Hopper House (The Jenkins Cycle Book 3) by John L. Monk

dumpster.
    I waited the rest of the afternoon and into the evening for Rose to show up. Several times, I found myself getting up to go after her—only to sit back down again for lack of a good cardinal direction. She didn’t have a car, just her feet, and she knew the area. But I had two things going for me that she didn’t: milk and cookies.
    The house had satellite TV with all the fixin’s, so there was plenty to watch. CNN was covering the story of the missing Queens district attorney and her apparent kidnapper/conspirator, Andre Murphy, known associate and suspected hitman for the Carpino Crime Syndicate. Police were on a statewide manhunt for both of us. We were considered armed and dangerous.
    “Thanks for that too, Ricky,” I said and got up for more cookies.
    Sometime around eight I heard activity at the back of the house. I went to investigate and found Rose standing in the mudroom with a guilty look on her face.
    “Where the heck have you been?” I said, flexing my moral superiority.
    “I felt bad sending you shopping, so I got us some dinner. Come on.”
    She left through the back with me trailing behind her. Immediately, the smell of fish hit me.
    “You went fishing?” I said.
    Rose shook her head. “Fishing is what you do when you’re trying to catch fish. We have a pond on the property. That’s where I caught all these catfish. Take a look.”
    She opened a medium-sized cooler. Sure enough, full of catfish—some of them pretty big.
    “Wow,” I said, impressed. “You actually went fishing without me. I thought we were friends.”
    Rose sighed. “Maybe I would have asked if you weren’t so annoying. All those questions. It’s tiring, is all. I died, you died, I’m here, you’re here. Isn’t that enough?”
    “Did you at least commit suicide? Because that’s what I did.”
    “I don’t care what you did!” Rose shouted, slamming the cooler lid and storming into the house.
    Conveniently leaving me with a bunch of stinky fish to clean.
    “Way to go, Danny Boy,” I said.
    After cleaning the fish to merit badge perfection, I carried them in on a platter I’d snagged from a china cabinet. I patted down all but two of the fish with a paper towel, stuffed them individually into some ziplock bags I’d found in a drawer, and put them in the freezer. Then I put on the overhead fan, cracked a window, and fried the remaining two in a pan with butter. When they were done, I put them on a plate and covered them with a lid.
    “Rose?” I shouted up the stairs. “Dinner’s ready!”
    I waited about a minute, climbed the stairs, and found her in one of the rooms passed out on the bed.
    “Rose?” I said and nudged her shoulder. Beside her on the bed was a bottle of pills with the cap on it. I had a look: Percocet, more than three years old, and not prescribed to Rachael Anderson.
    I tapped her face gently—then harder when she didn’t move.
    “Hey, wake up!” I shouted. The bottle was nearly empty. Hard to tell how many she’d taken. I dragged her out of bed and onto the floor, then jammed my finger down her throat.
    Rose started to thrash.
    “ Ow! ” I screamed and pulled my hand back. She’d bitten me.
    “What the hell, Dan?” she rasped, then began coughing and hacking, hand on her chest.
    “Are you okay?” I said. “How many pills did you take?”
    “I’m fine, Christ!”
    “How many?”
    “I dunno! Three, okay? What do you care? Just leave me alone…”
    Rose got up and crawled back into bed.
    “But I made fish,” I said helplessly.
    She didn’t reply.
    “How do you feel?”
    She made a sound of disgust. “Your precious Rachael is fine, now go away.”
    Feeling like an idiot, ashamed for getting caught caring more for her ride than her, I went back downstairs.
    Where the hell did she get that bottle?
    In the kitchen, I got some tupperware from a lower cabinet and washed it out. I sealed her portion of the fish and put it in the refrigerator. Tomorrow, she could have it