Off the Grid (15 page)

He reread her latest text. She was on her way. Unlike his response to her last ten missives, which had been silence, he took the time to reply.

In the lobby.

She was stubborn from the tip of her short haircut to her booted toes. He was in so much trouble where she was concerned. He spent too much time thinking about her. Craving her company. Picturing tomorrows. When he wasn’t wondering around dark parks trying to avoid getting his ass kicked. Or worse.

Caleb climbed out of his nice warm vehicle and tugged up the collar of his coat. He glanced up at the building. Even with the dark hiding the worst of its problems it sagged. He’d struck out at the park, wasted valuable time on a wild goose chase. He was three hundred bucks poorer and tired as shit. It surprised him he still had energy left over for anger.

But he did.

He walked in and almost ran into a skinhead charging for the front door. He shoved past Caleb, yanking up his hood and putting his face in the shadows of his coat. A watch worth more than six month’s rent in this pit circled his wrist. Whatever. He pinched the area at the bridge of his nose.

The ugly swastika tattooed on the skin between his thumb and forefinger gave his tiredness permission to get the better of his tongue. “Watch it, asshole.”

The guy didn’t look back. Instead he offered up a backhanded middle finger salute before hitting the street.

“Nice,” he muttered. It was a colossal mistake to come here. Control equaled rational. He was not in control. Of anything.

He was insane.

Evidenced by the fact he’d bribed a drug dealer.

Why?

Because he was churned up, turned on, and scared to death. Over falling in love? This level of insanity required nothing less than the L word. He shook his head too tired to be having this conversation with himself. Complicated relationship statuses were for later, or never, not the lobby of rancid hotels. Instead he made his way to the grimy front desk and bribed the greasy haired night manager for the room number.

Sophie rushed into the shabby lobby, spotted him, and stopped. Caleb shoved his hands in his pockets and resisted the urge to go to her. The worry was in her drawn face, in the dark circles framing her lovely eyes. It hunched her shoulders and kept her hands hidden. It rooted her to the spot. His anger evaporated. Disgust took its place. He was being an asshole.

She was an adult and this was her sister. She had every right to be involved. Truth was her knowledge of the area and its residents was an advantage he could have used. Even if it killed him to admit it.

He crossed the dirty floor. “218.”

Wary, she nodded and headed for the elevator.

Caleb grabbed her arm. “Stairs. The guy at the desk says it’s broken.”

They took the stairs to the second floor. The only living being they encountered was a starved looking rat. Hellhole was too kind a word. On the second floor landing he breathed a sigh of relief, glad to be leaving the stench of the stairwell behind. Except the gagging combination of urine, cigarette smoke, and over nuked food followed them into the miserable hallway. Plaster crumbled off water-stained walls. Holes peppered the grimy plaster. Hope had died here and despair had rushed to fill the vacancy.

“God, how do people live like this?”

She flicked him a glance. “It’s better than the street. Lack of affordable housing isn’t a joke. We actually arranged for a city councilor to come and live in the DTES for two months with only the equivalent of a welfare check in his pocket. He stuck it out even though by the end of it he was reduced to binning.”

“Binning?”

“Digging in the dumpsters for stuff to eat. Or sell. If they’re lucky people leave the good stuff on top of the bin. That way the binners know there’s a good chance it’s hasn’t spoiled yet.”

Caleb stopped their progress down the hall. She looked up at him with tired green eyes. Resigned.

“I’m sorry.” For once he had nothing else to say.

“For what? Being a clueless dick or for trying to shut me out of my own life.”

Caleb blocked her way. Hadn’t his mother always warned him to think twice and speak once? “You’re right. I’m not up to speed on social justice issues. But I’m working on it. As for shutting you out? I don’t want you here. To have you hear the things I need to make clear. So if that makes me a dick, then so be it.”

She looked straight passed him.

Caleb sighed, gave up. “Come on, this way.”

She didn’t protest. He directed them down the hall. The door to 218 was ajar. Caleb knocked anyway. No one answered.

Sophie jostled her way past him. “Marnie.”

Nothing. Caleb stepped into a tiny room crammed with stuff. It took a few seconds for him to identify the lump on the bed as human. A second more to realize something was very wrong.

