Chapter One
“KAREN, what the hell is that?”
Cassie pulled her fingers out of her brown hair where she’d shoved them in frustration. Karen walked to her, bringing with her the pungent smell of industrial strength bleach and super cleaner. Karen was the resident manager and caretaker. She perused the stain on the floor as Cassie finished putting the last part of her new bed frame together, then she crossed to open a window for fresh air.
“I still have no freakin’ idea, kiddo.” Karen shoved her hands in her jumpsuit pockets. “That’s my last, best idea on spot removal and it’s not even making one damn dent in it. Sorry. And I know the feeling. I had one of these in my apartment, too. Just figured the last resident manager had left it, which doesn't explain why she’d just bolted and left all her stuff, though.”
“Really?”Cassie’s expression said that was strange.
“Yes. Really. My boss was vague and prickly on the subject. The company should’ve just kept her deposit, not all of her belongings. Who just leaves all their stuff and wanders off? Maybe she just cracked under pressure? Residents can be wicked odd.” She sighed with annoyance, blowing wind through her lips like she was whistling. “What could have made that thing?”
Both young women stared at the large stain staring back at them from the corner of her new bedroom. It was big, and dark. It gave the feeling that it was crawling up the wall— of course it wasn’t, how could it? —but it just got under Cassie’s skin somehow.
She frowned at Karen.“How’d you get rid of yours, then?”
Karen shrugged. “Didn’t. Still there under a big rug my last boyfriend stuck me with.”
Cassie stomped her foot in frustration.“This place is new! Half the apartments aren’t even lent yet. There was a janitor and resident manager here before you. How long could she have lived here?”
The manager shrugged before speaking.“Couple of months, maybe? Been here just a couple of weeks myself, Cassie. And to tell you the truth, I keep finding these marks throughout the building.”
“Everyone has one?!”
“No. But, Jimmy—down the hall and other side?”
Cassie made a face, remembering. That man is distasteful, she thought.
“Well, Jimmy has one, too. But not the Carsons, that retired couple with the energetic redheaded little girl and boy? Or Ms. Samson, that wicked tough chick, who lets everyone know she’s a die-hard celibate, abstaining from sex and all things carnal. Not a good conversationalist, that woman. But you didn’t hear that from me.” Karen sighed again.“I have to check with my boss to talk with the owners to get with the builders, Cassie, but it keeps slipping my mind. I haven’t been getting enough sleep. This is not right. Really bugs me and feels kind of nasty, you know?”
“Yeah, and it ruins my design plans,” Cassie said.
Karen nodded in sympathy.
Then she suddenly got an idea. “Well, now I know what to do with this.”
Cassie grabbed a rolled-up synthetic rug and rolled it out, covering the blemish. Both women moved it and made it flat, covering the part of the stain on the floor, but not the part staining up the walls at the corner. It was an ugly rug, too.
“My grand auntie’s,” she explained. “Insisted I ‘christen’ my ‘first home away from home’ with it. She said that it was accidentally drenched in holy water once and has been lucky ever since. I love her, but I hate this old rug. It still has a good sheen, though. I think it’s made of rayon. They don’t make that anymore, do they?”
Karen almost shook her head, then shrugged, clearly not certain.
Cassie shook her own head, still not feeling the joy over the solution. She now had a spot with a louder spot on top of it. Plus, the original stain was staring back at them with malice from where it crept up the corner’s walls.
“Put the bed over it, kiddo, covers the whole damn thing. That’s what I did downstairs.
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