Page 51 of Bad Intentions

“I’m starving,” she says. “I’m going to make a noodle salad. If you want some.” She’s already walking to the kitchen. “By the way, you are welcome to crash on the couch. The weather is nasty outside. Kidnappers are out there. You can stay.”

She makes me smile. The girl definitely has a peculiar sense of humor. I really do want to crash here, among the scent of incense and cool art and the red lampshade and soft music. In a quiet gray town like Burnville, Rika is loud and full of color. I used to be like that back in Pittsburgh, when I first moved there, took a chestful of air, looked at the people who had no idea who I was or what I came from, and thought to myself, “Now I can be who I truly am.”

But mostly, I’m curious about one thing. “What is a noodle salad?”

“My favorite since childhood,” Rika explains, pulling a bunch of ingredients from the fridge and putting a kettle on the stove. “I had a babysitter as a child who let me experiment with food.”

I sit in the kitchen bar chair while Rika hustles around. The noodle salad is ramen noodles that are cooked, drained, and chilled. “You add canned corn,” she explains as she prepares the dish, “chopped vegetables, like cucumbers or red peppers, optionally boiled eggs, anything else you want, then add the dressing. Mayo is my favorite.”

I might be biased or starving, but when I try the salad, it tastes delicious.

We talk more, but when I finish the salad, I’m suddenly so tired that while I lie on the couch, waiting for Rika to bring me a blanket, I actually fall asleep.

I wake up around six in the morning. There’s a throw covering my body, a clean towel on the coffee table. The music still trickles from the speakers, but it’s barely audible. The lamp with the red shade is still turned on.

I tiptoe out of the living room and toward the open next door, thinking it’s the bathroom. It’s not. It’s the bedroom, and Rika is fast asleep, on her stomach, her blue braids splayed over the down blanket. There are stacks of books in every corner and more artwork hanging on the walls. I miss creative messes like this, miss my artsy friends back in Pittsburgh, their chaos. Order is boring. I don’t want to leave this apartment, but I have to get home.

It’s cold outside when I leave the building, a thick folder of my family records tucked under my arm. It’s unusually cold for spring, but at least it’s not raining. God knows this town is tired of rain.

I check my phone as I start driving. No phone calls from Grandma. No messages. Somehow it’s a relief, but the closer I get to the house, the more I start worrying. What if something happened to Grandma? That thought is almost constant these days, in the mornings when I get up, before she’s up, and in the evenings, on the way from work before I step into the house and make sure she’s fine.

When I pull into the driveway of the house, my heart is in my throat. If anything happened to her, I will never forgive myself—the way I talked to her last night, the way I left, slamming the door like a spoiled child.

When I enter the kitchen, I halt.

Grandma sits at the kitchen table, fully dressed, her hands folded together in front of her.

The smell of coffee lingers in the air, but no pancakes. That’s odd.

She smiles at me, but the smile doesn’t reach her eyes, which are sad and apologetic.

“Can we talk, Josie? Please?” she asks, her words almost like a plea.

I have a feeling that this will finally be the talk we should’ve had a long time ago.

30

KAREN

“No news,” said Steve when he stopped at my house late that night, after we closed the bars.

It was past two in the morning. Three of us, Steve, Donna, and I, sat at my kitchen table.

Alysha was asleep, and I didn’t wake her up to ask what happened after I’d come home and seen the smashed pictures of her and Victoria in the garbage can.

“Not the first time,” said Donna. “Victoria was asleep when I came home, but I’ll ask her.”

Steve drummed his fingers on the kitchen table. “Derek Sickler wasn’t home. We sent a patrol twice. That dead woman, Sarah Holes? Her father is a sheriff back in Ohio. He drove in today, gave us the scoop on that Derek guy. Back home, he went by Jimmy. The sheriff said that Jimmy and his daughter weren’t married. Lived together for three years, though.”

“That’s the first charge—fake documentation,” I said. “Lock him up for that, then we’ll see what else he faked.”

Steve cleared his throat. “That’s the trouble, K. No one has seen that ID but you.”

I huffed in frustration. “What are you saying? That I made it up?”

“No,” he corrected me softly. “That’s not what I’m saying. Derek is his middle name. Maybe he already changed his address to New Jersey. Plus, it’s not against the law to use a different name outside legal establishment. The driver’s license? Unless we see it and confirm that it’s fraudulent, we can’t do anything. Without proof of the crime, it’s hearsay.”

“I saw the license, Steve.”