Recalled (13 page)

“Why would I? It’s not like you knew I was allergic to peanuts and deliberately fed them to me.” I gave him a look. “Right?”

He looked like a deer caught in a pair of headlights. His eyes were wide and his face was frozen in fear and shock.

I smiled. “Relax. I’m kidding.”

His face melted and he smiled. “At least let me give you a ride home.”

“Thanks.”

Gladys came back carrying a small paper sack. She stopped when she saw Dex in the room. “What are you doing in here?”

Once again, he looked like the deer.

“He’s my ride,” I said. “Can I please go?”

“You sure you trust this guy?” she asked, not even trying to lower her voice.

I laughed, but it hurt too much and I clamped my lips closed.

Gladys sighed. “Fine. Go. I’m going to call you later.”

“I’ll answer,” I said, getting down from the table. Dex came to my side, but I waved him back. I didn’t want to touch him and risk another vision. I hadn’t had one since we first met, but I wasn’t about to push it. After everything I’d been through tonight, having that vision again might push me over the edge.

When we stepped outside, I welcomed the freezing air. It felt good against my cheeks, which were still covered in hives. His car was parked right at the curb in front of the doors. He went ahead of me and opened the passenger-side door and I sank into the buttery leather seat. I could get use to this car.

He drove to my apartment without any directions and at first I thought that was suspicious until I remembered he’d already brought me home once. Except this time he didn’t just pull up to the curb to drop me off. This time he found a parking spot.

“I’ll walk you to the door,” he said, not waiting for me to agree or deny, but coming around and helping me out of the two-seater. The walk to my front door seemed endless and when we got there, I had to dig through my bag to find my keys because everything was in a large heap at the bottom. Finally, I found them and unlocked the door, swinging it open and reaching inside to switch on the light.

“Do you want to come in for a minute?” I asked, my mind thinking maybe we could finish our conversation from earlier.

He followed me inside and I shut the door, throwing one of the locks. He was standing in the center of the room, taking in everything. “This is a nice place,” he said.

I made a sound, not really agreeing or disagreeing. It was in a crappy neighborhood and was as tiny as a shoebox, but I spent some time trying to make it look nice and feel like a home.

“It’s okay. I did what I could.”

“I like it,” he said, running his hand along the back of the couch where I kept a soft blanket. “It’s real.”

Real? That was kind of an odd thing to say. “Your house is really nice too.”

“Yeah,
my
house.”

He seemed to put some emphasis on the word.

“It is yours, right?”

He must’ve heard the curiosity in my voice because he glanced at me. “Yeah. I just moved there so it doesn’t really feel real yet—you know? This place… it seems lived in.”

I nodded. “New house and a new car.” I went over to the couch and sat down, sighing in relief. “Did you just move here, too?”

“Something like that,” he said, looking over at the small window to his left. “How long have you lived here?”

“About a year. It’s all I could afford right now.”

“It’s better than the streets,” he murmured as he moved across the room.

“What was that?” I said, not sure I heard him right. I pulled the blanket off the back of the couch and tossed it over my legs.

 “They seemed to know you,” he said, walking closer to the window and staring out into the dark. “At the clinic.”

“Yeah. I intern there a couple days a week. I’m studying to be a doctor. Which explains why I can only afford this place.”

He was silent a moment, then he said, “You save people.”

The tone of his voice was a little odd and I wished I could see his face and not his back as he spoke. “Well, not really, but I hope to help them.”

When he didn’t say anything else I leaned back into the cushions and said, “I haven’t done anything like what that man did for me.”

“It always comes back to him,” Dex said quietly.

“What’s your connection with him?”

He swung around to face me. “I told you I don’t have one.”

“I think you’re lying.”

“What makes you so sure?” he said, stalking toward me. His dark-blond hair stood out around his head and behind his black-rimmed glasses his green eyes were wide.

“Call it a hunch,” I replied, beginning to wonder if baiting him in this empty apartment was a very good idea. I mean, really, I didn’t know him hardly at all.

He made a scoffing sound and looked up.

Everything about him changed in an instant.

He seemed to do a double take and then he stood there silently, staring like he’d forgotten we were talking.

“Where did you get that?” he said, moving toward the aqua painted chest of drawers near the door.

“The dresser? At a secondhand shop.”

“No,” he said. “That.” He pointed at the little card with the picture of the beach that the man at the morgue gave me.

“Why, do you like it?” I asked, trying to keep my voice casual.

He looked at it for long moments, then shrugged. “It’s okay. I saw something like it at the mall the other day.”

