Chapter 28 Kira
KIRA
Istand in the apartment and survey the place. Stellan lingers beside me, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed.
“It looks so… cheap.” I frown a little. “And dingy.”
“It is cheap and dingy. Remember how you worked two jobs?”
“Oh, right.” I glance at him. “You’re still giving everyone here a break, right?”
“For as long as they want to stay.”
“Good.” I stretch my legs and twist my back. “I’ll visit everyone later. But for now, we’re going to rip this place to shreds, right?”
He grins. “Sounds fun. I’m good at that.”
We get to work. He starts in the kitchen and I go to the living room. When I first moved in here, I brought most of our stuff from the old house with us. Mom's stuff got mixed up in the bunch, plus some things from back in my father’s day.
It stands to reason that Dad hid the key somewhere he knew. It could've been taped to the back of a chair or shoved under a rug. Or maybe sewn into a cushion on the couch.
I don't know, but we’re going to find out.
It's hard work destroying my life. And actually pretty cathartic. I’m still mad at my mom for what she did, but each new stab of the knife into the couch makes me feel a little better. I keep imagining it’s her face I’m cutting in half.
“Nothing out here,” I say after meticulously going over every inch. “I’m trying the bedroom.”
“I’ll be in shortly.” His head is in the cabinets, looking around. “Almost done.”
The bed gets it next. The mattress is old.
It could've been from my dad's time; I don't really know.
I cut into that fucker with a vengeance.
Springs and stuffing jut out like the guts of a murder victim.
I shove my hands inside, looking for anything metallic and hard that's not supposed to be there, but nothing turns up.
I go over every inch of the frame, the dressers, and even the closet.
Stellan helps. We don't find a damn thing.
After a couple of hours, I sit on the floor in the living room, exhausted. He sits beside me, hand on my leg, pulling from a bottle of beer. I snatch it from him and take a drink myself, just to wet my throat.
“I really thought it'd be here,” I say, feeling like a failure. “I was so confident.”
“Why?” He frowns at me, tilting his head.
“I mean, this is where we lived.”
“But it's not.”
“What are you talking about? Me and Gem—” I groan and spread my hands wide. “Oh, I'm so stupid.”
“You brought all your old stuff here, and if the key isn't on your stuff, it could be somewhere else.”
“Like in the house where I grew up.”
“Where your father lived.”
“Shit.” I push to my feet and start pacing. “I haven't seen that place in years. We moved out when my mom couldn't afford it anymore. I have no clue who lives there now.”
“That won't be a problem.”
“How is that not a problem?! We need to tear through that house. Nobody's going to let us do that.”
His eyebrows raise. “Who said they'd let us?”
“I mean, how else—” I cross my arms, glaring at him. “You're talking some crime shit, right?”
He pushes to his feet. “Crime shit's what I do.”
“Stellan—”
“You want that key? You want to find it, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then it's time to break the law, my sweet darling wife.” He pulls me roughly against him and buries my mouth with his.
It’s a good kiss.
It doesn’t make me feel any better.
“Home sweet home,” I mutter as one of Stellan's dangerous employees picks the lock on the back door of my childhood house. Our resident burglar is a young man named Prime Spadaro. When I ask how he got that name, he only shrugs.
“Mom wanted me to be unique.” The bolt on the back door thunks open, and he steps back with a flourish. “She probably didn’t expect it to work out quite so well.”
Stellan gives him a look. “You cover the occupants while we work. Understand the job?”
“No issues, Don Corsetti.”
I follow the pair of them into the familiar kitchen.
A strange wave of nostalgia hits me first, but it quickly mixes with a bizarre nausea.
Everything’s the same, but it's all different too. The cabinets were painted white, and the counters are way too neat. This place was always a mess when I was a kid. My mom was allergic to housework. Dad did everything up until he was killed. The table is different, but the floors haven’t been updated.
It feels like looking at my childhood through a very long hallway.
“What's the matter?” Stellan stands very close, one hand on the small of my back. “Are you okay?”
“I'm fine. It's just—” I take a second to get myself together. “Just feels weird being back here.”
He nods once. “You don't have to do this.”
“I want to.”
Prime strides into the kitchen. For a big, solid guy, he moves very quietly. I force myself to follow, and Stellan doesn’t stray far from my shoulder. It’s like he’s suddenly my protector, and nothing else matters. He sensed my discomfort somehow, and now he’s reacting to it.
