She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker Page 0,101

before that. Frankly, I was amazed I had even found my way to my bed. I took a liking to Auntie Jo’s chair, and when I found myself dozing there at three in the morning, it seemed pointless to make the trek all the way across the apartment to my room. The chair was closer to the bathroom, after all.

My brain bounced off the inside of my head with each step, so I took it slow, a shuffle more than steps. I paused at the kitchen, where I swallowed a handful of aspirin dry.

Clearly, whoever was out there was in for the long haul, and they would wait. If they didn’t, I didn’t really care.

I fumbled with the dead bolt, opened the door enough to see who was standing there.

Willy Trudeau.

A smile filled his face, and he managed to hold it, even though it morphed from authentic to forced the moment he saw me. “Hey, Jack.”

“Willy? What are you doing here?”

He handed me a note. “Your neighbor told me to give you this. She poked her head out about twenty minutes ago.”

Ms. Leech’s shopping list.

“What day is today?”

Willy pushed past me into the apartment, his nose crinkling. “Thursday. What the hell is that smell?”

I hadn’t left the apartment for a week. Last Thursday, Ms. Leech braved the hallway and slipped her shopping list under my door. Worried I’d forget about her. One week ago.

“This place is a fucking mess,” Willy said.

He spotted Gerdy’s dress on the floor and started for it, her panties off to the side. His voice dropped lower. “Do you have a visitor?”

“Don’t touch those.”

The words came out harsher than I meant. “Sorry, just please, don’t.”

Willy backed off the dress and panties, glanced into my bedroom, at my empty bed, then returned to the living room.

He turned slowly, taking it all in.

He opened the lid of a pizza box on the table with the tip of his finger, let the lid drop when he saw the contents. I think I ordered that on Saturday. A couple of Chinese delivery boxes sat beside it. The older ones were in the kitchen. Empty bottles of Jameson, Captain Morgan, and other assorted bottles of varying size, color, and brand filled the places between take-out.

I scratched at my belly. “What do you want, Willy?”

“I got a call from your attorney. He asked me to check on you. He told me to get you to his office, one way or another.”

“My attorney? How did he get your number?”

“Dunno.”

“What did he tell you?”

Willy thumbed through my posters of Stella, stacked under the pizza. “I’ve seen these around town. Dunk filled me in a few months back. Any luck finding her?”

“What’s today’s date?”

“July 29, why?”

Not August 8.

“I don’t have a calendar.”

Willy seemed to understand. “You have a little over a week.”

Part of me was surprised he even remembered. We hadn’t talked about it since we were kids. Years. A lifetime ago.

I said, “If she shows, yeah. What did my attorney tell you?”

Willy leaned back against the table. “He said you’ve been holed up in here for months, you don’t answer your phone anymore, skipped out on school, missed your last appointment with him. ”

Shit. That was Tuesday. I was supposed to go to his office on Tuesday.

Willy went on, “He’s worried about you, thought you might need a friend. Clearly no need for concern, though. Looks like you’re doing great.”

“Friend? You didn’t go to the funerals. None of them.” I ticked them off on my hand. “Not Jo’s, or Gerdy, or Krendal. All those people who died.”

“My parents didn’t think—”

“Your parents? Seriously? You’re going to blame them? You didn’t know Krendal that well, I get that. I can even give you a pass for Jo, but Gerdy? Come one, she was your friend, too. And hell, if you were my friend you should have showed.”

Willy looked down at his shoes. “Dunk was in some shit. Is in some shit. You’re tight with Dunk. My parents thought it would be best if I kept my distance. I’m going to college next year, Penn State, they worried that—”

I crossed over to the door. “Just go, Willy. You shouldn’t be here.”

“I should have been here all along,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“I want to be alone.”

“That’s the last thing you need.”

“Get out, Willy.”

“What was I supposed to think? Envelopes with cash mysteriously appearing. That SUV that tried to killed you when we were kids.”

Tried.

“I figured all that had something to do with Dunk. I thought maybe he