Chapter 5 Clarke #3
Leith kept shaking the doorknob. I looked behind me, and what do you know, my new archnemesis, Chewing Gum, had appeared again. She winked at me and then disappeared through the wall. Was she about to…?
The soft click on the other side of the door told me that, yes, in fact she was. I had to hold in my reaction. Of course she’d be happy to push me down the stairs and unlock doors, because ghosts can’t get convicted of manslaughter and breaking and entering.
“Was that…” Leith’s voice trailed off, and then he tried the door again. It opened. “Holy shit.”
Before I knew it, both of Leith’s arms were around my waist, and my feet were off the ground. “Clarke Cartwright, you are my good luck charm!” A shocked laugh bubbled out of me as Leith spun us in a quick circle.
I was breathless when he set me down, but I did my best to recover quickly. Leith was beaming, and I willed my stomach to stop its backflip. It felt like it just did an epic face-plant instead. The effect he had on me was just the aftershocks of a teenage crush—no need to let it take over.
Leith pushed the door all the way open. “After you,” he said, gesturing for me to go through the doorway.
Ron’s office was a disaster. There were papers strewn about his desk, and a seemingly infinite number of filing cabinets—all in varying states of openness.
Leith let out a low whistle. “Divide and conquer?”
“That seems like the best option,” I said. “We’re just looking for anything regarding your dad’s estate, right?”
“Yeah,” Leith said. “And any last will and testament stuff. I’m hoping there’s a paper file with everything in it somewhere.”
I looked around again. “Fingers crossed,” I murmured. The state of this place meant we were going to have our work cut out for us. I hoped he wasn’t about to try it with the chitchat again.
“So, how was your week?” Leith asked.
I was really really missing my boxed wine and internet doomscrolling right about now.
“This will go faster if we’re not talking,” I said—snapped, maybe. A little.
“I’m not great with silence,” Leith admitted. I couldn’t pinpoint the emotion in his voice. “Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry.” I hated that I couldn’t seem to regulate my emotions in his presence.
I thought I had gotten better at this. “I’m just…
kind of on edge lately,” I admitted. That was the understatement of the century.
I was so close to the edge that I didn’t even care if I fell off it into oblivion. Maybe I’d feel better there.
“Why?”
“A lot going on at Toades,” I said as I kept making my way through papers.
“And Sadie flew south for the winter permanently. She’s doing, like, this permanent cosmetics training thing in Arizona.
” Sadie was an aesthetician—the only one in Sweetwater Peak, so she was deeply missed by her clientele of older women.
She had her cosmetology license, too—mostly did perms, and promised to come back a few times a year.
“And Collins didn’t last very long here, did she?”
I shook my head. “No, but she’ll be back soon too.” That’s what she said, at least. You couldn’t always take my sister at her word, though. She tended to go wherever the wind took her, but now she had Brady, and I was hopeful the wind would blow her back to Sweetwater Peak.
Back home.
“So, her and the upholsterer, huh?”
“Her and the upholsterer.” I nodded. An unexpected but well-matched pair.
I genuinely thought that Collins and Brady were good for each other.
After that, Leith shifted gears to Pearl and then told me about how he got Bill.
I don’t know how long this went on, but after a while he shouted, “I found something!”
“Shhhhh,” I said quickly.
“Come over here,” Leith said—this time at a lower volume. “Wilkes comma Wilder!”
I made my way over to where Leith was—careful not to knock any of Ron’s stacks over. “Do you have your phone?” he asked. He was holding a thick file folder. I opened up my flashlight this time to get a better look—careful not to flash it around the room at any guest Leith and I might have.
“God, this thing is huge.” He opened the file and started snapping away with his phone. “I’ll read all of it later,” he said—more to himself than to me, I think.
After ten to fifteen pages, I didn’t see anything, but I heard someone—maybe Chewing Gum. I couldn’t see her, but I tried to focus on her energy. “Incoming,” she said quietly.
Incoming?
Right then, a noise came from the front door—a key entering a lock.
“Fuck,” I said, panicked. Leith was looking at the door like a deer caught in headlights. We didn’t have time to run. The door was opening.
I grabbed the file folder from him, shoved the papers back in, and did the first thing I could think of, which was admittedly, stupid, but not nearly as stupid as the next thing.
I lifted Leith’s shirt, pressed the file folder against his stomach, and slid the bottom of it into the waistband of his jeans—securing it. Then, right as the lights turned on, I threw my arms around his neck and pulled his mouth to mine.