The last stages on my custom cakes felt like they took a million years. No one came back into the kitchen, leaving me to work in peace. I heard the two housekeepers from The Inn climb the stairs not long before I finished.
When I was done with the cakes, I stored them in the cooler, stopped at the laptop on the desk to sign out of my personal email and cloud account, and packed my favorite coffee mug and the rest of my things from the desk.
That done, I was ready to leave. I didn't bother going to the front to let them know. Better if they thought I was still back in the kitchen, working on the cakes. Before I headed to Grams' house, I went upstairs one more time.
The two housekeepers were young, just out of high school, fresh-faced, and not at all daunted by the disaster that was my apartment.
I recognized one of them. Chocolate silk pie and black coffee. She looked up and grinned. “Hey, Daisy! Sorry about this. Are you okay?”
“I'm good.” I faked a smile back. “Thanks for doing this. I really appreciate it.”
“No problem!” She grinned again. “I'm saving up for a new car, and Kristi wants to go to Cancun with her boyfriend, so we could both use the extra cash.”
A thought occurred to me. “Hey, when you do the bedroom and the bathroom, instead of putting my stuff away, could you pack it? I'm going to be moving, so it doesn't make sense to put it all back in the closet when I'm just going to take it back out again.”
“Sure, no problem! Moving in with Royal?” She shot me a wink. I tried to smile back.
“Maybe. I'm still deciding.”
I got out my suitcases and said a quick hello to Kristi, who'd already started in the bedroom. She was as enthusiastic and perky as the first girl, whose name I didn't remember. Promising she was on top of it, Kristi ushered me out and on my way. I was more than happy to go. I owed Royal big time for this.
I speed-walked to Grams' house. Now that I was on the move, I wanted this done. If he had taken the contract, he'd probably destroyed it. Unless he hadn't had a chance. Looking for it was the longest of long shots, but it was worth a try.
I felt like a thief as I let myself into the empty house. Everything looked normal. Almost. Grams wasn't crazy tidy—we never would have survived my adolescence if she had been—but she was neater than my parents, who'd left their things strewn all over the place. I resisted the urge to pick it all up. Grams had trained me well, but I didn't have time to deal with their mess. I had one of my own.
Their room was worse than the rest of the house—drawers hanging open, dirty clothes slung across the unmade bed. Not my problem, though it would be easier to search if things were where they belonged. Ignoring my annoyance, I began to look for the contract. It wasn't much, only two sheets stapled together, signed and dated by both of us.
They didn't have many papers lying around, and none of them were the contract. After a cursory search, I found a half-eaten sandwich on a plate on the dresser, a huge wad of cash in the sock drawer, and a small pile of unpaid bills. No contract.
I stood in the middle of the bedroom, hands on my hips, and turned a slow circle, studying the room for the best hiding place. I'd checked behind the mirror and under the bed.
Under the bed.
I looked again and pulled out the suitcases I'd seen there. They kept theirs in the same place I'd stored mine. Both were empty. I checked the liners, looking for a gap or place he could have secreted away the contract.
My heart raced when my fingers found a gap in the lining. The papery rustle wasn't the contract—it was a wad of cash, this one bigger than the one I'd found in his sock drawer. I didn't count it, but it was more than I would have expected. What was my dad up to that he had so much cash lying around? Those poker games he'd bragged about or something else?
That was it for the suitcases. The closet? I'd checked the shelves already, but I dragged a chair over for a better look. On the top shelf, my groping hand encountered another rustle. Fabric on top of something else. Paper. Bingo. This had to be it.
I tugged, pulling it all towards me until fabric and paper fell in a heap on my head. I didn't recognize the paper except to see that it wasn't the contract. Torn from a notebook, it had a series of numbers scribbled haphazardly across the otherwise blank page. Creased and worn, it looked like it had been folded and re-folded more than once.