The Same Place (The Lamb and the Lion #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,50

him quietly. Jem had seen Tean talk to Scipio the same way during thunderstorms. He didn’t need to imagine him talking this way to wild things; Tean had talked to Jem this way after Benny died, and there were few things in the world more feral than Jem. The Tean who burned toast and wore all-khaki ensembles, the guy who squirmed away from casual touch and practically ran out of the room when the topic turned to sex, the guy whose glasses were always on the edge of sliding off his nose—that guy was still there, but somehow he was calm, in control. Even in control of his glasses.

Jem took the opportunity to excuse himself to the bathroom. He checked the vanity—combs, brushes, scrunchies, an empty box of condoms, pregnancy tests, disposable razors, dentist-sized cartridges of floss, toothpaste. He checked the mirrored cabinet. Bingo, bongo. A nice row of scrips. Jem took out his phone and snapped pictures. Then he scanned the vials. Most of the drug names he gave up on automatically—there was no time to work on each one—but as Tean liked to point out, one of Jem’s crutches with reading was scanning for words he already knew. He spotted one right away: Valium. He emptied half the vial and put the pills in his pocket. He figured he was doing Caleb a favor; the guy looked like he was doped to the gills on the stuff already. More interesting was the vial hidden inside a half-empty box of tissues; the drug name was too hard for him to read, but he put some of those pills in another pocket.

Next, Jem hurried to the master bedroom. He didn’t want to risk the overhead lights, so he used the flashlight on his phone, doing a quick sweep: dresser, nightstands, bed, closet. He tried to hit all the regular hiding spots too, but he didn’t have time to be thorough. He found more or less what he’d expected: clothing, a dog-eared copy of The Secret, two empty glasses on Hannah’s nightstand, some sort of collapsible home-gym equipment under the bed. Nothing quite as useful as a print-out travel itinerary, unfortunately.

When he got back to the living room, Caleb’s crying had subsided, and Tean offered the water again. After a drink, Caleb said, “We had a huge fight. Huge. It’s been going on for days.”

“Since we came over?”

“Well, before that it was kind of . . . underground. She went to work early. I stayed at work late. But yeah, after you came, it blew up.”

“What have you been fighting about?”

The glass of water shook in his hand.

“We’re not going to say anything to anyone,” Tean told him.

“I don’t even know. I mean, she’s been so different lately. You’ve noticed, right? Her parents certainly have. She’s angry. She’s closed off. She shouts. Honestly—this is me being a hundred-percent honest—I don’t think I’d ever heard her shout before a few weeks ago.”

“Do you know why things changed?”

“No.” Then, without pausing, he added, “She might be having an affair.”

“Hannah?” Jem said.

Tean shot him a glance, and Jem decided he probably needed to watch his tone.

“What makes you say that?” Tean said.

“It started a few months ago. She’d tell me things that seemed perfectly logical at the time, but then they started to add up. She’d claim she forgot to pick up the dry cleaning. Or she’d tell me she was having dinner with friends. Or she had to work late. I just believed her. Why wouldn’t I believe her? I mean, she’s Hannah.”

“Did something happen? Why did you start thinking she wasn’t telling the truth?”

“Because I stopped by the DWR building one night when she was supposed to be working, and she wasn’t there. I had picked up some Thai, and I wanted to surprise her. When they told me she wasn’t there, I thought maybe she was doing field work. But . . . but there was this part of me that didn’t believe that. So when she got home that night, late, I asked her about work. Probably a little too much, actually, because I think she got suspicious. But she told me she’d been in the office doing paperwork.” He shook his head, as though he still couldn’t quite believe his own words. “She lied to me. Right to my face. And after that, I started thinking. She said she was picking up the dry cleaning, but I never saw any clothes come back from the cleaners. She said she