He stepped away, eyes still to the window, and rolled his neck against the tension building there.

He went back to his bike, got on, started up, and began to roll but halted when he caught sight of it.

He’d stopped by the Dumpster.

“Fuck,” he muttered, staring at the crate he’d brought back to her last night, which was sitting at the side of the Dumpster. “Fuck,” he whispered, not able to tear his eyes off it.

She’d tossed it. Maybe it was too heavy to get up and in the Dumpster or the thing was full, but there was no mistaking the fact that it was set out to be hauled away.

She’d dumped it.

She’d dumped them.

“Fuck,” he snarled, rolled off, turned out of the alley, and circled back to her house.

He parked two doors down and walked to her place, up her drive, under the overhang, eyes to the studio.

The door didn’t open and he couldn’t see inside any of her windows.

He moved to the back door of her house, noting there were no other cars but her own.

He squatted at her door, pulled out his tools, picked the lock, and let himself in.

He closed the door behind him and took in a kitchen that looked like it was from a magazine. Even the plates, pitchers, glasses, bowls, and other shit that he could see through the glass-fronted cupboards were what she said they were last night.

Utter perfection.

And not Millie.

Or not the Millie he thought he knew.

Time had gone by, she made money now, wasn’t a student, but this was a turnabout that shook him.

She had been into comfort and that was pretty much it. She had too much life to live to worry about decorating.

She hadn’t shopped with the girls. She’d cackled in the Chaos common room with them, drinking beer and shooting the shit.

She also hadn’t hounded him to paint walls or look at toss pillows like Deb had done when they started setting up house. If they were together, he and Millie were eating, cuddling in front of the TV, fucking, or tangled up in bed, whispering to each other.

Toss pillows never entered her mind. At their place they had cheap shit, secondhand shit.

And she didn’t care.

High took in more of the kitchen.

There was a bowl in the sink soaking, a spoon in the bowl.

Other than that, nothing out of place. No mail stacked on counters. No breadcrumbs not wiped up. No wine bottle recorked to reopen that night. No dishes in a drainer drying. Fuck, there wasn’t even a drainer out to mar the flawlessness.

Nothing.

He moved into the living room and found the same thing. Her wineglass from last night was gone. There wasn’t even an afghan pushed aside, but instead a fluffy one was draped artfully over the corner of a big chair.

He started to look at pictures and felt his jaw set.

At least that hadn’t changed. Millie liked happy memories around her. Back when they were young, it wasn’t about fancy frames all over the place. Instead, she’d tacked shit she wanted to remember on cheap corkboards she’d bought or stuck them on the fridge with magnets. Hell, the fridge had had at least two layers of the stuff (something he’d teased her about). And he should have bought stock in Blu Tack, the woman went through so much of it, building collages of memories on the walls.

Now she had money to buy frames.

So she did.

As he studied the pictures, he saw she was still tight with Justine. If the pictures were anything to go by, it looked like Justine was gay, which would explain a lot. It also looked like she was happy and, since he’d always liked her, he was glad she’d come to terms with what was fucking with her head, gone for it, and found what she needed.

He also saw Dottie was married to a good-looking guy, the man kind of rough but not edgy. And clearly they’d had two kids, boy and a girl.

Then there was Kellie, no man he could see, but it was obvious those three, Millie, Justine, and Kellie, were still tight.

He got more of that as he moved out of the living room, into the hall.

First door to the left, a bathroom, elegant, clean, meticulously decorated.

Second left, a guest bedroom, same as the bath.

First right after the foyer, he found it.

A room with not much in it. Some weights resting on the floor, a treadmill with a towel folded precisely and draped over the bar on it, an attractive, cream media center with a small TV. Books in the shelves. CDs placed in holders that he saw when he looked were arranged in alphabetical order. Same with movie DVDs. Some yoga workout DVDs stacked by the TV.

But it was the closet where it would be.

He opened it and thought he hit pay dirt.

Until he sifted through it and found not one fucking thing.

Tax and other documents carefully organized and crated. Photos of family and friends not frame worthy but methodically packed away. Wrapping paper and other shit like that in easy reach and even that was organized, kid paper, female adult paper, male adult paper, Christmas paper, different colored bows, ribbons. There was luggage stored in that closet and empty boxes for kitchen appliances, breakables, computer equipment she was keeping for reasons unknown since she’d lived there eleven years and probably wouldn’t be moving.

But nothing else. No mess. No keepsakes. Not a fucking thing.

High moved out of that room and into her bedroom, a huge room that took the whole end of the house. It had a small sitting area right through the door with one of those fancy, cushy lounge chairs in a plush, deep pink, a table and lamp, a silver frame with a picture of Millie, Dot, and their parents on the table.

To the left, deeper into the room, a king-sized bed he was now well acquainted with. Feminine ivory covers and sheets with hints of deep pink in its pattern, tons of pillows on the bed. Crystal-based lamps on the side. Carved, expensive-looking bureau. Wood floors with thick rugs.

Picture perfect.

High stood still and took it all in.

Nothing out of place. Bed made. No clothes or shoes thrown around. Hell, even the books and the tubs and bottles on her nightstand were carefully arranged.

Millie, the one he thought was his, was clean.

But she was not tidy.

She didn’t have time to be. She went to school. She worked. She heaped love and attention on him, her family, her friends, his friends.

She walked to bed taking off clothes (if he didn’t take them off for her) in a trail and she didn’t pick that shit up for days.

She’d use something and set it aside when she was done with it, necessitating her asking him where it was and both of them searching for it until they found it—keys, hand lotion, hair brushes, pads of paper with jotted grocery lists.

She was what she called a “soaker,” that being she left the dishes in hot soapy water and came back to them whenever she felt like doing them, saying, “They’re easier to clean that way, wipe right up!”

And she was two steps down from a hoarder. Anything that had the slightest use or meaning to her, she didn’t give it up. She kept it, boxed it away, put it in a basket or bowl or box to come back to it, tacked it up on the wall or put it on the fridge.

She couldn’t live like she’d lived with High if this was how she needed to live. Living like that would drive a person insane if they needed this order and immaculateness. There was no way for three years she could live that lie.

High had to admit, he liked the look of her place in a removed way. He had a dick, so it wasn’t his gig, but it looked good.

It just didn’t look real. It didn’t look like anyone lived here. It looked like a showroom, not a home.

There was no personality.

There was no Millie.

There was nothing and also nothing to go on. It was clear everyone in her life (except Kellie) had moved on, found husbands, lovers, had kids.