French Vanilla & Felonies Page 13

  "Thirty-day notice is cheaper and usually faster. You don't have to give a reason and don't need evidentiary support. We'll have Chase serve it."

  "Why Chase? I don't have a problem doing so myself."

  "I want the notice served without any conversation. He'll know he has thirty days to move, and he doesn't need to know why." It was a nice way of telling me I have a big mouth. Justified. Bada-bing-bada-boom. "Let me know when Chase gets there, and I'll have my lawyer send over the paperwork."

  "He may still be here. I'll check."

  "Still? That reminds me, I got a message from the emergency line, so I'm assuming you or Chase didn't answer right away. Did it get taken care of?"

  Note to self: Don't ever let your phone out of your sight. Ever.

  "I'm sorry. My friend had my phone. It was taken care of."

  "Did Chase come?"

  "He did." I thought back to our little mishap in the third courtyard and wondered if it was worth mentioning—or if I should wait for the video to show up on his Facebook feed.

  "Cambria, Chase is hourly, and emergencies are overtime. Now he's there this early in the morning? I need you to be mindful of the bottom line."

  The paperclip broke in half. "Oh, no. I took care of the emergency, and Chase is only here this early because he spent the night."

  Didn't mean to say that.

  "Spent the night?" His voice took on a curious tone.

  "Yes…no…yes. It wasn't a sexual thing." I slapped my forehead.

  Dear Ground,

  Please swallow me up next time I try to speak.

  Sincerely,

  Cambria

  There was no recovering from the sex comment. "Go ahead and send over the notice, and I'll have Chase serve it," I said, my voice small. "Please."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Tenant agrees to not engage in any illegal activity while occupying the Premises, ever, like, ever, ever.

  An hour later the fax machine popped out the notification. I was rolled into the fetal position on the teal carpet, agonizing over the conversation with Patrick. It wasn't a sexual thing?

  My big mouth was my own worst enemy.

  I reached up and grabbed the paper off the machine.

  Thirty-day Notice

  Spencer Bryant is hereby required to vacate the premises in which he resides thirty days from this date.

  Cambria Clyne

  Apartment Manager

  That's it? One sentence and a line for my signature? He needed a lawyer for this? Screw criminal law. This is what Tom should be doing.

  My phone chirped, and I pulled it from my back pocket, still reading over the very short, very unofficial-looking notification.

  It was a text from Amy. Finally.

  Alive Rock was a bore at home just woke stop texting me hungover

  Nice. I slid the phone back into my pocket. Amy was fine. I could cross that off my Things-to-Stress-About-Today list.

  Next up: Facing Chase after Tom's embarrassing performance. I could only imagine what was going through his head. Here he was, doing me a favor, and he's rewarded by what seemed like an overzealous ex-boyfriend, which was so far from the truth.

  I found Chase in the maintenance garage. The room was a hodgepodge of every tool, screw, saw, and plunger imaginable. Only a single light bulb hung from the cobwebbed ceiling. It smelled like mildew, and the air was thick and clammy. Chase was using a toilet as a chair, working on an air conditioning unit. He bit his bottom lip, concentrating on his task. I cleared my throat to grab his attention.

  He was too engrossed in his work to notice. "Hey, Chase," I finally said after three more throat clears. My esophagus was beginning to burn. "Fancy meeting you here" was my oh-so-clever icebreaker.

  He smiled and wiped his brow with his forearm. "Because it's not like I'm the 'maintenance man.'" He hooked his fingers into quotation marks.

  My face went flush. "I'm so sorry about this morning. Tom isn't normally that rude. It was a misunderstanding."

  "Misunderstanding?" Chase repeated with a nod of his head. He unwrapped a new filter for the AC unit and deposited the plastic on the floor. I instinctively picked up the trash and threw it away for him. Cleaning up after his maintenancing had become part of my undisclosed job duties. He stuck the filter in. "I'm assuming he's your ex?" he asked.

  "Oh, no, no, no…not really, kind of, no. He's Lilly's dad. He was only mad because I give him a hard time about bringing girls around Lilly, and he…anyway, he wasn't jealous or anything like that."

