Chapter
One
Tatiana
* * *
Unease creeps up on me as I peer through the window at the red truck parked on the opposite side of the street. The shiny bodywork and flashy wheel caps stand out in a neighborhood where people don’t polish their cars. It’s almost as if the owner wants to attract attention, which would be a good sign for me. If someone were on my tail, that person would’ve tried to blend in with the less fancy and not-so-expensive vehicles lining the curbs and driveways.
Still, I can’t help but steal a worried glance at Noah, who’s making fighter jet noises while flying a paper plane through the lounge.
Abandoning my task of packing chipped porcelain figurines into a box, I call to the back of the house.
“Jazz?”
I’m grateful for the sheer curtains that allow me to see outside but prevent others from seeing in. I hate that I’m like this, spooked by a vehicle simply because it seems out of place and the driver has shown up around the same time for the past two days. For all I know, the neighbor is having an affair, and the truck belongs to her lover. But being suspicious has become a part of my nature.
My best friend walks through the doorway that connects to the corridor, bogged down by the weight of the box in her arms. “Please tell me it’s knock off time.” She drops the box on top of the other ten or so stacked in the middle of the floor and dusts her hands on her jeans. “I’ve had my quota of sorting through messy papers for one day.” She twists a mass of cherry-brown curls into a bun on her head and secures it with a scrunchy that she pulls off her wrist. “Has your client never heard of filing or shredding? Some invoices date back twenty years. Don’t get me started on all those moth-eaten magazines from before I was born. Who keeps magazines for fifty years? At least the study is done. I’ll need a whole lot of caffeine before we tackle the basement, and I’m talking the good Colombian stuff and not that cheap replacement you call coffee.”
Noah runs a circle around my legs. “Whooossshhhh!”
He doesn’t seem to pay us attention, but I’ve learned that kids’ brains are like little computers that can store everything that comes out of your mouth, even when they’re watching Looney Tunes with a bad, tinny sound blasting from an old, fat-belly television, so I’m careful to lower my voice. “Have you seen the red truck parked out front?”
“Yeah.” She blows a stray curl from her forehead. “Don’t sweat it. I’ve already checked it out. Those snazzy wheels belong to a guy doing a handyman job for the neighbors.”
Alarm quickens my breathing. “Did you speak to the neighbor?”
She grimaces. “Not exactly.”
Hold on. I hope she didn’t do what I think she did.
My heart speeds up. “You spoke to him?”
“I just said hi when I took out the trash.”
I press a palm on my forehead. No. No way. “You asked what he was doing here?”
She props her hands on her hips. “I may have squeezed that question in between, ‘Hello. Nice ride,’ and?—”
“Jazz!” I exclaim under my breath. “You’re not supposed to talk to anyone. Please tell me you didn’t give him your name.”
Noah clambers onto a box, flying his plane higher. I step closer, ready to catch him if he loses his balance.
“What do you take me for?” She wipes her face with the back of her hand, smearing dirt over her cheek. “I didn’t give him my real name.” She snickers. “How does Delilah sound? I’ve always thought it has a sexy ring to it.”
“Can you please be serious for a minute? You know what’s on the line.”
Whatever she sees on my face sobers her. “Chill, will you? It’s been over five years. If he was going to find you, it would’ve happened a long time ago.”
Maybe she’s right. I want to believe that—desperately—but I can never be sure.
“Don’t worry.” She pulls her phone from her back pocket, wakes up the screen, and wiggles a website with a flashy header for home repairs in my face. “The driver of that truck is legit. The handyman service is his own business. He charges a steep call-out fee, but he’s got great reviews.”
Fine, so maybe that explains why his truck has been parked across the street for the past two afternoons. My obsessively anxious self still doesn’t like it.
Jazz waggles her eyebrows as she puts her phone away. “The guy is a dish, and he’s not wearing a ring.” She takes a sharpie from the front pocket of her lumberjack shirt and scribbles bank statements on the box she’s added to the pile. “Maybe you should ask him out on a date.” Grinning, she waves her sharpie like a magic wand at me before pulling the next box closer. “You, my friend, need to have some fun, and guys looking like that don’t come around often.”
The idea is so laughable I don’t bother to reply. The list of reasons why dating is a very bad idea is a mile long. If every factor why I shouldn’t see someone were a clause on a contract, the fine-print would contain more asterisks than snowflakes in a blizzard.
