“And then you decided to just come in?”
“Isn’t a daughter welcome at her father’s house?” I counter, although I’m pretty much only a daughter by blood, nothing more at this point.
“Curt didn’t seem to welcome you yesterday. What are you doing here?” Her hair’s up in a sloppy bun and mascara is smeared beneath her eyes.
“I want to see my father,” I tell her.
“He’s on a job. Somebody has to pay the bills around here.” She flicks ashes on the light blue shag carpeting.
“Don’t you work?”
“I’m between jobs, not that it’s any of your business.” She takes a long drag on the cigarette and exhales the smoke through her nostrils and her mouth.
“When will my father be home?”
“Dinner time.”
At the mention of dinner, my stomach lets out a growl. It’s lunchtime—an hour past, actually.
“Have you eaten?” I ask.
“Do I look like I’ve eaten?”
I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean. Her diet probably consists of potato chips and cigarettes.
A light goes off in my brain. They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Maybe the way to my father’s girlfriend is to get some food into her deprived body. “Would you like to go to lunch, Rainey?”
She drops her arm to her side and flicks more ashes on the worn carpet. “Do I look like an idiot to you?”
She really doesn’t want me to answer that question.
“I’m hungry,” I say. “It’s lunchtime. I’m going to get something to eat. Would you like to come along?”
“Who’s paying?” She eyes me suspiciously.
“Who do you think is paying? I invitedyou, Rainey, so of course it’s my treat.”
Her eyes narrow. “What’s your game, sister?”
If she’s shacking up with my dad, I’m definitely not her sister.
“I don’t think there’s any game involved in inviting someone to lunch.”
She pauses a moment, moves her gaze over and around me. “Yeah, yeah. I could eat. Let me get some clothes on.” She heads down a tiny hallway and disappears behind a door.
I take advantage of the few minutes to scout out the living room where Miles and I stood yesterday.
The worn sofa is the same dull brown color, and Rainey hasn’t bothered emptying the overflowing ashtray sitting beside it on a veneer end table. A couple of empty beer cans litter the floor, and a copy ofPeoplesits on the coffee table, open to a story about the Kardashians.
The blinds are open, letting some sunshine in, and the walls are the same yellowish white.
I pick up the beer cans and walk into the small kitchen. It’s actually in better shape than the living area, but not by much. Dirty Tupperware bowls are piled in the sink, and a loaf of store-bought white bread is sitting out, the plastic bag still open. I twist the bag closed so the bread won’t get stale.
I pick up empty cans again. If I were a recycling container, where would I be?
Then I laugh out loud. If the Bayfield Sheriff’s Office can’t recycle, my father certainly—
But I lift my eyebrows when I spy both a green container—sporting the triangular recycling symbol—and a black container sitting by the back door.