  He cocked his head my way. "Could have fooled me."

  "Well, he did. I think he was trying to prove a point. Again, I'm sorry, and thank you for hanging out last night."

  "No problem." He replaced the front panel of the air conditioner and flipped it on. It purred to life, spurting out cold air. It felt heavenly. He smiled. "You know what? I think I might have fixed this." He sounded surprised. It was cute.

  I went to pat him on the back, stopping midway. I only recently learned how to keep myself from dissolving in his presence. Physical contact was not a good idea. I opted for a thumbs-up instead. "Congratulations. Look at you being all maintenance-y." I held out the thirty-day notification. "Here's one more item of maintenance-man business for you. Patrick would like you to serve it because I have a big mouth."

  He wiped his hands on his jeans and grabbed the paper, quickly scanning the information. "You're really giving Spencer a thirty-day?"

  I leaned against the workbench, folding my arms. "I know, right? I thought the same thing. Apparently a thirty-day is easier and cheaper than an eviction, and Patrick cares about his bottom line."

  "You want me to do this right now?"

  "I do. And, um, I'm going to watch you give it to him from a secret location." I felt uneasy. Maybe because this was my first Notice to Vacate. Maybe because I didn't have strong proof of wrongdoing. Maybe because I was worried Chase would end up like Kenneth. Maybe it was all three. The bushes near the breezeway would provide the concealment I needed to watch.

  "You're going to hide? Where? Behind a bush?"

  Did I say that out loud? "Maybe. I'm only thinking about…er…you. I'm thinking about your safety. What if he goes crazy and pulls a knife or a gun or tries to take you hostage. I'll be watching to make sure things don't get out of hand." This would be my excuse if Patrick asked why I was not in the office while Chase served the notice. "We could have some sort of signal."

  "Signal? Because if you saw him with a gun, that wouldn't be enough of a signal?" He laughed—it was a pleasing sound—then flashed a smile. He sure had nice teeth—white but not bleach white. They were natural white, like he flossed, mouthwashed, and brushed twice-a-day-like-the-dentist-recommended-but-no-one-ever-did white. All were perfectly aligned except for his lower incisors that curved inward slightly—I wanted to suck on them.

  Wow.

  It was an odd, surprising desire, yet so strong. I couldn't recall ever wanting to suck on someone's tooth. What is wrong with me?

  "You really do watch a lot of crime shows," he noted, flashing his incisors again.

  I looked at my shoes, willing my face to remain its pale freckled self and not go red. "I do." Concentrate, Cambria. "I won't be able to hear what's happening. So if the service goes well, you could…scratch your chin. And if it's going south then…pull your ear?" It sounded stupid even as I was saying it.

  As Chase headed to Spencer's apartment, I dashed to the breezeway to assume lookout. I plastered my back against the wall and took small side steps as if walking the ledge of a high-rise building. Einstein clung to the ivy twisting up the breezeway, and the bristles scraped my exposed skin, but blood and bald spots were not going to deter me.

  As the end of the wall neared, I pried Einstein from the ivy and crouched behind a bush. Chase was at the door, hand positioned and ready.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  My stomach clenched tighter each time Chase's fist made c
ontact with the door.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  Chase looked down at the paper then up at the door, as if determining if it was worth another trio of knocks or not. I yawned.

  Deciding to go for it, Chase raised his hand just as the door opened. Spencer stood in the doorway wearing dark blue scrubs with a messenger bag crossed over his chest, a steaming travel mug in one hand and keys in the other. Without so much as a "hey there," Chase handed Spencer the paper and left, scratching his chin as he walked away—the signal. Spencer pushed his round glasses back up the ridge of his nose and read the notice again and again, shaking his head as his eyes ventured down the page. He turned it over to stare at the blank side for a while then read it again, closing the gap between his face and the paper, still shaking his head as if he were utterly confused.

