Chapter Twelve
Caitlin
I grew up with a reasonably frugal father.
He always knew he wanted to be able to send me to get a good education one day, so while he did buy me anything I wanted, he was careful about spending more than he needed to on basic life essentials.
Like rooms when we decided to stay in them for short periods of time.
Did that mean I had, on more than one occasion, woken up with bed bug bites? Yep. And had to endure the bone-deep embarrassment listening to johns and sex workers getting it on loudly in the next room? Also, yes.
But I really developed a fondness for some cheap roadside motels over the years.
And the interesting mix of people you could find there.
There were, of course, the occasional truckers.
Or the clients of sex workers. But there were also men kicked out of their houses, staring off into the distance, trying to figure out how their lives had gone so far off their original path.
There were single moms with a bunch of little kids, trying to start over but finding it nearly impossible with childcare costs through the roof and no help from their deadbeat exes.
I got to play with those random kids in pools. Or listen to my dad try to give the lost men advice. They were almost all pleasant parts of my childhood.
That said, yeah, Gav was right about the hotel.
I’d never seen such a clean room in my life.
The space was dominated by two queen beds with sheets that smelled freshly laundered and bedspreads had no suspicious stains.
Though I knew better—thanks to helping out the cleaning ladies at many motels over the years—than to trust a bedspread.
Not even at a fancy hotel. So the first thing I did was walk over to each bed and fold them down, pulling them off, and piling them up on the desk.
“Beat me to it,” Gav said, coming back in from checking the bathroom after looking in the closet.
He put down the bags and went to the bed closest to the door, pulling up the mattress, checking in all the crevices. I did the same.
“Okay,” I said, toeing off my shoes, then free-falling back onto the bed by the windows. “I am willing to say I’m wrong when I’m wrong. You were right about the hotel.”
“And you didn’t even see the bathroom yet.”
“Is the shower niche glorious?”
“Four shower heads.”
“I have a single shower head at home that basically trickles water down on my head. Takes me ten minutes to wash shampoo out of my hair.”
“Why do you live there?”
“Fear of change, I guess. Also, can you imagine hauling all those boxes of books?”
“I can. I have,” he admitted.
“Why didn’t you hire someone to do it? You can clearly afford it.”
Gav sat on the side of the bed, shrugging a shoulder at me. “In my line of business, we don’t tend to invite strangers into our lives. I did have some of my soldiers hauling boxes, too.”
“Oh, to have lackeys,” I said, shooting him a smile.
“They come in handy,” he agreed as he got back up to open his bag, pulling out his charger, toiletry bag, an outfit for the night, and his book.
“I hate to say this.”
“But?” he asked, gaze cutting over.
“But I’m kind of hungry.”
“I bet you are,” he agreed. “You had approximately three-thousand empty calories today. You need actual food.”
“It’s not my fault that club had chipotle mayo.”
“Chipotle mayo isn’t spicy.”
“Says someone who doesn’t have to travel with this,” I said, folding up, grabbing my bag and pulling out my kit and unzipping it.
Inside, there were both pill and liquid forms of the pink stuff, fizzy antacids, liquid antacids, and chalky antacids, anti-nausea medicine, and a huge handful of peppermints.
“Christ.”
“I believe you are quite familiar with my sensitive stomach.”
“I thought you just got grossed out easily.”
“Nope. My anxiety likes to keep me awake with a churning stomach and burning throat. So I try not to trigger it with spicy foods.”
“I guess that’s fair then. So, we need to find some non-spicy food around here. Did you come across any restaurants in your search?”
“It’s the middle of the night.”
“Room service it is,” he said, finding a leather folder on the dresser and tossing it toward me.
“Oh, good. A QR code.”
“Why is that a good thing?”
“I can order without having to talk to anyone.”
“You’ll talk to a homeless man for twenty minutes, but placing an order over the phone is a nonstarter?”
“I never claimed my anxiety was rational. Half this menu is more junk food. Chips, ice cream sandwiches, and bagged popcorn.”
“That can’t be everything.”
“Two kinds of pizza and dumplings.”
“Weird-ass menu.”
“The actual meals are amazing. But it’s the overnight. So, pizza and dumplings?”
“Sounds food-adjacent.”
“They’re veggie dumplings.”
“Tomorrow, we’re having salads for lunch.”
“Are you this concerned about everyone’s eating habits?”
“Most of the people I know don’t eat candy and chips for dinner. Well, most people I know over ten years old.”
“I eat salads.” He raised his brows at me. “I do. Once or twice. A year.”
