Devil's Advocate

About 20 minutes in to their search, the doorbell rang. Kenneth stood quickly and answered the door, stepping out and talking with whoever was on the other side in a hushed tone. Angelique smiled. She wondered if he knew he had a thing for his female friend, or if he was clueless about it. Him being clueless would explain why he kept trying to connect with her. Then again, maybe he only wanted to be friends with her. She shook her head. She couldn’t even afford to be friends with the guy. Work partners. That was as close as she was willing to get. Especially since now they had to focus on finding this abandoned farmhouse on 570 road in some random state.

Wait. Angelique scooted over and grabbed Kenneth’s laptop. An abandoned farmhouse might be for sale. So all she needed to do was find one that was. How hard could that be? A few clicks later told Angelique that it was incredibly hard, as her search didn’t seem to be yielding any results. Damn it, where was Kenneth? She needed his help. As if he could hear her mental complaints about his lack of presence he scooched his way into the house, attempting to quietly sneak his way back into the living room. Angelique, despite her stress about their situation, shot him a sly smile.

“So? Who is she?” she teased him. To her great amusement he flushed.

“She’s just a coworker.” He answered trying hard to blow it off. Angelique jumped in surprise.

“Coworker? Wait. I haven’t seen you leave for work. What job am I keeping you from?” she asked, getting sidetracked from her desire to tease him. He looked relieved at the change in questioning. Angelique made a mental note of this for later.

“I work at a law firm.” The relief made it into his voice. She nodded; this explained the pretty nice house he had. But it didn’t explain why he hadn’t gone in to work for over a week. He shrugged his shoulders at her questioning look.

“So I’ve taken some vacation time off. I still have about 3 weeks of that left saved up. Besides, most of my work I do from home. I can pick it up at any time and still help you with things.” Angelique took the hint to segue into him helping at face value, and dropped her grilling of his private life.

“That reminds me. I need your help with something.” Now he looked wary.

“Help with what?” he asked slowly. Angelique explained her theory about the house being abandoned based on what Victoria said, and how it was more than likely for sale. Kenneth nodded.

“That’s not a bad thought. Give me a little bit, I can do some digging on that.” He pulled out the laptop his ‘friend’ loaned them and fired it up, logging on quickly and pulling up the screen to connect it to the internet. He smiled briefly at the screen, which a quick peek told her was a picture of his friend with someone who looked like either her sister or her momma. Angelique grinned to herself. Yeah. He liked this work friend, whoever she was. Which was good. It meant he wouldn’t mourn her too much when she was gone.

A few moments later, Kenneth had by some miracle pulled up three farmhouse style homes for sale, all on a 570 road, but across three different states. New Jersey, Texas, and Illinois. None of them were the state they lived in now. Angelique all but threw her hands in the air in extreme frustration.

“Great. That was the only lead we had! What are we going to do now?”

“Well.” Kenneth was already typing something else, clearly having a plan. “I have a car and some frequent flyer miles. Let’s go check them out one at a time. Starting at the one in New Jersey.”

“And how the hell are we getting to New Jersey?” Angelique asked, crossing her arms. She dreaded where this was going.

“We’re going to drive of course.” He said it slowly, like it was silly she was even asking this question. Of course. She sighed.

“Kenneth, you know you’re not under any sort of obligation to help me anymore, right?” she asked. He nodded.

“Of course I do. But how else are you going to get to where you’re going? Besides. I want to help.” He insisted. Angelique tried again.

“Yes. But this is a lot to ask.”

“Your soul is a lot to risk!” he answered, standing to his feet. “And it’s not something I’m willing to gamble on. You need me. Even if it’s just to financially back you. Seriously, Angelique you’ve been off for days, what is going on?” He looked at her with such pleading eyes. Angelique took a deep breath.

“Listen. I don’t want to seem like I’m ungrateful or anything,” she started slowly. Kenneth pushed the laptop to the side and turned to face her, giving her his full attention. For some reason this made it harder for Angelique to continue, but she did, ignoring the crack in her voice. “But I’m dead. I can’t stay when this is over. I don’t want to get attached.” Kenneth held up his hand before she even finished her sentence.

“You don’t want to get attached to me, or you don’t want me to get attached to you?” he asked, tone gentle. Angelique shrugged, shifting in her seat. Suddenly she didn’t know what to do with her hands, or where to look. So she looked at her hands as her fingers laced themselves together and then let go repeatedly.

“Both. Really, it’s both.” She eventually answered. Kenneth took a deep breath.

