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I don't mean to listen. I'm just walking past.

"I know," she's saying, low and tight. "I know what he said. I'm the one who keeps the schedule."

A pause. Somebody talking on the other end. Corinne's shoulders drop.

"No," she says. "She hasn't missed a night. Not yet."

Chapter fourteen

Tara

I stand in the hallway outside Corinne’s door for maybe three more seconds.

She doesn’t say anything else. She just listens to whoever’s on the other end, with her hand flat on the desk, and then she says, “I’ll call you tomorrow,” and hangs up, and her shoulders slump forward.

I keep walking. My heart’s going hard, and I don’t know why, because what did I hear, really? The operations manager talking about the schedule. It’s her job to talk about the schedule. It’s her job to know whether I’ve missed a night.

It’s just the not yet I can’t get out of my head.

Lenart’s office door is open. Merek’s sprawled in the chair across from Lenart’s desk with his boots up on the corner of it, which Lenart is pretending not to see.

“There she is,” Merek says. “I was about to send a search party. Then I remembered whose room you were in and decided to mind my own business.”

“Okay,” I say. “You’re going to think I’m paranoid.”

His boots come down.

“I just walked past Corinne’s office. She’s on the phone. She said, She hasn’t missed a night. Not yet.” I hear how it sounds out loud, and I make a face. “It’s her job. I know it’s her job. I just didn’t love the yet.”

Merek and Lenart look at each other.

“Who was she talking to?” Lenart asks.

“I don’t know. I didn’t stand there with a glass against the wall. I kept walking.”

“Good,” Merek says. He gets up. “I’ll tell William. He’ll want to know, and he’ll know what to do with it. And you’ll go home and sleep.”

“I’m not tired.”

“You’re swaying, Trouble.”

I am, a little.

Billy Bob is waiting at the door when we get home at five-thirty. He follows Merek straight to the kitchen and starts howling at the pantry.

“Your dog,” Merek says, scooping kibble, “has taken over my house.”

“You let him.”

“I did,” Merek says, putting his bowl down.

I’m asleep before Merek finishes turning off the lights.

I sleep until one. Then I eat breakfast with Merek at the kitchen table, eggs and toast and coffee, with Billy Bob’s chin on my foot. It’s so normal I almost forget. I’m halfway through my second cup before I think about Corinne again.

“I keep hearing her say it,” I tell Merek. “Not yet.”

“William said he’d look into the call,” Merek says. “There’s nothing for you to do about it today.”