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It was after midnight by the time I got the dogs inside, and I was spent. But after detaching Izzy from my pants leg, I took a minute to give each of them a little attention. King could have cared less, but the other two turned into tail-wagging machines.
“Tomorrow I should only be gone during the day,” I told them. “Maybe after dinner we can go for a walk, just the four of us.”
More tail wagging from the two, and nothing from King.
Exhausted, I got ready for bed. It was a good thing I didn’t have aCosmo-style bedtime ritual with moisturizers and shit, because I didn’t have the energy for anything like that. Slipping into bed, I realized this was going to be a very long few weeks until Grace returned, if every day was going to be like this.
I turned off the light without even reaching for Lance. Maybe I’d find the real thing when I got out of this backwater town and down to Mom’s place.
CHAPTER10
Angela
The next morning,the wet tongue that woke me was bad, but the dog breath was worse.
I pulled away and squinted with one eye. “Julie, somebody needs to give you a few TicTacs.” I wiped my cheek with the sheet.
I settled back into the pillow. “Let me buy you a beer,” I’d said to the faceless girl who was Boone’s sister.
“Oh, he’s not that bad,” she’d replied.
That was all I remembered of the dream the dog had interrupted. Of course dreams were fantasies, not real life. Her statement alone proved it.
The argument with Boone from last night about the lunch with his sister still nagged at me.
The dog licked my hand.
I pried my other eye open and sat up. “Okay already.”
Izzy was trying to bite Julie’s tail, and King at least had his eyes open. I took them out and then showered. It was too early to go up to the house for breakfast, so I had the choice of unpacking my duffel bags or getting on my laptop to work on the job applications.
After feeding the dogs, the duffels made it as far as being slung up onto the bed. Then, the allure of the laptop won out. Without the overhead light, it was too dim at the desk against the wall, so I pulled it out toward the lamp by the bed and got started.
The Wi-Fi signal was still nonexistent, but I’d downloaded the forms while in town yesterday. I opened the first one. As my fingers flew across the keys, I was back in my element. Without my ergonomic keyboard, I was careful about how I held my wrists. It was one more thing I should have packed but didn’t.
The sooner I got these applications going, the sooner I could get away from room cleaning at the hotel. Picking up after slobs and scrubbing toilets spotless wasn’t my calling.
I reread what I’d just typed, and I had to delete it and try again. It made no sense, and the wordtoiletappeared in the middle of the sentence. I had that job on the brain. Even though he wasn’t here, Boone was still messing with me.Screw him. I’d get these finished if I had to resort to hunt-and-peck typing one letter at a time. Having to list school projects as examples of prior experience instead of what I’d accomplished as DarkLord666 was the hardest part.
My phone honked that an email had arrived—on my old college account.
It was from Kevin, and my blood boiled as I read it.
Angela-
I wanted to let you know that the bank called to report suspicious activity on your credit cards and a brute force attack to get your password. To keep you safe, I had them cancel and re-issue the cards with new numbers and change the password to a more secure one. The new cards should arrive here by snail mail in a few days. When you come home maybe we can track down the hacker who’s trying to get into your accounts.
See you soon.
Love,
Kevin
Bull-fucking-shit someone else was messing with me. This was Kevin’s doing, and the email was him trying to cover his tracks. The switch from demanding asshole Kevin to pleasant, helpful Kevin wouldn’t fool a fifth grader.
When I got settled and had some time on my hands, I’d find a way to make the Google search of his name come up withmanipulative-assholes.comas the top result.
* * *
