AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Agent Gunn stepped forward. “How do you know it’s not here? We’ve barely gone through the place.”
Kenna turned to him and snagged one of the cat figurines from the bookcase that hadn’t been tossed to the floor. “He brings these to me. It’s a joke between us. I’m the spinster of Apartment 13. Unlucky in love. And life, apparently.” She looked at the destroyed remnants of her place. “All I need is a bunch of cats to complete the cliché, but I’m allergic. He adds to my collection to show the passage of time, a reminder of how long I’ve been alone.”
Agent Gunn looked at all the little cats. “That’s a lot of poking at you.”
Hunt shifted from one foot to the other. “If you were seeing Marcus, why give you another cat?”
Kenna sighed. “Because he knew, even though I didn’t want to admit it until last night, that Marcus and I... We were never going to be more than friends.” Her gaze fell to the empty, clean space on the floor again. “I thought Kyle gave me the cat because he wanted me to tell the truth.”
“About what?” Agent Gunn asked.
Her gaze shot to Max, then over to Agent Gunn. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter anymore. Everything is ruined.” Kenna walked to the dining room table and grabbed an empty delivery box. “I’ll go pack.” She left all of them and went into her room.
Max and Hunt shared a look that said the same thing.She is not okay.
Hunt walked past him. “Since we’re here, I’ll clean up the kitchen.”
Max followed to find a broom and dustpan to clean up the dirt and broken knickknacks and glass in the living room. He spotted the busted and bloody frame and glass in the trash that Kenna hurt her head on the other night. It sent a cold shiver through him because this wasn’t over.
Hunt held a candy bar. “This wasn’t here last night.”
Max eyed it. “Are you sure?”
Hunt turned it around to show him the wordSorrywritten on it. “I think I would have remembered this. Kenna,” he called out.
She walked back into the room carrying the same box, only this time it was full. She stopped short of Max. “You wanted your stuff back. Here you go.” She shoved the box into his gut.
He grabbed hold of it and stared down at several of his old shirts, a leather bracelet she bought him at the fair, the bottle opener he’d bought because the beer he liked to keep in her fridge didn’t have a twist-off cap, the jar of change she’d put on his side of the bed, so that every time he emptied his pockets he’d drop it inside. They planned to put the money toward their honeymoon. The one they were never going to take. And right on top was the watch she’d been so desperate to find hadn’t been stolen. The only possession that mattered to her in her entire place.
Kenna dismissed him and turned to Hunt. “What?”
He held up the candy bar.
She swore. “It’s from Kyle. He must not have gone far last night and came back right after our chat this morning and left that to let me know he’d been here. When one of us hurt or did something to the other, we’d buy the other our favorite candy bar to make up. That’s the rule. Apologies come with chocolate.”
Agent Gunn eyed her. “You and your brother like to play a lot of games.”
“It’s our thing.” She snagged the bar from Hunt’s hand. “Like I said, the thing he left is gone. I’ll go finish packing.” She left the room again.
Hunt eyed the box in Max’s hands. “It’s been three years and she still has all your stuff?”
“Shut up,” Max shot back, and took the box to his truck. When he got back to the apartment, Kenna had two suitcases and a duffel bag packed and ready to go by the door. He took them out to the truck, too. When hegot back again, Agent Gunn was on his phone, sitting on the bench outside the apartment. Hunt had the kitchen in decent order.
Kenna was on her knees in the living room trying to save a plant. She picked up the root ball, dirt spilling onto the floor. The green and white pointy leaves were mostly bent and smashed. “Look at you, spider plant, all broken and battered.”
Kind of like Kenna, Max thought.
She shook her head, filled a mug with loose dirt from the floor, broke off one of the baby spider offshoots, and buried its tiny roots into the dirt, then took it to the sink and watered it.
“Do you think it will survive?” Max asked.
“Probably. They’re easy to grow and propagate this way.” She stared at the other three plants on the floor. “The oak leaf ivy got trampled. Every leaf on the African violet is broken.” It had landed upside down. The leaves were now badly wilted. “But my sweet little Columnea with its cute goldfish-shaped orange blooms can definitely be saved.” It lay on its side but looked mostly intact, though the pot had a huge crack in it.
Max picked it up and handed it to her. “You could put this in the kitchen window at the ranch.”
“Too much light. I’ll keep all my stuff in the room you let me borrow and out of your way. I’ll do my best to make it seem like I’m not even there.”
“You can have the run of the house and ranch, so long as you stay in sight of everyone protecting you.”