That got a little chuckle out of him, and I was a little too aware of the way it made his eyes dance.
“You always ate like shit?”
“Well, trucking lifestyles aren’t exactly healthy. We ate a lot of fast food. I went a whole year where I basically only ate chicken nuggets.”
“Your dad still eat like that?”
“He’s actually on a health journey. Has been for the past few years. He lost like sixty pounds by switching from the junk to the veggies and healthy wraps.”
“Why’d he switch? Was he sick? Heart? Cholesterol?”
I had a feeling he wasn’t asking out of genuine interest or concern for my father, but because he was wondering if maybe my father’s health contributed to his disappearance. Walked out of the tractor, maybe had a heart attack, and that was that.
The problem was, wouldn’t the cops have found him if that were the case?
“Not that he shared with me. And he shared just about everything with me.”
“Did he?” Gav asked, brows lifted.
Right.
I guess he did have at least one secret, didn’t he?
“No. No, I didn’t know about you. Or your deal with him. I don’t even understand it. He didn’t need the money.”
“Everyone needs money.”
“He makes a decent living.”
“Yeah, but he’s getting older. Can’t imagine he’s got a lot in retirement. He had to be thinking about taking care of himself in his old age.”
“I would have taken care of him.”
“You have a one-bedroom apartment.”
“I could have moved. I make a decent living.” Decent enough to live alone in an extremely expensive city. If my father needed a place to stay, I could move. Or move out of the city and get a little house rental or something.
“Speaking as a man, I figure there’s a lot of pride at play. He came across an easy way to make sure he could provide for himself into his old age.”
“Look where that got him.”
“Hey, I’ve been real with you—”
“I remember some lies.”
“Would I be here with you if I was responsible for your father’s disappearance?”
“Okay. Probably not.”
“Definitely not. The fuck would I waste my time like that for?”
“Alright. I’ll stop being suspicious of that,” I decided.
“But I don’t know. I don’t think my father would keep something like a health issue from me.
I already knew he was trying to get healthy.
He used to tell me all his meals each day to hold himself accountable.
And he would take walks when he called to talk to me.
It just makes no sense if it was because of his heart that he wouldn’t just… say that.”
“You know him better than I do,” he conceded. “Just trying to come up with the most plausible scenarios.”
“I know. I just—that was fast.”
“Figure this late, shit is just getting reheated,” Gav said, going to the door as he reached for his wallet.
He rolled the tray in, glancing pointedly at the ice cream sandwiches I’d ordered.
“They’re for later,” I said, grabbing them and shoving them into the minuscule freezer in the mini fridge.
“You didn’t even eat yet, what do you need that for?” Gav asked as I reached for the bottle of chalky antacids.
“This is going to sound stupid but the pasta sauce on the pizza will absolutely start some nonsense if I don’t stop it in its tracks.”
“Ever try an elimination diet?”
“Yeah.” I popped a tablet in my mouth and chewed. “The problem is, it made me miserable in a different way. At least this way, I still get some joy with my food. Even if I sometimes suffer, too.”
“Guess that’s fair,” he said, reaching for a slice of the pepperoni pizza. “I would be pretty miserable not being able to have pizza here and there. Even if this is not pizza,” he said, nose wrinkling up as he chewed.
I took a slice of the plain and shrugged. “I used to make those little personal pizzas you get for like a dollar right out of the microwave.”
“All gummy and shit?”
“Yep. Folded the whole thing in half and ate it like a slice.”
“Be honest. You didn’t ‘use to’ do that. You still do.”
My lips twitched before the smile won out.
“Had one the night before I came to your house. While I was painting the tip of the fake gun.”
“In a city full of cheap slices of the best pizza in the world, that’s a crime.”
“The guy at the closest pizza place hits on me relentlessly. And once tried to follow me home.”
“He what?”
“Yeah. I noticed his reflection in the storefronts as I passed, so I went into the closest convenience store instead. Waited until he left. Never went back.”
“Didn’t get his ass fired for that shit?”
“He’s the owner’s son.”
“The pizza place on the corner?” he asked. “With the green and white awning?”
“Um, yeah. Why?” I asked, reaching for one of the dumplings but avoiding the chili sauce. It said ‘sweet’ on the menu, but I’d been burned before. In a literal way. From the inside. Better not to be up all night with a fire blazing across my chest and up my throat.
“Nothing,” he said, putting down his half-eaten slice, wiping his hands, then reaching for his phone.
“Checking in with your family?” I asked.
“Something like that,” he said, shooting off a rapid-fire text.