Page 83 of The Woman with the Handcuffs

The gambling or possible addiction angles flew out the window when I saw how much money he was holding onto. If he was a gambler, he wouldn’t be able to help setting that on a table. If he was an addict, a huge chunk of that would be snorted or shot up by now.

I glanced over at Caitlin in the backseat of the cab. There was a sharp ache in my chest, realizing that whatever she was about to learn about her father wouldn’t be good.

Either he was dead or he was alive but not the man she believed he was. Either way, she was going to grieve.

“Hey, can you stop on the corner?” I asked.

“We’re not at your apartment,” Caitlin said, glancing over at me.

“I think you could use a pick-me-up,” I said, paying before sliding out of the cab.

I reached down to offer my hand, but didn’t let go when she moved out onto the sidewalk with me.

“A bookstore,” she said, smile warm even if it didn’t quite meet her eyes.

“They even have those fancy-ass sugar treats you call coffee,” I told her as we walked up to the doors.

“You know the way to a girl’s heart,” she said.

It was a throwaway comment. But there was a strange warm sensation in my chest as I followed her into the store.

“Are you a ‘no coffee around the books’ kind of person? Or a ‘sip and browse’ kind of person?”

“You can only be one?” I asked, leading her toward the back of the store where the cafe could be found.

I’d had enough coffee in the last week or so for half my blood to be replaced with it. But I ordered one just so she didn’t feel weird about getting one.

“Would you like to add a jumbo pumpkin spice cookie for just two dollars?” the barista asked.

“Yes, she would,” I said, saving her from having to pretend like she wasn’t dying for it.

“I thought they were exaggerating when they said jumbo,” she said a few minutes later when she had her coffee between her arm and chest so her hand was free to hold the cookie half the size of her head in a little parchment paper shell.

“Is it good?” I asked as she chewed.

To that, she made a moaning sound that brought me right back to the storage unit, the stairwell, the bunk of the tractor.

She held it out to my lips. And despite not necessarily being a fan of nutmeg, cloves, or pumpkin, I opened my mouth and let her push it in for a bite.

And it wasn’t bad. I didn’t get the all-pumpkin-everything craze, but could appreciate a decent pumpkin baked good on occasion. This was right below my sister’s homemade pumpkin pie when it came to that particular category of food.

But Caitlin was happy to eat the rest of it herself while walking about and pointing out books she’d already loved—or hated—with detailed reasons why.

None of them were even books I would have picked up, but I found myself hanging on every word, laughing with her, empathizing with her when she’d thought a book would be a five-star and barely got a three out of her. Her enthusiasm was contagious enough for me to mentally jot down a few of her favorites of the year to pick up and read.

“Really?” I asked when she shoved her cookie wrapper into my pocket so she could pick up a book with some sort of cryptid embracing a woman on the cover.

“This is the definition of a hear-me-out book. Because even if he wasn’t a cryptid, this would still be a favorite. It’s beautifully written. And it touches on grief like I don’t think I’ve ever read before.”

“Alright. You sold me,” I said, picking it up.

“You don’t have to read it because I loved it.”

“I don’t have to, no. But I’m curious what you liked about it. Even if bringing this cover to the counter is going to be embarrassing as fuck.”

She laughed at that before twirling over to the new releases and grabbing two.

But whereas that would have been the point I hightailed it out of the store, my social battery overfilled to the point of explosion risk, I followed Caitlin as she checked out the puzzles, the bookmarks (she apparently needed a new one for each book, despite having cups full of bookmarks at her place… and spare pieces of paper working just as well), then stopped to check out the bookish mug selections.