“You can come back and play soon,” Dr. Richards promised.
“I’d like that,” Melissa shared.
“Me, too! Next time, we’ll play outside,” Zoey suggested.
“That sounds like fun. Can I take my pictures?” Melissa asked, hating to abandon them.
“Of course. Your Daddy wants them for the refrigerator,” Zoey declared.
“I definitely do. Thank you, Zoey,” Rocky said with a smile.
CHAPTER 10
“That’s it,” Santiago declared.
“Thank you so much for your help,” Rocky said, shaking the man’s hand before turning to express his gratitude to everyone else.
Tim and his Daddies, Santiago and Clark, had appeared at the apartment complex as well as Tami and Archer to clear out Melissa’s possessions from her apartment. Melissa knew Rocky could have handled everything himself, but having the people she worked with support her meant the world.
Throwing away the possessions she’d worked so hard to buy was tough on Melissa. It had only taken her one look at the condition of the mattress after she hadn’t been there to keep the water bowls filled. Melissa agreed with Rocky’s assessment that she should just leave it in the dumpster. Insects had eaten their way into the padding, making her skin crawl.
Melissa didn’t know how she had survived living like that. Her apartment had sheltered her from the weather, but not much more. Getting out of there and living with Rocky now made it seem a million times worse.
As they finished setting virtually everything at the dumpster, Melissa swept through the apartment, double checking shehadn’t forgotten anything. In the kitchen, she picked up a small pile of papers. Rocky had found them shoved under her door when they’d opened it. The top two were from the neighborhood pizza place. He’d set them aside for her to look through. She scooped them up and headed for the outside trash bin.
Just in case there was something from her landlord, she looked over each item before throwing them in the metal container. Pizza. Pizza. Ooh. Chinese. That was new restaurant close by.
She froze, looking at the masculine scrawl of a handwritten note.
You think you can get away from me?
You’re wrong.
Looking up automatically, she saw a shadow in the window in the last apartment on her floor. He was watching her.
She flipped that page to the back of the stack and read the next. Her heart rate slowed a bit to see the official note from her landlord. That letter notified her she would have to be completely out of the apartment by the last day of the month. It also detailed what the landlord had seen as damage to the apartment. Not surprisingly, it totaled the same amount her deposit had been.
Wood damage to the kitchen cabinets.
Damage to the rubber gasket around the refrigerator door.
Water damage to the carpet in the bedroom where her bug barricades had splashed.
Melissa didn’t even get mad. Of course, the owner wouldn’t return her money. At least he wouldn’t get any more of it.
Looking at the last piece of paper, she discovered a picture of her grabbing her tools out of her car as she visited a yard she cleaned. It was grainy and obviously produced on someone’s home printer. She could tell it was the Wilson’s home. It was in the northern section of town, over twenty miles from this apartment complex.
