She managed to get the packet of mac and cheese down without further incident and shoved it into the microwave. She jabbed the few buttons on the front that still worked until she managed to get something approximating the right time, and set it going, leaning back against the counter with her head in her hands.
Mentally, she was calculating how much time she had left. Just a couple of minutes of microwaving time, then maybe ten or fifteen minutes to eat it with her phone in her hand, looking over social media. Another ten minutes to get changed for bed and brush her teeth, and she could be asleep. But no, wait—she had an early shift in the morning, so she would be better off showering right now to save time. So, another fifteen minutes on top of that. Then she could fall into bed, at last.
A ringing noise rose above the sound of the microwave beside her, making Cassie lift her head. Her eyes instinctively darted to the cell phone sitting on the counter beside her, but it wasn’t that. This was a different tone. It was the landline; it had come with the apartment, but she’d never really had cause to use it. No one even had the number, apart from her sister. It was probably either a crank call or a scam.
Carrie let it ring out, ignoring it. There was no point in answering it, and she couldn’t suffer any fools with how exhausted she was. They would be getting a real piece of her mind, so she was doing them a favor by not answering. She waited for the microwave to finish, then pulled the hot plastic tray out and dropped it on the counter, wincing and moving fast to avoid burning her fingers.
The phone went silent, and Carrie sighed as she fished for a fork out of her cutlery drawer. Blessed peace. Now she could just eat this as quick as possible, get a quick lukewarm shower, and climb into her lumpy single bed and shut the rest of the world out.
She was lifting the tray over to the table when the phone rang out again, almost making her drop the whole thing.
“Dammit!” she shouted, dumping the tray onto the table and rubbing her forehead. If she’d lost her dinner as well as everything else today, she would have probably lost her mind on top of it. She tried to stay cool for a single second, then gave up and marched through to the hall and the ringing phone.
She wrenched it off the wall and put it to her ear. “Hello?” she demanded, half-shouting already.
“Hello.” It was a male voice, unexpectedly calm. “Am I speaking to Carrie Adeline Birchtree?”
Carri
e resisted the urge to confirm right away, even though the guy knew who she was. Even her middle name. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Debt collection agencies would be able to get hold of her full name, right?
“Who’s calling?” she asked. It was late, too. Why would a debt collection agency be calling this late?
“Miss Birchtree, I’m with the IRS,” he said, his voice low and controlled. “I need to confirm a few details of your latest tax return with you. It seems you may have overpaid your taxes.”
Carrie hesitated. No, this wasn’t right. It was probably a scam. Debt collectors didn’t need to tell the truth, did they? They could straight-up lie to get you to tell you who you were. She didn’t yet want to confirm who she was. But then again, if she was going to get a bigger tax refund…
“Do you know what time it is?” she asked, putting off the decision until later. “It’s a ridiculous time of night. What are you doing calling people at this time?”
“Ma’am, we tried calling you earlier and your phone wasn’t answered,” he said. “That’s why it’s been left to me on the late shift.”
Carrie hesitated. A late shift. That made sense. There were probably enough people who needed calling about this kind of thing. Why wouldn’t they have a call center working around the clock? She couldn’t hear anyone behind him—but then, maybe it was quieter there at night. She wandered back through to the kitchen, the cord on the phone stretching behind her as she stirred her mac and cheese to cool it down.
“Well, please call back again tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll be able to answer in the early afternoon after I get off work.”
“Before I confirm that, can you just confirm for me that you are Carrie Adeline Birchtree?” he asked. “If you’re not, there’s no point in scheduling a call back.”
Carrie chewed the fingernail on her right thumb for a moment, thinking it over. Wasn’t it obvious already that she was who he was asking for? If she wasn’t, she would have said no and put the phone down. She’d as good as confirmed it already, at least as far as it mattered if someone was trying to track her down. So maybe it was the tax thing. Maybe she could get a little extra money in the bank. It wasn’t long now until winter. She could do with a little extra cash, something to keep the heating on longer during the weekends when she was home.
“Yes,” she said, at length. “That’s me. Look, just call back tomorrow, okay? I’m about to go to bed.”
“I can’t do that, Carrie.”
Carrie froze, her thumbnail halfway back to her mouth. His voice had changed, she could swear it. It was deeper now. Less polite. Like a mask had been taken off. “Why not?” she asked, cursing mentally. She shouldn’t have told him her name. This was it, wasn’t it? He was going to tell her how much she owed and how much she’d better have ready in the morning, or they’d take everything. Not that it mattered. She didn’t have anything worth taking.
“Because I’m right outside your door.”
Carrie’s head sharply jerked toward the door. No. He couldn’t be. Had she heard that right?
“What?” she asked, praying for him to repeat it so she could hear how she’d gotten it wrong.
Instead, a series of beeps rang out from the handset, signaling that the call had been ended.
Carrie pulled the phone away from her head and stared at it, hoping it would give her some kind of answer. There was nothing. She rested it down on the kitchen counter for a moment, trying to think. What was going on here? Some kind of prank?
Maybe she’d misheard him. Maybe he said “I can do that,” and then just confirmed it and ended the call. How could she have messed those words up? Was that possible? No, she played the words back in her head and they still sounded the same.
He’d said he was outside.