I like that about him. Even though finding that key is the most important thing in his entire world right now, he’s still taking time to check in on me. His attention is addictive and dizzying. I find myself wanting more of it.
“Your house, you show us the way.” Stellan gestures for me to head up the steps. Prime goes first to make sure it’s clear but waits at the top for me to point out the master bedroom. He creeps forward and edges the door open with his gun.
The whole place is so much nicer than I remember.
The walls have been painted, the banister refinished, and new photographs hang on the walls.
Most of them show a young couple, but no kids.
That’s good, at least. There’s a bike hanging on a rack in the hall and lots of mountaineering knick-knacks.
I pick up an old, polished metal Buddha in one hand, hefting its weight, when I hear a gasp and a startled scream.
Prime’s standing over the bed, aiming the gun down at a shocked couple who clearly were just torn from deep sleep. They’re bleary-eyed and shocked with terror.
“Don’t worry, folks,” Prime says, beaming happily. “We’re not here to hurt anyone.”
“Please, take whatever you want,” the man says, shifting slightly to shield his wife. “Just don’t touch us.”
“Got no interest in you.” Stellan looms beside them, demonic and terrifying.
If I woke up suddenly to a gun in my face and that man looming near me, I’d probably lose my mind.
“We’re going to look for something in your house for a while.
You’re going to sit here in bed while my friend watches you.
If either of you try to move, he’ll kill you. ”
“Sure will,” Prime confirms cheerily. “Honestly won’t even hesitate, either.”
The woman lets out a horrible moan of pure fear.
“Let’s start in another room,” I say, tugging at Stellan. “Leave these poor people alone.”
He shrugs and follows me into the hall. I lead him to the second door on the left and step into what looks like an office. It’s slightly more cluttered than the rest of the house, but still very nice. I stand in the middle of the room and turn in a slow circle.
“It seemed a lot bigger when I was little.”
“This was your childhood bedroom?”
I nod, pointing at the left wall. “Bed was there. Dresser, nightstand, desk. And my closet.” I walk over to the sliding doors and push them open.
It’s overflowing with junk.
“Guess we found where they keep everything,” Stellan comments.
“Come on, let’s start looking.”
Wordlessly, we tear through the place. He knocks on boards and raps on the trim. I pull junk down from the closet and run my fingers along the back, searching for a seam. But after an hour of meticulous checking, we find nothing.
The process repeats in Gem’s old room. Now it’s a tiny little gym. I wonder what my sister would think, knowing some random people jog on a treadmill where her bed used to be. Stellan gets right to work, shifting all the heavy equipment so we can check all the little corners and cracks.
It takes forever. “I don’t even know what we’re looking for,” I complain as the frustration mounts. “These poor people are probably suffering in there.”
“Why do you care about them?”
“They’re innocent. They just had the bad luck to buy my old house.”
“They’ll be fine, but we won’t if we don’t find this key.” He grunts as he reaches into the closet. His frown deepens. “Hey, come here a second and feel this.”
“Now’s not the time to come on to me, Stellan.”
“Funny. Come on.”
I crawl over and he shows me a corner of the trim in the back of Gem’s closet. It’s wiggly and loose. When I tug, it pops off easily, which is a shock.
“Why would Gem have a hiding place?” I stare into the dark crevice. It was clearly cut into the drywall. I can just make out something inside. “She was little when we lived here.”
“Who says it was Gem?” Stellan reaches inside. I chew my lip, stomach twisting with nerves. He roots around for a second before pulling out a silver and gold jewelry box.
Another wave of nostalgia hits me. I stare at the box, mouth hanging open in surprise. “I remember that,” I say, breathless and shocked. “I can’t believe it’s in here.”
“What is it?” He frowns, turning it over to look at the bottom.
I take it from him gently. “My mom had this on her nightstand for years. She kept all her rings and necklaces in it. I remember wanting it so badly. It was like a real treasure chest to me back then.”
“How’d it end up in the wall?”
That’s a very good question.
With shaking hands, I flip the lid open. I’m not sure what to expect.
But it’s almost empty. Only a scrap of receipt paper, some old, cheap costume jewelry, and a faded picture of me when I was a baby.
I hold the photo up, eyes watering. “She must’ve loved us at some point, right?”
“Of course she did.”
“You didn’t know her, though. When Dad was alive, she kept it together. For a while after he passed, she was almost a decent mom. But then a switch flipped again, and she got hooked on the drugs. That stuff transformed her.”