I sigh, collecting my things. “Yeah.”
“You sure?” he presses, making me wary.
“Why are you asking?”
“Nothing. Just . . .” He shrugs. “You’ve seemed, I don’t know, not yourself lately. Distracted.”
First David accusing me of being in a mood, and now Mark? I duck my head as I collect my things, mainly to hide another flush of my cheeks. “I just have a lot going on right now. You know, the Waterway project . . .” Lie. “The Marquee.” Lie. “And this ongoing Tripp bullshit. It’s getting worse.” Partial lie.
Technically, all those things are real and should be dominating my focus and raising my stress levels. Should is the operative word. But the truth is, if I’m distracted, it’s because my attention keeps getting snagged on the new security guard, my thoughts lingering in the past.
Mark nods slowly, as if understanding. “Håret i postkassen.”
“Pardon me?”
He offers a shy smile. “Just something my grandmother used to say. It’s a Danish proverb. It means ‘you’ve got your hair stuck in the mailbox.’ ”
“What?”
He smiles. “You’ve found yourself with a tricky problem.”
“Oh. With Tripp? Yeah, I guess I have. I just don’t know what to do about him. He’ll clearly never accept me as his superior.”
“Få hul på bylden.”
I wait with raised eyebrows for the translation.
Mark shrugs. “ ‘You’ve got to lance the boil.’ ”
I cringe at the mental image that spurns. “So your grandma thinks that if I poke Tripp with a long, sharp needle, he’ll go away?”
He chuckles. “He’d learn to keep his distance.”
“It would definitely make me feel better.” I sigh, hauling my weary body out of my chair.
“Off to lunch, Miss Calloway?” Gus asks as he tosses his Alejandro’s hamburger wrapper into the trash behind him. The man rarely leaves the desk, even to eat.
“And a meeting.” I don’t mean to sigh as I take in the empty chair next to him, but it slips out anyway.
“You just missed him. He went to check something in the parking garage.”
Of course he did. My gaze drifts to the bank of monitors behind the desk, to the screens showing the elevators. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s happening.
We’re at week three and Kyle is outright avoiding me now, bolting the second he spots me on my way down. Off to test an alarm or patrol the building or to pee. Anything to not have to see me, it seems.
My annoyance flares, but I push it aside. “How’s it going so far with him?”
“No complaints. He’s punctual, disciplined, quiet. Takes his job seriously.”
Not at all like the version I knew. “Good. Well . . .” Loitering here talking about Kyle feels awkward. “I’ll see you later.” I turn to leave.
“I heard he requested a transfer here, from San Diego,” Gus says.
San Diego. So that’s where he went. Has he been there all this time?
I feel Gus’s steady gaze on me, as if waiting for my reaction.
“Makes sense. Lennox is a great city. I could see why he’d make the move,” I say casually. Why did he make the move? For his girlfriend, maybe?
“Not this city. This building,” Gus clarifies, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Apparently, he’s been trying to get in here for a while now. Put in a transfer request with Rikell’s HR for this building.”
I frown. “How many buildings in the city does Rikell do security for?”
“Fifteen. Twenty. Something like that.” Gus’s eyes study me as I try to process this bit of information.
If it were Lennox that Kyle wanted to move to, he’d accept a transfer at any of those buildings. So why did he want to work at this one specifically?
Unless . . .
“There must have been something about this place that made him want to come here,” Gus says, as if reading my mind.
“The architecture,” I murmur absently, more confused now than before.
Something.
Or someone.
“Yes. The architecture.” A knowing glimmer shines in Gus’s eyes, but his brow is pulled with worry. “Anything I should know about?”
What would Gus say if he knew everything about Kyle that I know? If he knew our entire history?
Would he be so quick to throw out kind words about him?
“Yes. There is.” I lean in, as if to share a secret. “These burgers are terrible for you. Start eating healthier.”
His laugh trails me as I head for the exterior doors, my mind swirling.
Why would Kyle make the effort to move across the country to work in my building, only to then keep me at arm’s length?
What the hell are you up to, Kyle?
Chapter 10
THEN
2006, Camp Wawa, Week One
“Okay! So we all learned something important from last night’s fiasco,” Darian begins, having corralled the entire staff of counselors to the field beside the pavilion. Meanwhile the campers are suitably distracted with pancakes and sausages, and grossly exaggerated versions of the vampiric, winged beast that tried to kill the occupants of Cabin Nine.
She pauses to look around the group, her index fingers pointed outward. It’s her signature move before she asks for audience participation. “Who can tell me what it was?”
“Don’t run into a cabin full of sleeping kids screaming, ‘Run for your lives before the bat kills you!’?” Colin, a tall dark-haired guy, calls out. All the counselors laugh.
All except Christa.
“I did not say that!” she bursts with indignation, her face heating to match the color of her camp T-shirt. “That’s not what happened.”
“No. Well, yes, Colin, technically, you’re not wrong—you should never say anything along those lines. And perhaps there might have been a more orderly way of waking the children to deal with last night’s situation,” Darian hazards, lifting her hand in the air to stall Christa’s next words of defense.
The first eardrum-splintering shriek had come within seconds, as little Teegan looked up to see the wiry black body cowering in the corner directly above her head, a mere two feet away. A chorus of shrill screams soon joined in, as we scrambled to pull all five girls sleeping on top bunks down, to take cover below.
The next few anxiety-laden seconds felt like they were happening in slow motion, as the bat lifted off and fluttered around the cabin for a few laps before swooping toward Christa. Armed with our pillows, we took turns swinging at it until finally it sailed through the open door and toward the trees.
But the damage had been done—ten terrified little girls who took hours to drift off once again, along with disturbed rest for the ninety other female campers who were awoken by the high-pitched alarm. Plus Darian, of course, came speeding across the campgrounds in a golf cart—dressed in an Elmo nightshirt and hiking boots, her short blonde hair standing on end—to find out what was going on.
“Let’s take this as an opportunity to remember to shut your cabin door fully when you’re going to the restroom at night, okay?” Darian says. “Simple mistake, I get it! But guess what, everyone? We’re in the woods, and bats live in the woods! It’s part of nature. It’s fine. We can coexist in harmony, as long as they don’t get into our cabins.”