Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
Kate fell asleep in the town car. To her embarrassment, the driver had to call her name a few times when he got to her parents’ driveway.
She rubbed at her eyes, thanking him, then stumbled up the walk, the motion-sensor security lights momentarily blinding her.
She fumbled at the lock, opening the door as she yawned.
There was an audible click. Not the sound of the lock, though. The sound of a gun hammer being cocked back.
She froze, immediately awake as adrenaline flooded her bloodstream.
The light switched on.
Her father stood in his ratty pajamas and a scruffy plaid flannel bathrobe in shades of faded orange and brown. His moccasins were scuffed and there was a hole developing in the sole, she noticed.
He was also pointing his gun at her.
"Damn,” she muttered. “And I really wanted to steal that big screen."
“You always such a smart ass when someone’s got a gun pointed at you?” He scowled at her, de-cocking the service revolver in his hand.
“I figure, if you haven’t shot me by now, my odds are pretty good.” She’d meant it to come out as a joke. Considering her history of trouble, she realized it would’ve been funnier if it weren’t so true.
"You break your cell phone again?" he asked sharply.
"I didn't expect to work so late," she said, hanging up her jacket on one of the pegs by the door and kicking off her pumps. She'd forgotten how uncomfortable heeled shoes were. She was wearing flats tomorrow, definitely. "And I've got to get back to it by eight forty-five tomorrow, so..."
"You were at work?"
The clear doubt in his voice slapped at her. "I really am sorry I didn't call, Dad. You know how I get when I’m sucked into a project. I just lost track."
"And you know we worry," he said, and there was a clear tinge of judgment to it. She was twenty-nine years old, not thirteen… but come home late, and suddenly it was like junior high all over again.
This is what happens when you move back in with your parents.
She straightened. "I got that temp job, at Fiendish Enterprises. The lady I’m working for is..."
A real bitch.
"Demanding," she said instead.
"Do they expect you to come home at one-thirty in the morning every night?" he asked. "And who dropped you off? Those headlights were like helicopter floods, woke me up."
"Town car. Company car," she clarified. "The boss—the big boss—said I shouldn't grab a rideshare so late. Little did he know that I’d be putting my life in jeopardy just by walking into my parents’ living room, huh?”
"Old habits." Her dad grunted, putting the gun away. "Think you'll be able to hold onto this job?"
She stiffened. "I held onto the job at Uncle Oscar's for three years," she said, not even bothering to keep the resentment out of her voice this time.
"Oscar wasn’t exactly demanding," he threw back.
"Dad, it's late, and I'm too tired to have this conversation," she said, heading for the stairs. “I was at work. I’m doing everything I can to keep this job. Okay?”
Her father's hair was thinning, going from a sandy reddish-brown to a peppery gray. It was standing straight up—he’d obviously been tugging at it. "Are you getting paid well, at least? At this job of yours?”
"Decent.”
“Decent for you,” he clarified, “or, like, a normal person wage?”
She bristled. "They’re definitely the richest company I’ve ever seen, and I’m getting paid a little higher on the scale than usual temps."
Her dad sighed. “You know that we were okay with you moving back as long as you got a job,” he said. “But you also knew that it wasn’t going to be permanent.”
“Trust me, I have no plans on staying permanently,” Kate said, before she could stop herself.
Her father glared a little. “You’re not a kid. And we don’t want to make a habit of bailing you out.”
"Do you want me to move out right now?" she asked, keeping her voice neutral, mostly from the numbness she was feeling.
“No, no,” he said. “But I think that it would be best if you paid rent.”
Pride had her chest lifting up, her chin jutting out.
“I have no problem with that.” It would mean that much longer before she could save up to move out, which stung.
Still, they had a point, one she probably should have thought of.
And if she paid rent, maybe they’d treat her more like a tenant, and less like a fuck-up teen.
“I’ll write you a check in the morning.”
"Fine.” He nodded at her. “Good night."
She took a deep breath. "I love you," she said. It wasn't particularly graceful, but she meant it.
He sighed, weary. "Love you too, kiddo," he said, then lumbered off toward the bedroom.
She went to her own room, turning on the light.
It had been her bedroom in junior high and high school.
She'd moved out once she got into college, even though Berkeley was only twenty-five minutes away.
But the bedroom still held traces of that adolescence.
Dog-eared paperbacks crammed haphazardly into a white bookshelf.
Cheap movie posters, secured with tape. A signed CD from some high school band.
A framed print of her with her brother Tim when he graduated from the police academy.
She still remembered when they’d moved here… after her disaster in Southern California. The way they blamed her for needing to move here.
In too many ways, this house had never really felt like home. Now, fourteen years after she’d moved out the first time, it felt like a time capsule of failure and shame.
She had to get out. She’d pay rent. She’d take on a second job if she had to.
And if it meant catering to a psychotic prom queen in one of the lowest rings of corporate hell, then so be it.