Working Stiff

break.”

“You weren’t arguing about money?”

“What?” Annie choked on her Coke. “No. No, don’t look at me like that! I swear, I didn’t ask her for a dime.” She sounded wounded. “I wouldn’t do that. Besides, you bailed me out—I know. I remember.”

“I’ve never been able to figure out where you spend it all. You don’t drink; you don’t, you know …” Bryn made a smoking gesture.

“Do drugs? Jesus, Bryn, we’re not twelve; you can say it. No, I don’t!”

“Then—”

Annie sighed. “I just like to buy things. I try, I really do, but I just … lose track. And then the banks make it worse. Did you know they process the biggest charges first, so you bounce the most checks and get hit with the most fees? It’s awful.”

“You know what solves that? Not spending so much.”

“You sound just like her.” Meaning Mom. Of course. “Look, I know, okay? I’m trying really hard to get better with money.”

“Annie …” Bryn shook her head. “You say that, but you just spent too much on this present, and don’t tell me Tate and Mom and Grace pitched in; I know you paid for most of it, right? And then you flew all this way to deliver it.” The fresh airline tag was still on the handle of Annie’s bag. And she must have gotten a taxi, which cost a fortune from the airport. “Well, you’re here now, so it doesn’t matter.”

Annie seized the moment. “Yes! I’ve missed you, you know. We can go out—do you know I’ve never been to Sea-World? Or the zoo. I hear the zoo is amazing. We can go! And we can have so much fun. It’ll be like when we used to share a room— Oh, it’s okay if I stay, right? I didn’t get a motel.”

Joe gave Bryn a wide-eyed look of very clear warning. “Well … actually, there’s not much room. How about if I get you a hotel room? We can do things at night if you want. I do have to work during the day” That clearly wasn’t good enough; Joe gave her a tiny shake of his head. She glared back, trying to send the silent message of, She’s family, damn it! He finally shrugged. Surrender.

“Oh,” Annie said, subdued. “I didn’t think … Okay. Right, a hotel is fine, I guess. And I can just do things on my own.”

“Annie—”

“Maybe I should just see if I can get on standby and go home. I don’t want to bother you. I just thought … I wanted to spend time with you.”

Annie didn’t exactly mean to make it a guilt trip; she really did feel abandoned and sad, and didn’t cover it well. She never had. In some ways, Annalie was still a child, and Bryn sometimes forgot that. Everybody had always indulged her. Protected her.

And Bryn was no different, because she gave up at the sight of Annie’s sad, almost teary eyes. “Okay, I’ll tell you what. You can stay here during the day. I’ll give you the codes to get in and out. Mr. French needs someone to play with, anyway….” Oh, crap. Bryn felt a guilty shock. Mr. French—she’d left him in the bathroom. She jumped up and hurried into the bedroom, embarrassed by the fact that she hadn’t made her bed or picked up the clothes on the floor, and the police had been in here staring at it. Too late now. She opened the bathroom door.

Mr. French was lying in a pile of snow, looking somehow supremely grumpy and self-satisfied. He let out a whuff of disapproval when she opened the door, and stood up to waddle regally past her.

No … that pile wasn’t snow.

It was the shredded remains of her full roll of toilet paper. He’d ripped it apart. Also, the towels were off the racks, although she couldn’t imagine how he’d bounced that high. And the back of the door was gouged with scratches.

“Damn,” Annie said from behind her. “Your dog knows how to party.”

“You know what? You really should stay here,” Bryn said, and shut the bathroom door. “He needs a walk right now. When you come back, you can pick up all that and clean it up.”

“Me? He’s your dog!”

“He was locked in because of your mistake. You clean it up.” Bryn handed her the key, took a piece of paper, and scribbled down the code for the alarm, which she thrust on her sister before Joe could tell her what an awful idea that was. “Memorize it and destroy the paper, and I mean destroy it; don’t just crumple it up, okay? Shred and flush.”

“Seriously? Bryn, are you mad at me? I had a key; I didn’t know it was going to be a problem. I mean, I know he made a mess, but I didn’t think—”

“I know,” Bryn said, and took a deep breath. Annie never meant to cause chaos. It just followed her around in a dark cloud. “It’s okay. You stay here today. I’ll see you tonight, and then we’ll figure things out.”

Annie brightened up into a smile immediately. “Cool. See you tonight. And I promise the house will be clean, your bed will be made, and I’ll have dinner for you.” Annie, bless her, could cook. And Bryn had just been thinking about how damn lonely life was becoming. Having family to come home to might be a blessing … just for a little while.

She hugged Annie, impulsively, and her sister hugged her back, then tenderly smoothed Bryn’s hair back. “You smell like dead people,” she said. “Confidentially, it’s probably why you don’t have a boyfriend.”

“You are such a bitch.”

Annie grinned. She had perfect white teeth, the achievement of years of dentist visits, rigorous brushing, flossing, and bleaching. She had a nice tan, too. “I’m not judging. I smell like airplane,” she said. “I’m going to shower and lie out by the pool for a while.”

“After you clean the place.”

“Oh, absolutely. After.” Annie assumed a saintly expression and crossed her heart, which made Bryn laugh; it was Annie’s giveaway for lying. They exchanged another hug, a quick one, and Annie waved as she and Joe descended the steps.

“Lock the door!” Bryn called back. “And turn on the alarm!”

“Yes, Mom.”

Joe held his tongue until they were in the van, buckled in, and driving away. “Do I even need to tell you what a terrible idea this is?” he asked. “Or how incredibly pissed off McCallister will be?”

“Nope,” she said. She felt oddly very much steadier now. Annie might be a doofus sometimes, but she was an anchor to her past, to her family, and Bryn needed one right now.

Joe was a good guy, but there was no substitute for that.

Chapter 9

The day passed. Bryn kept her e-mail in-box active, waiting for something, anything from her mysterious would-be supplier; nothing arrived. She’d fielded about twelve calls, eight of them certainly pranks, three legitimate customers, and one from her sister about dinner.

She was checking out a suspicious e-mail message when her phone rang again; the e-mail, it turned out, was legitimate, but trash.

The phone call was odd.

At first, Bryn thought it was a prank call; she’d gotten used to those fast. Lucy called them their sex-chat clients, and joked that they needed to start charging $9.95 a minute to make some extra money off of it; they usually started out with breathing and vague noises, and that was exactly what this was. Some kind of labored, wet gasp, and undefined sounds.

“Hello?” Bryn said, just to be sure. “Not funny. I’m hanging up now.”

Usually, that either brought some kind of obscene proposal, or a hang-up. She got neither, just more of the breathing. On reflection, it didn’t sound sexual. It sounded slow and tortured.

“Hello?” Bryn glanced at her phone. Caller ID had brought up a name, which was unusual for a sex caller.