TV on, and the man watching it, who looks no older than my dad but as feeble as the chess players, is mumbling incoherently.
This place looks astronomically expensive. The man’s complexion is a sicklier shade of my own, but the old ladies are pasty white. Is one of them Tilly’s grandma? Is this what she needed the money for? Was she just trying to get her grammy the best care possible?
