Digging Up Trouble

Time to get up.

Instead I dragged my new down comforter over my head.

Monday mornings were supposed to be filled with promise. Of hope that the week ahead would be a good one.

Pipes rattled as Riley flushed the toilet.

I thought it a good harbinger of what my week ahead would be like.

Harbinger.

Heh. Mrs. Krauss would be proud.

Digging Up Trouble

147

I groaned, thinking of Brickhouse. I’d checked with the nurses’ station—she’d been discharged. Which meant she was on the loose and could show up anywhere. Anytime.

I shuddered, dragged the covers off my head. “Eeeee!” I screamed when I saw a face looming over me.

“Sorry!” Riley said. “Didn’t mean to scare you. Your door was open.”

I’d taken to leaving it open since Kevin moved out. I didn’t know why and didn’t want to pay for the therapy that would tell me.

“Can you drive me to work?”

“This early?” I asked. “Growl doesn’t open till eleven.

What time are you due in?”

“Ten-thirty.”

I blinked at the clock, wondering if I’d read it wrong the first time: 6:36.

Riley saw me looking. “Uncle Bill gave me a key to get in on the mornings I opened.”

“A key to a fifteen-year-old?”

“Almost sixteen. And it’s for his nephew. Jeez. Do you think I’m going to rob the place? I figure I’d just hang out until Bill gets there, maybe do some cleaning. Stocking. Whatever. I’d leave at ten except I can’t skateboard yet,” he said, holding up his still-splinted hand, “and Dad’s at work . . .”

“I can drive you,” I said, tossing covers. “But how about you come to TBS with me until ten?” I didn’t want to mention that I was worried about him being alone at Growl until Bill showed up. “You can answer phones.”

“Do I get paid?”

I growled. “Yes.” I thought about what I paid Tam, then subtracted . . . a lot. “Six bucks an hour.”

“What? That’s barely minimum wage.”

“Take it or leave it.”

148

Heather Webber

“Take it.”

I smiled and headed for my bathroom before I realized I didn’t have a bathroom. The demo crew was due at nine.

My mother was due at eight. I needed to be out of there before then.

I grabbed my robe. “Did you leave me any hot water?”

“First come, first serve,” he said, walking out the door.

Harbingers, indeed.

Seventeen

The chimes sang as I pulled open the TBS

door, Riley right on my heels. I stopped short at the sight greeting me, and Riley barreled into me, knocking me to the floor.

Brickhouse clucked. “You’re a clumsy one, aren’t you?”

I looked up at Riley, who gave me an it-wasn’t-my-fault shrug. He did offer me a hand up, though.

I’d take what I could get. “What are you doing here?” I asked Brickhouse.

“Working.”

“Working?”

“Miss Tamara hired me. And by the looks of it, none too soon. This place has gone to heck in a handbasket.”

Heck. In a handbasket.