  After a painful amount of processing time, Spencer sprinted after Chase, the contents of his mug splashing down the front of his scrubs. He didn't appear to notice or care. Chase responded to his name by throwing his hands up. I imagined he was saying something like, "I don't know anything." Then Spencer said something, I guessed along the lines of, "Dude, man, what's up with this, dude?" Because in my head, Spencer talked like one of the old surfer guys who hang around their VW vans along the Pacific Coast Highway while smoking pot, even if he didn't look like one at all. But, hey, not supposed to judge a book by its cover.

  Chase shrugged. Spencer readjusted his glasses and said one more thing, eliciting another shrug from Chase, which prompted another readjustment of his glasses and a glance my way. There's no way he could see me.

  Right?

  "Cambria," a low, very un-surfery voice called.

  Wrong.

  I stood and began sidestepping away.

  "Apartment Manager, wait." Spencer leapt over a bush, releasing the last bit of the hot contents from his mug, and met me at the wall.

  Note to self: You suck at inconspicuous-ity.

  "I don't know anything," I said, raising my palms up as if he'd said "Freeze!"

  "But your name is on the bottom." Spencer pointed to my name and signature scrawled along the allotted line.

  Chase stood in the walkway behind Spencer making a W with his arms. He then began pulling on his ear—the signal. Got it.

  "Well?" Spencer pressed. He looked as if he might explode.

  "Come on, man. Just read the notice," Chase said, sounding more surfery than Spencer.

  Spencer frowned, pushing his glasses up again. Will someone buy this man some Nerdwax?

  "I did read it. It is one sentence," he said. "You don't have any basis to ask me to leave. You should be the one leaving. This place is on a grease pole to hell, Cambria, and you've only been here, what, a month?" Two weeks. "Everyone agrees," he continued. "We've all been talking about it. You're trying to micromanage and fix what wasn't broken. Joyce was an excellent manager, totally laid-back and let us live without management breathing down our necks. I don't even feel safe leaving my car in the parking lot anymore. Neither do a lot of people here. Now this. I'm not leaving. I just settled in. This is what happens when some money-hungry right-wing nutjob…"

  I wasn't sure how we landed on politics, but he was really starting to tick me off.

  "It's your illegal side business!"

  Oops.

  And this is why Patrick didn't want me to serve the notice. Pretty sure he specifically said not to give Spencer a reason for the thirty-days.

  Nice one, Cambria.

  Chase slapped his forehead.

  Spencer's mouth fell open, like a scrub-wearing trout. I backed farther into the wall, and Einstein reattached to the ivy, clinging for life. Then, Spencer hopped back over the bush and disappeared into his apartment, slam-dunking his notification into the common area trash can on his way.

  Chase made some sort of huffing sound, probably thinking something like, Cambria's detective skills are superior. She was obviously right! Except he didn't look at me, tell me I was right, or even make any more noises. He turned around and walked away.

  Was that a chin scratch or an ear pull?

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Tenant's guests are not permitted to use parking area without a guest parking permit.

  Incident Report

  Friday, October 7th

  Chase handed Spencer Bryant the thirty-day notification and walked away. Spencer found me sought me out to ask why he was being kicked out. I told him about the illegal behavior I'd witnessed. He did not deny it, and therefore I was right. I remained quiet as instructed. I provided minimal information.

  I placed the incident report into Spencer's thick file, not feeling as content as I'd hoped. Which didn't make sense. Based on Spencer's reaction, he was involved in some kind of illegal activity. I was right. I loved being right. So why wasn't I satisfied?

  I wiped the back of my hand along my dripping forehead. The ceiling fan was useless against the suffocating heat. The office was an oven. My shirt was a sopping mess. Einstein was in a hopeless state. An unpleasant smell permeated the air, and I worried I was the source of it. Using a pack of Post-its as a fan, I peeled off a single paper square to sponge up the sweat pumping out of my skin.

  I swiveled to face the window and gazed through the open blinds out to the courtyard. It's so lovely. Most would think it ordinary. No color, no flowers, the wood warped and rotting, the iron railing chipped (but secured).

