I open my mouth to ask why the dog can’t stay at his house alone, but I don’t want to be annoying.
Kellan stands, and his dog circles both of us, tail thumping my leg as he nuzzles my knees.
“Hi, sweetheart,” I croon, stroking his back. “Are you named after President Truman?”
Kellan snorts. “Capote.”
I look up at him. “You named your dog after Truman Capote?”
He folds his arms over his chest and arches a brow at me.
“Well, well. I guess your dad does read,” I say to Truman.
“C’mon,” Kellan says. He waves me past the staircase on our right and down the hall. I sweep my gaze over the crown molding lining the high ceilings as I follow him. From where we stand, it looks like the hall dead-ends into a living area.
Truman trails behind us, making me remember the dog we used to have when I was little. Her name was Honeycomb, because she was always trying to eat bees. She was a black lab, and she ran away the month after my sister Olive died. I use to think our crying was too much for poor Honeycomb. Our grieving sent her running for the hills.
I watch Kellan’s face as we move down the hall.
“Can we take him home? I’d feel so much better with a guard dog.” I smile cheekily. “He can keep me from getting offed by a rival drug lord.”
He runs his eyes over me. Solemnity weights his features. “You worried about that?”
I nod. “Are you surprised by this?”
The hallway dead-ends at a living area with cappuccino walls, brown curtains, two teal couches with chevron-patterned pillows, and a huge brick fireplace. To the left is a modern-looking kitchen, with granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. To the right, another hall—the floor of this one lined with a burgundy runner.
We drift up behind the nearest couch, and Kellan wraps his hand around the spine of it. He surveys the room, looking pensive. “Not many people know where I live, Cleo. My dealers are students.”
I glance down at Truman, who’s smacking Kellan’s calf with his ever-wagging tail. “So they’re all non-threatening and presumed loyal.”
“It’s not perfect, but I pay them well and I keep tabs on them.”
“Hmm.” I lean against the back of the couch and look around the room, which resembles a family room; it’s nothing like the drug den I expected.
He props his hip against the couch’s back and leans a little closer to me. I watch his hand come up. I shiver as he drags his thumb along my lower lip.
He smiles a predatory smile. “So sensitive.”
I arch away from him. “Yeah, when people touch my mouth.”
“You had a Tru hair on it.”
My cheeks go hot for absolutely no good reason. “Well thanks I guess.”
He smiles at me, and it’s a weird smile—one I don’t understand, because it seems so sad. I wait there silently for an explanation. I wait for him to open up to me, to tell me what is on his mind. But Kellan doesn’t.
I feel useless. Clueless. My eyes wander around the room, noting the Glade Plug-Ins beside the entertainment center, and to the right of a potted palm.
I wave at the massive brick fireplace, filled with a pretty, iron candle stand, and topped with a dozen half-burned white candles. “Are you sure this place is what you said it was?” I ask him finally.
He puts his arm part-way around me, clasping my shoulder and turning me toward the hall with the runner.
“Come with me.”
His strange, sad air and sparse words have got me nervous, but I’m soothed a little by the Thomas Kinkade prints on the hall walls. They’re quaint and country, framed in cedar. One shows a barn, another a waterfall, the third a proud-looking black lab surrounded by dead ducks. The ceiling overhead is striped with a thin skylight, casting filmy light into the shadows.
When we reach the first door, cut into the left-hand wall, Kellan delves into his pocket. I see his key ring come out, and am momentarily distracted by it. The angle of the Escalade is such that I can’t see it dangling from the ignition, so I’m surprised that it’s... a rodent? I blink—and blink again as he inserts a key into the deadbolt on the door, then wraps his hand around the handle and tugs the door toward his chest.