“Nah, she asked for you though,” he tells me, standing up and stretching.
I don’t want to sound too eager, so I give it a second before asking, “What did she want?”
“She just asked if you were here.” Masher grabs his keys off the counter as he walks past me. “You want me to come back tomorrow?”
“Yeah, around noon,” I reply, knowing I’m probably in this for the long haul, which means I need to get this place set up as more than just a crash pad, but even more importantly, I need to search her house and see if I can learn anything about her.
“You got it.” He lets himself out, and the door closes loudly behind him. I glance over at Maxine’s closed door, wondering if she’s sleeping and if that woke her up. I have an irrational urge to check on her, but I know not to. It might be cruel, but I’m hoping keeping her isolated might get her to talk to me. It’s not like I have many other options, because I’m not going to hurt her.
* * *
I weara ball cap on my head as I pull into Maxine’s driveway in her car and let myself into her garage. The overhead light is automatic, but not really needed as the sun shines through the thin windows. After a quick look around, I enter her house.
The floor plan is exactly what I expected. I enter a hall off the kitchen that allows me to see the dining room at the front of the condo and the living room to the rear. It smells good, like cookies or something.
I flip on lights as I go, noting the flat beige carpet and scuffed kickboards. If I didn’t know she owned this place, I would think it was a rental. It doesn’t look like it’s seen fresh paint in years.
The kitchen is fairly clean, with no dishes in the sink or food left out, but there’s a layer of grime on the cheap appliances. I’m hesitant to open the fridge, but it’s fine, holding a pizza box, several containers of apple juice in little round bottles, and lots of yogurt.
I sort through a few more things, making a note of what she likes, then start looking through the cabinets and picking up all the cans to make sure none of them are fake, but I come up empty.
The dining room is bare, no table or anything. As I stand there, I begin to think this might only be a front. It certainly doesn’t feel like a real home.
Nonetheless, I take the stairs two at a time to reach the upper floor. There are three doors. One is a bathroom, and I’m guessing the other two are bedrooms. I push open the door to the closest one, finding it empty. I can see the wear in the carpet from where there used to be furniture. The walls are pink, with several little scribbles down near the two-foot mark. I examine the closet, finding toilet paper and what looks like extra bottles of hair shit.
I push open the door to the next room, thinking this might be a waste of fucking time, but instead I find her room. I take in everything—the furniture, TV, soft white walls, and a bed that looks like she just climbed out of it. There’s a laptop near the end, half buried under her blankets, which I snag right away and set off to the side, not that I could forget it, but just in case.
I spend several hours going through every nook and cranny of the room, and there are a lot. She has guns stashed just about everywhere, making me think I dismissed the rest of the house way too easily.
By the time I’m done, there are seven handguns on the bed, two rifles, three portable biometric safes, and countless small weapons like knives and batons. I slide my hand over my mouth, realizing I have very much underestimated this woman.
Maybe she was sent to kill me.
CHAPTER17
MAXINE
The days start to roll together until I don’t think I even have an accurate count of how long I’ve been here. The cut on my stomach is only an inconvenience now, as opposed to how it dominated my thoughts the first few days.
Some days, I scream and claw at the door and walls, while others, it’s like I’ve grown comfortable in my little prison, though I imagine the accommodations are much nicer than your average cell. I even have my own clothes. That really fucked with my head at first, knowing someone was crawling all over my things, touching what’s mine, finding my guns, and discovering all my secrets, but I’ve come to accept it could be worse.
I haven’t seen Winger in days. I haven’t seen anyone really, just a hand or foot as things are pushed into my room a couple times a day. Even then, it’s never at the same time, like they won’t allow me to get used to a routine or know when I should expect them.
I don’t even bother rising from the bed when I hear the lock being undone. I’m having a bad day. I can’t seem to shake the memories of my past or my more recent regrets, like how different things would be had I not broken Winger’s nose.
The door swings open, catching my attention and revealing Winger standing in the doorway. My eyes roam over him, assessing for weak spots, something I could exploit, and maybe making sure there’s no permanent damage to his face.
“Hello, Max,” he says as if it’s only been a few hours since we last spoke or saw each other.
“Winger,” I bite out through my teeth. “How long are you going to keep me here?” I blurt in fear he may disappear again.
“That all depends on you,” he tells me, and he sounds so reasonable, it’s hard to think of him as the one who locked me in here.
“You want to know why I followed you?” I supply, easing myself off the bed.
His eyes track my every move. He’s not a simple target, and he won’t underestimate me again. “Among other things,” he agrees, his arms loose at his sides, ready for anything.
“And if I tell you the truth, you’ll let me go? Let me live?” I amend quickly.
