“What time should I be there?”
Brandon ignored the WRU message that popped up on the screen. Matt could wait.
“She said to tell you as soon as you could make it. And to look nice, that it was a special occasion, a kind of celebration.”
“A celebration?”
Brandon hoped the celebration was for what he thought it might be. Maybe Mom and Will were going to get married. He grinned and crossed his fingers, mouthing a silent yes!
“That’s what she said. You gonna be able to make it?”
“Oh, sure,” Brandon said nonchalantly. “No problem. Tell her I’ll be there.”
He disconnected, and for a few seconds, allowed himself to do a happy dance. He started to head for his bedroom to get ready, then remembered Matt.
G2G he texted the shorthand for “got to go,” ignoring the question mark that popped up on the screen a second later. He’d explain it all to Matt later, when—hopefully—he had some good news to share. As he hurried to his room, he decided to wear his good suit, the one he’d worn to the funeral home. If this was the celebration he hoped it was, he wanted to look his best so Mom would be proud of him.
He hesitated in front of the bathroom door, wondering if he should take a shower, then decided against it. He wasn’t all that dirty, and Mom had said to hurry. He made the call to the cab company, and no more than a minute after he took up a position by the front door of the apartment building, the taxi pulled up.
Brandon had never ridden in a cab before, and he found the experience exhilarating. He promised himself that when he was grown, he would take cabs everywhere—or maybe Ubers. It made him feel rich and important to be driven about by a total stranger, and he was disappointed when the cab slowed and pulled to the curb in front of the Oxbow.
“Here we are,” the driver said, putting the cab in PARK and flipping the lever on the meter. “That’ll be five-fifty.”
Brandon carefully counted six dollars out of the money that his mother kept hidden in the pages of the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. There had been forty-three dollars in all, one twenty, one ten, two fives, and three ones, put back a few dollars at a time for minor emergencies. His mother had said to use the money from his bank, but since he wasn’t sure what a cab would cost, he’d decided to take the money from the emergency stash as well as the ten dollars and fifty cents he had in his bank. He’d had no idea what a cab would cost, and he was relieved that the money more than covered it. He handed a five and a one to the driver.
“Keep the change,” he said, waving his hand like it was nothing.
The driver looked at the money and grunted. Brandon opened the door and got out. It was just starting to get dark, and a light mist was beginning to fall.
CHAPTER 50
He let himself into the apartment, quickly closing and locking the door behind him. He leaned against it, his heart pounding loudly, and tried to slow his breathing. He must get control of himself before she arrived. Jen Dillon might not be as easy to overcome as her friend had been.
He looked around the living room. He saw signs of her everywhere. From the pictures on the walls to the choice of plants to the magazines on the coffee table, he could tell that she lived here. Her presence was so strong he could almost smell her. He was reminded of the tracks and scat left by animals he had hunted in the wild before Father began training him for more challenging prey. Animal or human—all prey left their sign.
As he moved from room to room, deciding where to make his first move, he became aware of another presence. He noticed it first in the bathroom where the bottle of aftershave sat on the little shelf above the basin and the third toothbrush hung from the holder. In her bedroom, he saw the male clothing hanging in the closet, a robe thrown carelessly across the chair. He breathed deeply, his nostrils flaring at the scent of musk, and smiled. He was in the lair of his enemy.
He heard a door open in the hall, and a second later, someone knocked on the door. He jerked at the sound, his nerves stretched taut as piano wires.
“Jen, it’s me.” It sounded like an old woman, probably the one from across the hall. She knocked again.
She must have heard him open and close the door and thought Dillon was home. If no one answered, she might call the police, thinking a burglar was inside. He hadn’t wanted to hurt the old woman. That was why he’d gone into her place when she wasn’t home. But now she’d left him no choice. He moved toward the door as she called out again.
***
Brandon ordered another Coke, settled back in his chair, and looked around. The Oxbow was filling up rapidly with the dinner crowd. Several customers looked at him curiously. He enjoyed the attention, pretending for a few moments that he was a rock star, loaded with money and used to the ways of the world.
Then his attention wandered from his daydream and back to the question of where his mother and Will were. They’d left word with the manager to watch for him. She’d told him that Will had said they would be along as soon as possible. Something big was going on, and he hoped again that this would turn out to be an engagement celebration.
He couldn’t recall ever having consciously missed having a father. He had vague memories of him, and of course, he had pictures of him and newspaper clippings about the things he’d done
