“David,” Henry told me. “The little boy in the closet.”
My flesh prickled with goosebumps and the hair on the back of my neck rose, but I forced a smile, ignoring the sudden closeness of the closet.
“Well,” I said, gathering up the rest of the papers and steering Henry out before closing the door, “I’ll put them up for a while. If he doesn’t want them back in a couple of weeks, you can have them.”
Henry shrugged. “Okay. Do I still get to play with his toys?”
I took in the room again, making note of more toys than I’d originally noticed. “Are all these toys David’s?”
Henry sat back down on the ground to continue playing. “Well, kinda. They were someone else’s, but now they’re his. He said he’d share them with me if I shared mine with him.”
I shuddered, suddenly colder than what the little air conditioning unit could cause but immediately chastised myself for being freaked out by what Henry had told me. We hadn’t even been in the new apartment for an hour, and I was already allowing what had happened at the old place with the intruder to put me on edge. Henry just had an active imagination. That was all.
“Is David your new friend?” I asked, willing to play along.
Henry nodded. “Yep!”
I experienced a pang in my chest, feeling for the millionth time that it was my fault Henry didn’t have any friends. I’d berated myself I don’t know how many times, my mom guilt in overdrive: If only I’d been able to afford to live in a better neighborhood, maybe he wouldn’t be so lonely. If only I’d tracked down his father and asked for his assistance. If only, if only, if only…
But this was a fresh start for both of us, with a chance to make new friends. I’d never had many friends growing up thanks to our frequent moves and had made up a few imaginary friends too, so I wasn’t going to take that away from Henry if that’s what he needed right now to cope with the changes in our life.
“Well, I hope I get to meet him sometime,” I said, sitting down on the floor with Henry and leaning forward to squeeze his hand. “But, hey, I have an idea—maybe we can go meet Adelaide once we get unpacked. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
Henry shrugged. “I dunno. David says he doesn’t like Adelaide.”
I frowned. “Why not?”
He shrugged again. “He says she doesn’t ever talk to him, so he doesn’t like her.”
A whisper of a breeze at the back of my neck chilled me to the bone once more. Except the air conditioning unit was directly across from me, not behind me.
“Hey, y’all!”
I started so hard every muscle in my body contracted.
“I brought little man’s toys first,” Chase called, his voice growing closer as he came down the hall toward us.
Embarrassed by my overreaction, I scrambled to my feet and snatched up the stack of drawings as Chase entered with the box of action figures, toy cars, and stuffed animals.
He paused in the doorway, flicking a glance at the papers in my hands. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I said with a nervous laugh. “Yeah, it’s great. Just taking a look at Henry’s room. I still can’t believe they left all this behind.”
Chase set the box down and took the room in. “Never know what people will do when they’re backed into a corner.”
Chapter three
I’d finished tucking my few clothes into drawers while Henry went down for a nap and was trying to figure out where to hang the artwork I’d brought with us when someone knocked on the apartment door. I opened it to see a slightly hunched elderly man with a shock of wild white hair and narrow, pale-blue eyes.
“May I help you?” I asked, ignoring his scowl.
“I don’t like crumb snatchers,” he said without preamble, “and I hear you have one. I’d prefernotto hear him running around at all hours of the night, keeping me awake.”
“You must be Mr. Dean,” I replied. “Well, no need to worry, Mr. Dean. Henry doesn’t run around all night. He’s in bed by eight o’clock. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
In reply, Mr. Dean grunted and shuffled away, leaving me shaking my head.
“Nice to meet you, too,” I murmured.
