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I pause at the front door. “What?”
“Food.”
“From the store?”
“No, from the fucking bus,” she says mockingly. “Idiot.”
I squeeze the strap of my bag. “Okay.”
“And cigarettes if the place next door is open.”
“I can’t buy—”
“Then don’t.” Her tone sharpens immediately, as though I’m the one creating the problem. “Jesus.”
“I was just saying—”
“Well, stop just saying everything.”
I mumble, “Okay. Sorry.”
She turns back to her phone, so I take that as a sign to reach for the doorknob.
“Kam?”
I freeze, breath lodged in my chest. “Yeah?” I rasp.
“You hear from Wade?”
My stomach plummets. “No.”
She lets out a harsh, humorless laugh. “Fucking coward.”
I leave before she can ask anything else.
There is still nothing about Wade on the news. I check before the bus comes, again on the ride, then once more during my break at work, because maybe three identical searches within four hours might produce a different answer. It doesn’t.
There have been no bodies found in an abandoned warehouse, no unidentified man discovered near the industrial district, no search for unknown shooters, no photograph of Wade’s face beneath some headline asking the public for information.
Nothing.
Someone must have found him by now. I mean, he was lying right next to his truck, and I assume the truck would be registered to him, right?
Unless that man came back. Anxiety swirls in my gut. What if he came back later and moved the body and the truck? Maybe he erased every trace of the crime.
Maybe—
“No thinking,” I whisper to myself under my breath. A customer glances over from the next register, looking at me oddly. Shoot, I didn’t think anyone would hear me. I pretend to say something into my headset to show her I’m not just whispering to myself over here, but… I’m not wearing a headset.
Luckily, she doesn’t seem to care and walks off calmly with her purchases.
The store is busy enough that I don’t have much time to spiral. After all, Sunday evenings bring out everyone who apparently forgets they need food until the final hours before Monday.
My line stretches halfway into the candy aisle.
Marla’s voice continuously crackles over the intercom, calling for backup. A toddler screams because his mother refuses to buy him a balloon. Somebody spills milk near produce. The lottery machine jams twice.
Around 7:30, an elderly man tries to use a coupon that expired six months ago. He gets progressively more frustrated the longer I try to explain that the coupon is no longer valid and can’t be used. Even if I scanned it in for him, the system would flag it, and the discount wouldn’t be applied. The lady behind him finally steps in and offers to pay whatever the coupon would’ve saved him, but the man tells her he doesn’t need her money and that it’s “just the principle of the thing.”
