Jolyon jumped off, landed on the floor with a thump, rattling the window panes, and started pulling things out of his bag.
She showed Connor the rest of the apartment, starting with the bedroom. He stopped and leaned against the doorway, jammed his hands in the pockets of his coveralls. “You rope that mattress to the top of your car?”
“Yup. Drove up in the middle of a snowstorm, too. It took about two weeks to dry out – I was sleeping on the floor. I’m going to get rid of it as soon as I get a bed. It still smells damp.”
She’d been anticipating this, the first time he saw her place; it was the right time in their blooming relationship. But there was a pit in her stomach, a buzzing in her brain that wouldn’t go away:
All the people, the police, the reporters.
The glimpse inside the tent, Harriet sitting in her car.
The car, so similar to her own.
Connor poked his nose in her bathroom then walked himself back into the bright living room. Off the living room was a kitchenette – she’d thought it cute, with flower-patterned linoleum, a pass-through window, and an old-fashioned range with cast iron griddles. She trailed him, trying to keep one step ahead of darker thoughts. “You’re not looking for a place, are you? Your house is nice.”
“Mortgage and taxes are killing me. Having a roommate helps, but, you know…” His gaze wandered to Jolyon, who had removed several toys from his backpack and was laying them on the floor.
They stepped into the kitchen and she pointed. “The fridge is on its last legs. When that thing kicks on in the middle of the night it sounds like a truck.”
Connor faced the appliance, leaned to the side to get a look around the back of it. She had a look at his backside – there was a red rag sticking out of his pocket, and for some reason she liked seeing it.
“It’s probably your evap fan motor,” he said. He crouched and slid out the lower freezer compartment. “It’s in here. Pulls air in over the evap coils when the compressor is running. That’s the loud noise. I can fix it.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean—”
“Hey, Bobbi,” Jolyon called from the living room, “where’s your TV?”
She stuck her head out of the kitchen. “I don’t have one.”
The boy gaped at her. “You don’t have one?”
She shook her head and walked toward him. “Nope. I watch some shows on my laptop, though.”
“Oh.” He seemed relieved.
“Internet router is right over there.” She pointed to the storage crates forming makeshift shelves. They made the place look a bit like a college dorm room, meant to be temporary, but now they were cluttered; a permanent fixture.
“I think you’ve got a detached grommet here,” Connor said. His voice was muffled as he rummaged around in the freezer. “Yeah, that could be vibrating and causing the noise. I’ll have to access the evap fan, though, to be sure.”
He stood and opened the main refrigerator door. “Ah,” he said, gazing into the barrenness. “Okay. So, taking things out of the fridge while I kill the power is not going to be a problem.”
Bobbi came up from behind and wrapped her arms around him. “You don’t need to worry about this.” She pulled him away from the appliance. “Come on.”
He relented and let her lead him back into the living room. “So are you guys hungry or what?” She looked between them. Jolyon, who’d moved back to the couch, shrugged. His freewheeling mood had shifted and he seemed to be watching them closely.
Bobbi became acutely aware of her body language and the signals she might be sending. She suddenly felt overwhelmed – this was a six-year-old boy without a mother in the picture. She liked Connor, but where was the line? When was it okay to give Jolyon the idea that she and his father were together? What if they didn’t stay that way?
Connor, perhaps sensing something, left her side and sat down beside his son, put an arm around the Jolyon’s shoulder. “What do you think, bud? You want to get something to eat?”
Jolyon stared off, his face slack. Then, just as it had come on, the pensiveness was gone. His eyes cleared and brightened as he looked up at Bobbi. “Pizza? Can we get pizza?”
“Sure…” Connor started, and glanced at her for confirmation.
“Yeah, of course. You guys happy if we order in?” She didn’t want to go anywhere, or be seen. “How about this – I’ll call and order. Jolyon, if it’s okay with your dad, you can watch something on my computer – Netflix, Amazon – and your dad and I can chat. Then we’ll dig in when the pizza comes. Sound good?”
* * *
They squared Jolyon away with Kung Fu Panda – in his “top five of all time,” according to Jolyon – and left him in the living room while they set up in the bedroom. She had a couple folding chairs and offered him one, but Connor opted to sit on the floor, leaning against the wall.
“The property manager brought me these,” Bobbi said. She left the chairs collapsed in the corner and sat on the floor beside Connor. “I think she got them from the church, actually.”
“How is living behind a church?”
“Oh, the noise, the parties. It’s a total pain in the ass.”
He was terribly handsome, even more so when he smiled. Rugged, natural good looks. After the narcissism displayed by her ex, Jamie, she’d decided to look for the quiet, bookish guys. The shy ones. Connor wasn’t exactly shy, but he wasn’t cocky either, and he was tender enough to raise a child alone, it seemed.
“Police called me today,” Connor said.
She’d gotten them a couple of beers and paused before she drank. “Really? Why? Oh – the surveying…”
He nodded, took a sip of his own beer. It looked like he’d washed his hands, but there was residual dirt beneath the nails.
“What did they say?” she asked.
“They asked if I’d had a background check. I hadn’t. I think maybe the construction crew did, but we subcontracted the job. I mean I was only there for two days. And that was, what? Six months ago?”
“Four and a half.” She knew because it was during those two days she’d first laid eyes on Connor; he’d been just coming out of the woods, carrying one of those tripods they used, and she’d spied him from her window. Three months after that they were bumping into each other at her karate class, on May 26.
She knew all the dates: After a month’s worth of classes they’d finally struck up a conversation on June 23. That led to their first liaison on June 30, their second on July 7, and their most recent on July 13 – today. Between her on-call hours and regular schedule and work that took Connor all over the region, it had been a slow start to dating.
“What did they want to know?” she asked.
“Just the dates I was there. The names of the other guys on the survey team. Not much, really. I told them I’d never met Harriet, just dealt with someone else. Shalene Jaquish.”
Bobbi nodded. “She’s the assistant director for DSS.”
“So, tell me about it,” he said. “I mean – holy shit. How are you doing? Are you okay?”
She took him through the whole thing, from arriving at work to leaving shortly after her talk with Jessica. She left out her personal feelings about Jessica’s attitude and implications, but then she told him how Harriet had been covering for her.
He stared into her eyes a moment. “That could’ve been you.”
“Yeah.”
When Connor said it, she didn’t feel the same spike of fear she did earlier, but there was a still a terrible weight, and her mind drifted to Jamie.
Connor set down his drink then came closer, moving on hands and knees. He pulled her into a hug. She could still smell the outdoors on him, the day’s sunshine bleached into his clothing.
“That’s insane,” he said, releasing her. “What are the police saying?”
“Not much. They talked to most everyone on staff, I think. Rita’s car was still there when I left. They left her sitting there for hours. I mean they had to; they had to assess everything as it was. I have no idea if it told them anything. I hope it did.”