“So it doesn’t mean anything to you?”

He turned away. “Why would it?”

“It belonged to the man who died.”

He seemed shocked. I couldn’t decide why. Was it because he wondered how I had it? Was it because he was lying and knew all along whose it was?

Or was it because he really didn’t know anything and didn’t know why I wouldn’t let it go?

“I thought you said no one knew who he was?” he said, not looking back at the picture, but looking at me.

“I went to the morgue to see if they would tell me anything. They still didn’t know who he was but the doctor there, he gave me that. He said it was in the man’s pocket.”

“You went to the morgue?” he asked, disbelief on his face.

“Yes. I thought I might get more in person than on the phone.”

“Why? Why do you care so much about someone who… who you didn’t even know?”

“But I do know him. Maybe not in the sense you mean but, I…” I shook my head, letting my voice fall away. He wouldn’t understand.

“But, what?” he pressed, finally looking interested in the conversation.

“I was with him when he died,” I said quietly. “I sat there with him after he did something that half the people I know wouldn’t do for me. I might not have really known him, but his final actions right before he died told me an awful lot about him.”

“You can’t judge someone off
one
thing they did.” He argued.

“He stole from me, too,” I admitted, voicing something I hadn’t thought about until now.

“Stole?” he said, his voice hollow, but then he sat down on the coffee table right across from where I reclined on the sofa. I was right, he was more interested in this guy than he wanted me to believe.

I nodded. “When I got home from the accident that night, I took off my apron and my tips weren’t in there. At first I thought maybe I lost the money on the street during the commotion, but then when I was at the morgue the doctor mentioned he had twenty-four dollars in his pocket.”

“So?” He shrugged.

“So, that’s how much I was missing. Before the bus came I almost slipped and he caught me,” I said, watching him closely, remembering when he caught me in the diner the night we met how he said, “
We keep meeting like this.”
But he gave no reaction; his face was blank so I continued. “I think he probably picked my pocket.”

“And this is the guy you think of as a hero?” He scoffed, his eyes focused on the floor.

“I don’t care about the money. He looked cold and hungry. He probably just wanted a hot meal.”

He stood up from the table like he was agitated and paced to the window again to look out into the night. “Maybe he was a jerk and took advantage of you.”

“Maybe. But I don’t think a jerk would’ve come back to push me out of the way.”

He didn’t speak for a long time and I thought he might not say anything else, but then he turned and came back over beside the couch. “I’m glad you have something of his. That seemed important to you.”

“I really just wanted to know his name.” I yawned. I was starting to crash from everything that happened.

“Sorry, I can’t help you,” he said so sincerely that this time I found myself wondering if he told the truth.

“I bought those flowers for him. Since I couldn’t take them to his grave, I brought them home.” I tried to force my eyes open wider, wanting to stay awake, wanting answers.

He walked over to the vase and looked at the small bunch of daisies, reaching up to finger the delicate white petals. Then he pulled one out, wiping away the water at the end of the stem on the leg of his jeans. He brought the flower over to me and lowered himself onto the edge of the coffee table, holding it out. “Well, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind sharing. You’ve had a pretty rough day and since I kind of owe you, for feeding ya bad chicken and all, this one can be for you.”

I looked at the flower. It’s perfectly formed smooth petals were open and trusting. It revealed the center of itself so willingly that I found myself sighing.

“Why can’t people be as easy to read as a flower?”

I hadn’t realized I spoke the thought out loud until Dex answered, his voice a mere whisper.

“Because people are flawed.”

I smiled and brought the flower to my nose to take in its bright scent. “Maybe that’s why people like flowers so much. Because they aren’t.”

“Only girls like flowers,” he said with a smirk. He looked cute with his preppy glasses and messed up hair.

“Especially when a guy is the one giving them.” Was I flirting? I must be delirious from all the medicine.

He stood up. “I should let you rest.”

“Is something wrong?” Okay, so clearly I was lousy at flirting.

“No,” he turned back. “I should go.”

I yawned as he moved toward the door and I saw him glance again at the little card with the beach on it.

“The doctor at the morgue said the reason they couldn’t identify him was because his body disappeared. Can you imagine? Who would steal a body from the morgue?”

His shoulders tensed. “Are you serious? That’s sick.”

He made a face like it upset his stomach. There wasn’t a hint of guilt on his face. Maybe I’d been wrong after all. Maybe he really didn’t know anything. I guess it was kind of crazy to believe the guy who’d just given me a daisy was a body snatcher.