“I’m a big boy, Angelique. I figured you weren’t staying here. I know at the end of this endeavor, I will be losing a friend. I have accepted this. Maybe you should do the same.” He stood up before she could answer. “Now. I’m going to pack a quick bag and get ready. You should do the same. We will leave in about 20 minutes.” He walked away, and Angelique sat for a few moments in shell shocked silence before she stood and walked back to his guest room to pack a few things up. He called her a friend. They had been working together for less than a month and he already considered her a friend? That was astonishing to her. Then there was that comment about how he wasn’t the one she needed to worry about when it came time for her to leave. Perhaps he would be able to let her go, when it was time. The question remained however, would she be able to let him go? She didn’t know. It had been so long since she got attached to anyone at all, did she even remember how to let go? She didn’t know. But she did know she was going to have to try. For both of their sakes.

Around 15 minutes later, just as Kenneth had estimated, the two of them were climbing into his truck and pulling out of the drive, making their way to New Jersey. Angelique had made this drive twice before in life. Once for a basketball tournament and once for a concert. It was interesting making the drive this time, especially considering the tension that sat between the two passengers in the car. Angelique insisted on driving because she didn’t have to sleep, but Kenneth refused. Angelique pretended his refusal didn’t exasperate her and stared out the window.

The ride was silent for the first hour or so. So silent that she jolted in surprise when Kenneth finally spoke.

“I’m sorry.” He spoke softly. Angelique raised her eyebrows.

“What are you apologizing for?” she asked. He glanced at her.

“I obviously upset you.” He answered, changing lanes to go around a slower car. “You’ve been stone silent since our discussion.”

“Just thinking about it.” She told him, getting comfortable in the seat. “I think you may be right. But I’m not ready to admit to it yet.”

“Not ready to admit to us being friends?”

“No.” She glanced at him to see if she had offended him, but was surprised to see he was smiling. She couldn’t help herself. “What?”

“You’re a tough cookie to crack, Angelique.” He said with a small chuckle. Angelique couldn’t help herself, she grinned.

The drive was fairly quick, with them only needing to stop for gas twice. Before Angelique knew it they were pulling up to a small brick house. A “sold” sign was slapped across a realtor’s face on a sign out in the front yard, and the back yard seemed to go on forever. Angelique bit her lip.

“Well. If he was here, I’m sure he’s not anymore. Why stay in a house that’s sold?” She gestured at the sign. Kenneth turned off the car and knocked on the door.

“My brother has a substance abuse problem. He’s not a terribly smart person. He may very well be here.” He got out and walked up to the door before Angelique could answer him. She watched as an elderly woman answered, and after talking with Kenneth for a moment, she shook her head. Kenneth waved at her as he walked back to the car. Angelique raised her eyebrows.

“Well?”

“Ok, so you were right.” He answered, pulling out of the driveway. “Let’s just get a hotel, and in the morning we can fly out to Texas.”

“You know, there may be a way we can simplify our search.” She said. Kenneth stopped at a red light and looked over at her. She looked back. Finally, the lightbulb clicked on and his eyes widened in understanding.

“No.”

“Kenneth, come on.”

“I said no.”

“Kenneth, she may be our only way to get straightforward information.” She was beginning to get exasperated. He was not willing to budge, his face flat, his hands clenching the wheel.

“And it is supposed to be super freaking dangerous. Why the hell would I let you go back?” he asked. The light turned green and they took off, a bit faster than they needed to. Angelique gave him a look.

“You want us to be friends, right?” she said sweetly. He groaned.

“Dear lord, don’t do this to me.” He answered. She grinned.

“Oh, yeah. I’m doing this. What do friends do?” she asked. He glared out of the corner of his eye.

“I’m not answering this.” He said firmly, turning into the parking lot of a decent looking Holiday Inn. Angelique poked his side as he parked, making him jump and crack a grin despite himself.

“Answer me!” Angelique was grinning too, continuing to poke at him until Kenneth raised his hands in surrender.

“Alright! Friends trust each other.” He said, laughing as she finally stopped poking him.

“Exactly!” she took a deep breath and then got serious. “So I need you to trust me.” Kenneth looked over at her like he was thinking very seriously about it.

“No more than an hour, right?” he asked. Angelique shook her head.

“No, no more than an hour. It’ll be as quick as possible. But she knows things that we don’t, Kenneth. We need this info.” He took another deep breath and nodded.

“Ok, fine. Let’s get settled into the hotel, and let me order room service. After it gets up to the room, you can go.”

“That settles it.” She said with a smile. “I’m headed back to purgatory.” Kenneth grumbled but got out of the car with her, turning off the engine as he got out.

“I think this is a bad idea.” He restated, grabbing both his bag and hers. Angelique let him and followed him up towards the door.

“It’s going to be fine.” She reassured him. And as Kenneth booked a room, she tried as hard as she could to make herself believe it too.