One Step Closer(10)

“Thank you,” Caleb’s voice showed no sorrow or regret. He was so tired, he should try to sleep on the drive but he had little trust that the driver would take the most efficient route, and though his father was dripping in money, he wasn’t. He had plans to start a business of his own, and he had to save every cent he could because he didn’t want to rely on his father’s last name, money or connections.

It wasn’t that his father hadn’t tried; he sent him a check every week for five years, but Caleb never opened a single one of them. Instead, he shoved them all in the biggest drawer in the kitchen of his apartment, always meaning to burn them, but not quite getting around to it. They sat in the drawer, as if leaving them untouched would allow him to forget things he didn’t want to think about. It was just easier. But some things were harder to forget, even when he pushed them down.

He glanced out the window, watching the industrial areas of east Denver pass as they made their way toward the city center. Denver was beautiful to the west, north, and south, but between the airport and the city, it was less appealing.

“Where did you come in from?”

“San Francisco.”

“I’ve never been there.”

“It’s really beautiful. I love the bay, but this...” Caleb watched the Rocky Mountains get closer and realized how much he missed them. When he was very young, his mom and dad would take him on camping and fishing trips in the national forest, and skiing at Breckenridge, Aspen, and Keystone. Before his mother got sick, his father had been a different person, and those were happy memories.

“The Rockies are so magnificent. Too bad about all this industrial shit out here.” The backdrop was breathtaking, but what populated along the highway, between the airport and further into the city was dirty and unkempt; a succession of junk yards, dilapidated buildings, and litter. “Sad.”

“Yes. I’ve lived here my entire life. I’ll never leave Colorado.”

Caleb didn’t answer, wondering if the new law that legalized weed had anything to do with the driver’s love of the state. Coming home stirred a lot of memories and he preferred to let his thoughts drift rather than engage in superficial conversation.

The first time Caleb spoke to Wren, he’d he’d padded into the kitchen in a pair of grey sweats sitting low on his hips. He’d just worked out in the fully equipped gym his father installed in the basement of the house and needed to get something to drink. The gym was outfitted with the best fitness equipment, a bag, and a complete set of free weights. He’d been lifting for thirty minutes followed by running five miles on the treadmill, and was dripping in sweat and dying of thirst.

The kitchen was massive and set up with all the best appliances; the industrial stuff you might find in a restaurant kitchen. He pulled open one side of the stainless steel double door refrigerator to examine the variety of beverages lined up neatly inside, along with yogurt, fresh fruit, cooked chicken breast, vegetables, and other healthy foods, stocked at his request by the housekeeper. Everything in that house was the finest, biggest, and newest. Caleb sometimes wondered if it was his father’s way of trying to make up for not being a real part of his life. He saw his father’s lawyer and the household staff more than he saw his own dad.

The house had always been amazing, but since his mother’s death, it was more sterile, somehow. It was missing the laughter, the warmth, the music Celine always had playing, the smell of his favorite cookies baking, and the expensive perfume she always wore were conspicuously absent.

The “stuff” aspect seemed to be more pronounced since she’d died as if his father was trying to compensate for her absence with material things. Practically every room had been remodeled, other than his mother’s suite, which he’d begged his father to leave as she had left it. On this, at least, they were in agreement, and Caleb had secretly rejoiced at the nasty argument that ensued when Edison had refused Veronica’s attempts to convert it into a giant closet and changing room. She was so f*cking vain; Caleb couldn’t stand it. It may have been the moment that Edison had begun to regret his decision to marry her.

The light from the inside of the refrigerator flooded over his sweat-drenched torso as he leaned in to grab a bottle of water when a noise from about ten feet away caused him to pause and glance toward the table in one corner. Natural stone tiles covered the floors; and the walls were lined with mahogany cupboards and topped lighter granite counters, with darker backsplashes.

Nothing looked out of the ordinary to Caleb as he stood, casually propping open the door with an elbow while he unscrewed the cap of the water bottle and took a long pull. A chair leg grated against the stone tile as Wren shifted in her hiding place, causing him to stop drinking abruptly; water spilling and dripping down his chest.

“Shit!” It had been ice cold on his hot skin. He leaned down to look more closely in the direction of the noise; but the kitchen was huge and it was dark, other than a small light above one side of the counters by the sink, and that from the open refrigerator door. Everything was engulfed in shadows. The large, granite and mahogany island was lined with stools on one side and the oversized gas stovetop on the other; opposite the double ovens on one wall. He let the door of the refrigerator close and moved stealthily toward the table, crouching slightly to look under it.

Surely, there wouldn’t be vermin skittering around the Luxon house. The staff was on autopilot to care for the home and the grounds, and his father would tolerate nothing less than perfection.