Run Away Baby

“Okay. I’ll put an ad online tomorrow,” Abby said. This took care of her concerns about Rosa working for Randall once she was gone. She’d pictured them in this house together, Rosa having to deal with Randall’s rage over her disappearance. She would be doing Rosa a favor if she told her now to start looking for another job.

“You’re not going to argue with me about getting rid of her?” asked Randall.

“No.”

“Well how about that? You’re finally wising up. Seeing that you and I work better when we’re on the same page.”

“Yep.” Abby sipped her wine, reconsidering her choice to leave the majority of it inside the house.

“You haven’t even asked me about my day,” he said.

“How was your day?”

“Long. Mentally challenging. Nothing I can’t handle. And what did you do today?”

“I was out at the cottage. Like I told you. And… It’s probably nothing.”

“What’s probably nothing?”

“I don’t know. I got concerned,” she said. Too late to turn back now.

“Why’s that?”

“There was a toaster there. Do you know anything about it?”

“Tell me again why you were out there today?”

“To check on things. I told you I was going out there today, and I checked in with Krissa this morning to tell her, too. I hadn’t been there for weeks and I wanted to see it again.”

“I thought about it more, and I don’t want you going there again. You’ve lost those kinds of privileges.”

“You said you were okay with me going out there today.”

“Buying that place was a mistake,” Randall added, scanning the street down below for any sign of the Lobster Brothers truck.

“Did you have someone put cameras in it?” Abby asked him.

“Why do you want to know that?”

“Because someone had been there. There was a toaster I’d never seen before plugged into the wall in the kitchen. Plugged in! I got really scared.”

“I can honestly tell you I don’t know anything about it.” He shoved another cracker sandwich into his mouth. He seemed to be telling the truth.

“Well, I’m pretty sure somebody’s been there,” Abby said.

“That’s why you don’t live in the woods. That’s why you stay away from the swamp. What do you expect? A trashy little place like that is going to attract squatters. Druggies. Meth heads. Naturally.”

“The cottage isn’t trashy. It’s cute.”

“Don’t be so fucking sensitive. Any abandoned property is going to attract meth heads. You don’t know there’s a meth head epidemic going on? Sugartitties, you gotta read the news.”

“I don’t think it was meth heads. Wouldn’t meth heads mess it up or leave it dirty? It looked pretty much the same as before excep

t for the toaster.”

“How long has it been since I called Lobster Brothers?”

“I don’t know. Maybe twenty minutes.”