“Oh, shit! Marnie.” Sophie rushed to the bed, ordered him to call for help.

He yanked out his phone and dialed. On the bed Marnie was bleeding out of a hole in her chest. Her face was a bloody mess. He reached out to help and knocked over the almost empty bottle of vodka propped up beside her on the bed.

Sophie went to work. Caleb watched, too horrified, too focused on following her instructions to worry about all the blood.

But it was too late. Marnie lost consciousness. By the time the ambulance and the firefighters arrived she was unresponsive, her pulse nonexistent. Along with the unbelievable truth came the dizzying scents of sweat, blood, and death. Now Caleb stood in the squalid hallway, braced against the dirty wall, head spinning, fielding questions from police officers who’d responded to the call. They’d ordered him out of the room, needing the space. He provided as much information as he could while ambulance attendants worked with Sophie inside the room.

She refused to stop. Kept working to try and bring her sister back. In the end the attendants stepped back to let Caleb through. He stood behind her. He wrapped his arms around her and gently pulled her back and away from her sister’s dead body. She sagged into him, lifted wild, disbelieving eyes to his.

He could only nod against the gravity sucking weight of her despair. It called forth his own when he wished to keep it hidden. He blinked back the sting of moisture. They both shuddered. He pressed her face into his chest to suffocate her words, her anguish. The frantic efforts of the last thirty minutes stopped. In a slow creep horror replaced panic and helplessness.

He tried to hoist her up scared they were both going to land in a heap on the soiled carpet. Her fists grasped at his jacket, clenching and unclenching. Her sobs scarred his soul. He shut his eyes but it didn’t help. He was still there. His heart continued its ruthless beating, so hard his chest hurt.

He’d come looking for a fight. To threaten. Intimidate. To do whatever needed to be done to get her to stop screwing up. Now she was gone and there was nothing left to do but leave the professionals to the messy business of death.

He got them into the hallway without being aware of how he did it. His head was swimming, thoughts coagulating into clots of disbelief, anger, uselessness. Where were his coping skills? His inner Superman?

What he wouldn’t give to leap a tall building, stop a speeding train, instead of standing there doling out a measly amount of comfort like it was going to make any kind of difference. He ran a hand over Sophie’s hair, held her up with the other. He coaxed, murmured meaningless platitudes as tears rained down her pale cheeks. Blood stained her hands, her clothes, there was a smear on her cheek. He was castrated by her grief.

“Sophie. Listen to me. We have to go home now.”

Her look remained vacant. Then gripped by a thought she held up her hands and stared at them like she’d never seen them before.

“Here.” After checking in and leaving her contact information with the police he searched out the communal bathroom and dragged her into it. When warm water ran from the taps he pushed her hands under the spray. Pink-red water filled the sink and swirled down the drain. He lifted his wet hand to her cheek and did the best he could with her face. His sweater did duty as a towel.

The distance to his car was the equivalent of a marathon. He tucked an unresponsive Sophie into the passenger side of his Range Rover. As he made his way to the other side of his vehicle he stripped off his soiled jacket and dumped it in an empty shopping cart pushed against a wall. He’d left the sweater he’d used as a towel on the bathroom floor. He shivered in the cold. If he could have done without his shoes and pants he’d have left those too.

He wanted to leave everything from the rat infested hotel behind, to take nothing of the misery back with him. He craved amnesia. To know he could walk away made it all worse. He hadn’t asked for this. All he’d wanted was a date. With a woman who’d caught his eye. Lots of women had caught his eye. None of them had reached down and tried to rip out his soul on the second date.

The red and blue and yellow lights of various emergency vehicles flashed in the night behind him. His hand clenched around the driver’s side door handle. They hadn’t required anything but entertaining or jewelry. Maybe a sand and sex beach trip to St. Thomas. People rushed by him. They avoided the lights, the uniforms, intent on remaining invisible. He rested his forehead against the door, the ice cold window a balm for his shame. A tap on his shoulder made him jump. He jerked around.

A weathered old man huddled in a beat up old parka stretched his neck to get a closer look. “Hey, mister. You okay?”

