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“Fuck that guy.”
I barked out a laugh. “Rosa, I’ve never heard you say an ill word about him before. What a delightful change of pace.”
She took a seat on the couch and sighed, pulling her Kindle from her purse. “Yeah, well, that was a couple weeks ago. I thought he’d change his mind by now. Clearly, having a great ass and perfect arms and the sexiest accent known to man doesn’t actually make you a good person.”
“A shocking realization, I know.”
Rosa grinned, then shooed me out the door. I snagged the key to Chris and Amie’s from the hook in my laundry room, then walked down the cobblestone path that led to their backyard gate.
Their house was bigger than mine, with the arched architecture and big windows of an Italian villa. Their yard was bigger too, with a pool and mature trees giving much-desired privacy to their property. The pool was still covered, and I couldn’t decide if it was worth hiring someone to come open it so that Mira and I could use it during the summer.
It was somewhere on a mile-long list of decisions that weren’t pressing (they didn’t really matter), but good Lord did those decisions weigh heavily on my shoulders.
The house was quiet and dim when I let myself in through the back door from the patio. For the first time since the accident, it smelled musty and stale. That alone had my heart hammering just a little bit harder.
It would only get worse as time went on.
Rosa had hired a crew to come in and clean the house the week after they died. It was too hard to walk in and see Amie’s coffee mug still sitting in the sink. Her book tossed onto the end table by the couch. Chris’s Denver hoodie slung over the back of a dining-room chair.
Those things were gone now, so even with the slightly stale scent, it felt a bit less like walking through a graveyard.
I kissed the tip of my finger and pressed it against the family photo that hung on the wall, then slowly made my way upstairs to Mira’s bedroom.
The walls were still painted a gorgeous soft blue—the shade Amie had chosen when she was pregnant. She’d said it made her feel like she was looking at the sky.
When I peeked into the crib, I saw that it was empty of stuffed animals. I pulled open a few drawers and riffled through them but still couldn’t find the frog Mira wanted. While I was there, I grabbed a few items of clothing and tucked them under my arm.
As I tugged open a bin at the back of the closet, a sound from downstairs had me freezing in place.
I paused, listening closer.
It was the unmistakable sound of a door opening.
Heavy footsteps on the floor.
My heart pounded wildly behind my ribs, and I realized I’d left my phone behind after texting Rosa.
“Shit,” I whispered.
Not that I thought a burglar would politely come through the door, but there was no way for me to get out of the house without going back down to the main floor. I tiptoed out of the bedroom and held my breath as I eased into Chris and Amie’s room.
“Please, please, please,” I mouthed while pulling up the bed skirt.
Jackpot. Amie had always kept a metal baseball bat underneath her side of the bed for protection when Chris was at away games.
Chris had teased her relentlessly about it.
“What’s your plan?” he’d asked with a grin. “Close-quarters combat so you can whack him in the head?”
But the bat had remained in place.
I gripped it tight in my hands and took a deep breath before starting down the stairs. The top step creaked when weight was put on it,so I skipped that one, almost pitching forward when the bat just about swung into the wall.
I winced, but nothing happened. I took a few more steps.
Whoever was in the house was rummaging through some drawers in the kitchen, and my fingers held that bat with a death grip.
Now I was just pissed. Who thehellthought they could break in here and take my friends’ stuff?
