I knew there was no way I would stay until Sunday with her. I was definitely going home at some point tomorrow. Unless she insisted, but I wasn’t going to hold my breath. She was busy. At least that’s what she always said. It would take all of my fingers and Ripley’s to count the number of times I had asked her over the years if she wanted me to visit with the answer always being the same: it wasn’t a good time for her.
Lenny:Don’t answer that. Sunday is good. Let me see what I can do.
Dang it. That’s what happened when someone knew you too well.
Me:She’s fine. And yeah, sure, Sunday is good. The earlier the better.
Lenny::-)
At least that was done with.
Music played softly in the background the entire drive to my sister’s, now that Rip and I were done arguing at least. I dozed off a couple of times, but he didn’t complain or give me a hard time. I’d left my phone between us with the navigation going. When I checked the arrival time and saw that we were only five minutes away, I sat up straight and started paying attention.
I hadn’t realized that my sister had moved.
When I had first trailed her up to Dallas three years ago, I had just followed her.
The place I had been to was a decent apartment complex that hadn’t lookedtoosketchy. It hadn’t been anything fancy by any means, but it had been all right. It had basically been the same kind of place that we had lived in after moving out of Mr. Cooper’s.
Butthisplace, this place wasnice.
Too nice.
Way too nice if the Mercedes and Audis and BMWs that were on the other side of the gate meant anything.
I gave Rip the code for the gate—Thea had texted it to me along with her address— and I couldn’t help but feel really weird about everything that I saw. Every single car was a late-model luxury car, with a handful of Hondas and Kias thrown in. Now that I thought about it, Thea hadn’t driven herself to Houston in forever. She usually met up with Kyra in Austin and rode with her.
Why wouldn’t she have told me that she moved?
“I thought you said your sister was in college,” Rip said as he slowly drove past one building and toward the other, following the complex’s signs.
I spotted a Range Rover just as I told him, my own voice sounding off and weird, “She is.”
“This is the nicest complex I’ve ever been in.”
“Me too,” I muttered, feeling really uneasy and maybe even a little hurt that she wouldn’t have told me. Did she think I’d be jealous or something?
But really, how the hell did she afford something like this? She had a job at the university. She took summer classes. She had an internship and loans.
I paid for her meal plan at school.
There had to be a reason she hadn’t told me she was living somewhere else.
Maybe she had gotten a new roommate who was rolling in it?
That would make sense. I was still living in my house that I was fixing up, and she didn’t want me to know that she probably had a walk-in shower and granite countertops while I was still saving for mine. Thea had never been the kind of person to bethathumble but….
“What number is it again?”
I told him the apartment number she’d given me.
Right by it, Rip turned the truck into one of the spots that said they were reserved for guests. Based on the apartment number, the place was on the third floor. We got out, and he let me lead the way as I looked for the stairs or an elevator. I found the stairway first and headed up, with him following behind. On the third floor, it didn’t take long to find the number I was looking for.
I rang the doorbell and took a step back, bumping into Rip’s side. Peering up, I found him looking down at me, and I smiled at him. “Thank you again for coming with me.”
He watched me with those blue-green eyes. His voice was low, “Sure.”
“Let me see what she wants to do, and I’ll see if I can get a hotel room or something for you to stay at.” My eyes slid toward the door that still hadn’t opened and something that was pretty close to unease slid over me. “I had planned on just staying here, but I don’t know if that’s going to happen.”
