“It’s in my email on my phone. And if you’re not in the family pictures downstairs, I’m calling the police. I’m happy to work this out with you, but I need a show of good faith. You have to let me get dressed and cleaned up, and then I’ll show you the agreement.”
His nose twitches.
Because he’s afraid of the police? Does he come here to get in trouble? Are those not family photos downstairs? I didn’t look very closely in the study, because it felt wrong to work on watercolors in a room where I could’ve caused real damage if Marshmallow decided to help, and while I adore looking at family photos, I assumed they were staged and not the actual family that lives here.
“You have five minutes to get dressed and meet me downstairs with this rental agreement, or I’ll be the one calling the police. Are we clear?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“Five.”
“Fifteen.”
“Five.”
“Thirty.”
“Three.” He pulls a phone from his pocket, like he’s about to dial the police now.
And that’s when my dog decides it’s playtime.
I see it coming in slow motion. Marshmallow’s eyes landing on that phone. His brain clicking. Chew toy! Chew toy! His eyes light up, his jaw opens, his back legs engage, and in one quick snap, he’s stolen the phone.
And here we go. “Marshmallow!”
My hundred-pound dog pivots, launches forward, dashes from the carpeted closet to the tile-floored bathroom, skitters, gets his balance back, and sprints away.
And Hayes Rutherford, Mr. Fancy Pants with bloodshot eyes and a tic in his jaw and flaring nostrils and a stick up his butt—though maybe that’s not entirely his fault—turns the kind of glare on me that would’ve incinerated me on the spot a year ago before he takes off after my dog.
3
Hayes
Of all of the angles in the world, corners are by far my least favorite.
Specifically, being backed into a corner, which is exactly what I am now, because my squatter has realized something very, very dangerous.
“Oh my god,” she gasps through a pant. “You’re Hayes Rutherford.”
After chasing the dog all over the damn estate, she and I are now in the study, which is where the infernal animal finally decided my phone needed to go.
The furry beast trotted in here and deposited it right beside the wireless charger on the desk as though it knows how to charge a damn cell phone.
I’m breathing heavily. My eyelids hint at swelling and my throat tickles and my sinuses clog as I snag my phone and shove it back in my pocket. The woman is bent over gasping for breath like the last place she ran was to an ice cream stand. Her towel is gone from her head, her hair a sloppy mess pasted to her skull with some kind of goo in it. Her skull itself is an odd red color, which is leaking onto her green goop and turning it an unnatural shade between sewer brown and repulsive, and her robe is gaping open almost as much as her mouth as she stares at the row of family photos on the built-in bookshelves currently at her eye level.
“Your name,” I order.
The dog barks as though it thinks it can answer that question.
I point at it. “And get that nuisance out of my house. Now.”
“You’re from those Rutherfords. The Razzle Dazzle Rutherfords.”
There goes any chance I might have of privacy while I’m here. My mother will know my whereabouts in approximately forty-two minutes, because a woman whispered my name—it’s like rubbing the genie’s magic lamp—and she’ll arrive with at least one eligible bachelorette in tow within four hours.
They’re all together for Jonas’s post-wedding brunch. Won’t take but a limo ride, a helicopter ride, and then a private plane ride for her to reach the small airport on the mainland, and she’ll charter a ferry herself to get here to me on the island.
“Your. Name.” I repeat.
“Begonia. I’m Begonia. Oh my god. I had your brother’s posters all over my wall when I was a teenager.”
My eyelid twitches. Begonia? If that’s her real name, I’ll eat my left shoe. “Begonia who?”
“Oh, are we doing knock-knock jokes?”
I try to breathe deeply through my nose, but my nostrils have swollen shut. “What’s your last name?”
She doesn’t answer right away.
“Or I can go through your purse,” I mutter.
She straightens, touches the gunk on her hair, then the gunk half-smeared off her face, and blinks shiny green eyes in my direction. “You’re the first person to ask me that. Sorry. I need a minute.” She sucks in an audible breath and fans her face. “Wow. Didn’t expect it to hit me like that. Sorry.”