Life had been hard then, young and unsupported by family, but she’d felt capable in her own body. She’d felt strong enough to risk everything for her dreams. She wasn’t sure she’d risk anything these days.
“Lily?”
She startled at the sound of her own name and whipped anxiously toward whoever had spoken it.
“Hey!” Alex Bennick called, letting go of the open door he’d been holding. “How’s it going?”
How was it going? She had no idea, so she just shook her head. “Hi.”
He walked toward her, tucking his hands into the pockets of his jeans and ducking his head a little. “I’m going kind of stir crazy tonight. Thought it’d be nice to get out and grab a real dinner.”
“Hotels can be a little claustrophobic.”
“Yeah. That’s true. Is this place any good?” He gestured up to the sign.
“Absolutely. Mia’s Taqueria is one of the best.”
“Would you . . . ?” He raised his eyebrows. “Would you want to grab dinner with me?”
“Oh, I’m . . .” She held up her bag, and he glanced at it with a puzzled look on his face.
“Shopping?” he prompted.
“Yeah. Running a few errands.”
“Well, if you’re busy . . . but I’d really love some company. I’ve been talking to myself way too much this week.”
“I . . .” She glanced at her phone, about to say that she needed to get home. But somehow only twenty-five minutes had passed since she’d set off in her car for an evening out.
And he was kind of cute. And watching her hopefully. And he was also leaving town in a week or two, which meant he was safe. She was safe.
“Sure,” she finally said. “Dinner would be great.”
Grinning, he swept an arm toward the door. “Let’s see if we can get a table.”
There was a large group standing inside the entry, but the host walked them right through to a table for two. Lily felt stupidly thankful it was tucked near the back and not in the middle of the room. Alex didn’t know anything about her, and she wanted to enjoy being unknown.
“Any recommendations?” he asked, and then she was grateful they got through the first few minutes discussing only the menu, and she had time to calm her racing thoughts.
The server arrived to take their orders, and Lily liked that Alex made clear he was only having one beer since he was driving. She ordered a margarita to go with her enchiladas, though she would’ve happily had the special gigante version if not for her own drive home.
“So you live here in town?” he asked.
“I . . .” She winced but decided everyone else knew exactly where she lived, so it was hardly a secret. “I actually live on-site. It’s one of my responsibilities. There’s an apartment inside, and you can’t beat the commute.”
He tapped the table. “I forgot about that! I covered a case once that involved trafficking and a city official’s storage company. That seems like a cool place to live.”
Lily laughed. “I guess you could say that.”
“It’s full of secrets, right?”
“You know what? It really is. We get some characters, that’s for sure.”
“What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen?”
When the server set her margarita down, Lily took a big sip. She discarded the idea of telling him about Dr. Ross, since it felt too sad and private. “When people don’t pay their fees, their property is auctioned, which is awful, and I hate it. But one time we opened a locker that had been rented for nearly five years. Then the man went to prison and stopped paying. When we opened it, the unit was full of taxidermied cats. Stuffed and mounted with glass eyes and everything. Probably forty of them.”
“Wow, that is truly, truly disturbing.”
“It was. But the weirdest part was that the only other thing in that space was a creepy Victorian doll. She was sitting on a stool, and all the cats were facing her.”
“Jesus, I’m going to have nightmares now!”
“I’ll just say I was extremely glad there were two people from the auction site there with me. And they took the cats! Made more than a thousand dollars on them. I will never understand people.”
“And the doll?”
She laughed at his attention to creepy detail. “They took that too, thank God. People pay good money for old toys.”
“Even obviously haunted ones?”
“Especially the haunted ones.”