  To me it was beautiful, far from ordinary. In comparison to the places I had lived, it was practically the Four Seasons. Once the community was crime-free, it would be a delightful place to raise Lilly. A large patch of grass to kick a soccer ball around or blow bubbles, the sparkling pool perfect for hot summer days, the conveniently located laundry rooms, Teardrop of Death…

  I sat up.

  Teardrop of Death was strolling through the first courtyard. His biceps bulged under a white short-sleeved shirt. His flip-flops flapped against the pavement with each step he took, echoing through the courtyard. One hand held a phone to his ear, while the other fidgeted with a key ring around his finger.

  I twisted the blinds shut and stuck my finger through a slat for a less conspicuous view. Teardrop stopped at the row of mailboxes near the lobby and stuck a key into a box. His massive torso blocked my view. Based on his location, he had opened a mailbox belonging to a resident in the third courtyard.

  He collected the mail, the phone now sandwiched between his ear and shoulder. He wasn't a resident—at least his picture wasn't in any of the files I'd breezed through. Pretty sure I would remember him. Which meant he was a comfortable houseguest. In paragraph two on the second page of the House Rules it says, Tenant may not have houseguests for more than three days without written permission from the manager.

  I took a burst of photos with my phone and released the blind slat to take a look at them—ten pictures of TDoD's back. Not exactly incriminating. I could turn them over to the police. Maybe they'd seen the back of his head before?

  If I could just get one picture of his face.

  I slipped my finger between the slats again. As if he'd heard my request, Teardrop's face was pressed up against the window.

  Note to self: You suck at inconspi… Scratch that… Note to Self: Review previous notes to self.

  With a yelp I brought my phone up for a quick snap of his face and dashed into my apartment. I slammed the door shut, twisted the lock, and fell back against it. The gasps of my own breath sounded foreign in my ears. A fear-and-adrenaline cocktail pumped through my veins and intoxicated my brain.

  Ding.

  It was the bell on the counter. Teardrop was now inside the office. The bell specifically says "ring for service" not "ring for victim."

  Ding.

  Ding.

  Ding.

  He was being rather polite with his…

  Boom!

  I fell into the kitchen counter while the thunderous Booms of his massive fist beating against the door continued. He mu
st have climbed over the counter or gone through the office door—either way, House Rules say only employees beyond the counter. It was clear Teardrop of Death was no rule follower.

  Boom!

  Boom!

  Boom!

  I ran to my bedroom in search of the office phone and found it on the back of the toilet. The key to any emergency situation was to remain calm and to call 9-1-1 from a landline. Right? My shaking thumbs clumsily punched in the numbers. I slammed the phone to my ear and ran out to the hall.

  "Nine-one-one, what's your emergency?" a disembodied male voice asked.

  Deep breath in, slow breath out. "I'm the apartment manager," I started, struggling to keep my voice from reaching a high-pitched holy hell octave. "I have a man—tall, white, muscular, twenties, Teardrop and gun tattoos—who is banging on my door because he caught me taking his picture."

  A crash against the door startled me, and I smashed into the single picture I'd hung in the hallway. A 10x16 of Lilly's smiling face crashed to the ground where it exploded into hundreds of tiny pieces, spewing glass across the hallway and out to the living room.

  "Ma'am? Ma'am?" the operator asked. "Hello?"

  "I'm…I'm…" Breathe. "How long until the police are here?"

  "Very soon. Ma'am, what is your name?"

  "Cambria Jane Clyne." He needed my full name for the death certificate.

  Then it happened.

  Silence.

  An unnerving silence louder than the pounding. I dropped the phone and raced through the crunchy terrain of the short hall that seemed to grow a mile with each step. Then came the squeak of the old hinges on the door. If I had unpacked all the boxes like I was supposed to, I would have had a clear escape path.

  But I didn't.

  Dropping to all fours, I slid behind a box and curled into a ball. My heart thumped so loudly I feared it would give away my location to Teardrop, who was walking around in the kitchen. I scooted closer and pressed my forehead against the cardboard, looking at the upside-down scribble along the bottom—Drugs. Drugs! If I weren't about to die, I may have laughed, taken two Excedrin and a long swig of NyQuil.