Caleb closed his eyes and nodded. The guy didn’t move. He sighed. “I’m good. Thanks.”

He squinted at him. “You sure? You don’t look too good.”

“Rough night.” Caleb scooped up a couple of dollar coins from his pant pocket.

The old man laughed, waved off the offer of money. “You take care now.”

He indulged in a brief escape fantasy. Back to a reality he could handle. Then he set his self-pity aside and manned up. He drove her home. Inside she headed for the couch and perched at the end of it. Stunned confusion and sadness etched lines into her face.

He sat down on the coffee table across from her, their knees touching. She was a mess. The evidence of her valiant efforts ground into her clothes. Her eyes were red, the skin around them swollen and smudged with black. With gentle hands he undid her coat, slid it off her shoulders, dropped it to the floor. He pulled her boots from her feet. It all required incinerating.

He scanned the small space, listening. Nothing. Frowning, he asked, “Where’s Kellie?”

“At a friend’s. I dropped them off before…”

“Okay. Good. I’ll be right back.” First a garbage bag for her outer clothes. Next the bathroom. He bent over the tub and ran the water. He grabbed a bottle of body wash and squeezed. When the tub was filled with hot, soapy water he detoured to the kitchen and searched through her cupboards. Grabbing up a bottle of whiskey he poured a couple of fingers in a glass. He tipped the bottle up and chugged. Took a breather. And tipped the bottle up again.

Back in her front room he wrapped her fingers around a glass. “Drink.”

She swallowed a sip and set it down on the table.

He offered his hand. “Come on. You need to get cleaned up.”

She bit her lip, eyes glistening she looked up at him. “She’s really gone this time.”

“I know.” Words deserted him as her tears tumbled over wet lashes. He bent down and gathered her up. “I’ve got you. Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”

On the way past he snagged the bottle of whiskey. Her tiny bathroom smelled like warm gingerbread and the steam created a nice hazy screen. He found a space among her lotions and washes for the liquor bottle. “Do you want me to help? Or should I go? I won’t be far, just outside the door.”

A little focus came back to her eyes. She reached out for him. “Stay.”

He ran a gentle hand down the side of her face. “Are you sure?”

Her head bobbed. “Pretty damn sure.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” she echoed.

“Let’s get you out of these clothes.” She struggled to get them off, but together they managed. Caleb grabbed a towel along with her dirty clothes. “Washing machine?”

Still in her underwear, she pointed across the hall to a closet. “Through there.”

He shed his own clothes then stuffed everything in and guessed at a setting. He wrapped the towel around his hips. Back in the bathroom Sophie lay in the tub focused on the ceiling. He closed the toilet seat and sat down.

“Sorry, I had to wash mine too.”

“You’re going to freeze.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Caleb, while I appreciate the heroics, you need to wash off too. And if you’re half as frozen as me, you need to warm up. So get in the damn tub.”

“Bossy,” he muttered. He lost the towel and she scooted forward. But he was grateful to have some of her back with him. Any of her.

“Marnie and I called a spade a spade. It was one thing we had in common.”

He crawled in behind her, grabbed the bottle of whiskey and swilled back a mouthful. He could do this. Be the friend she needed. Provide comfort. Without dissolving into a mindless mess. Chest deep in bubbles he pulled her back and settled her against his heart. He handed her the bottle. After a healthy mouthful she gave it back.

“Hard to argue with the facts.” He reached for a bottle of shampoo and squirted some onto the top of her head. “But there had to be more attractive qualities you shared.”

He worked some suds into her hair. Rinsed. Repeated. He moved onto her stiff shoulders, satisfied when they rolled and stretched under his fingers.

“We both loved waffles.”

“Waffles?” A little out of left field but it was a start.

“And The Breakfast Club.”

“The Breakfast Club, huh? Lean forward.”

She obliged. “You know? The movie?”

“Yeah, I got the reference. I was more of a Ferris Bueller fan myself.” He picked up a spongy thing and squeezed on some bath gel, worked up a lather.

“Of course, you were.”

“Although Molly Ringwald was pretty hot.” He handed it to her to use. “What else?”

“Black nail polish.” She raised a soapy foot out of the water.