“Thanks.”
“How you guys doing in here?” Laurel came in the back door.
“We’re the awesomest,” Andy said.
“Did Robin quiz you too hard?” I asked.
“No, she got a call. You need some help?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’m cutting veggies to grill. You want to slice produce for the burgers?”
“I’m basically a master at produce slicing.” Laurel stood a little too close to me so she could see what I was doing. “You know, that bowl is never going to survive grilling.”
“Gee, thanks.” I got out another cutting board for Laurel and gave her a knife. “Produce is there, pickles are in the fridge.”
Laurel looked at the plastic bags of produce. “You own a farm and buy produce at the grocery store?” She was judging hard. Andy laughed.
I sighed. “Yeah, I know. I would have brought some down, but I didn’t know we were going to barbecue. Plus, there isn’t a farmer’s market today.”
“Excuses, excuses.”
“But get this, Braddock Farm is going to start making pickles.”
Laurel started in on the tomatoes. “Pickles?”
“I’m a little bit obsessed. I’ve been begging Clive for years, but he’s been ignoring me. But Shelby finally convinced him.”
“And Shelby is?” Laurel asked.
“Oh, she’s this crazy girl he hired a few years ago to work in the farm stand. She ended up running the place. She’s got some agreement with the local high school during the school year. The 4-H kids come volunteer. They help around the farm, work the farm stand. In summer, she hires the best kids from the school year.”
“She sounds really put together,” Laurel said. Andy started laughing again. “How old is she?” Laurel turned to Andy. “What is so funny?”
“Shelby is so not put together. She’s all whimsical and floaty,” Andy said.
“Whimsical and floaty?” Laurel asked.
I was going to deny it, but it was a good description. “Yeah, she’s great at working out community programs and cultivating pickles, but she sometimes forgets things.”
“Like pants,” Andy said.
I looked at Andy. “She’s never forgotten her pants.”
Andy giggled. “Okay, but she totally would.”
I thought about that. “Yeah, okay.” Laurel stopped cutting to look at me. She raised an eyebrow. “She’s a lovely girl, though. Really. And Clive says she’s very helpful.”
“I so want to meet this chick.” Laurel went back to slicing.
“Okay, next week?”
“I get to go to the farm?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“I’m in,” she said.
“Burgers are done.” Andy nudged the laden tray.
“Should we see if the charcoal is ready?” I asked.
“Yeah.” Andy grabbed the tray of burgers. She was excited. Barbecuing was her only chance to play with fire and not get in trouble.
“I’ll be right back,” I told Laurel.
“No worries. I’m almost done.”
Andy led the way outside. The chimney had stopped smoking and the charcoal was glowing. Looked ready to me.
“What do you think?” I asked her.
“Looks good. Can I turn it?”
We both turned to look for Robin. She wasn’t there. “Sure. But be careful,” I said.
Andy grasped the wooden handle and slowly lifted. She gave it a little shake to knock off any newspaper ash or loose embers. Then, she flipped it and poured out the charcoal. Like a pro. Well, almost a pro. One small piece of charcoal jumped the barbecue and landed on the deck.
“Shit.” Andy started to set down the chimney, realized it was hot and couldn’t be set on the deck, and looked at me in panic.
“I got it.” I kicked the charcoal into the grass and jumped down the steps. I crushed the embers into smaller pieces.
“Here.” Andy handed me the watering can from the deck.
I poured water on the smoldering pieces. “We win.”
“Totally. Let’s not tell Mom.”
“Deal.” I gave the watering can back.
“So where do I put this?” Andy held out the chimney.
“It’s cool now. Anything burning in it?”
Andy looked inside and tilted it back and forth. “Nope.”
“You can put it on the deck.”
After that excitement, evenly distributing the charcoal and putting the grill in place was easy. We didn’t even light anything on fire. I left Andy with her spatula and her perfectly formed burgers.
“That was quick,” Laurel said when I came in.
“She’s done it before. I just supervise now.”
“Brave.”
“Well, she dumped the entire chimney on the deck once. After that, not much impresses me.”
Laurel laughed. “Nice.”
“Yeah. It didn’t even catch fire. I replaced a couple of the boards because they were singed, but other than that, it was fine.”
“Wait. You’re serious?”
“Totally. Then again, she was twelve.” I resumed my veggie prep. “Twelve-year-olds shouldn’t play with barbecues.” I imitated Robin’s voice.
“Christ, you’re not very smart, are you?”
“Not really, no.” I dumped the last of the onions on top of the halved mushrooms in my bowl. “Looks like you’re done.”
“I didn’t do pickles yet.” Laurel went to the fridge. “I hear they’re very important.”
“The most important.” I pulled out foil for me and plastic wrap for her.
“What exactly is your plan there?” Laurel nodded at the foil.
“Watch and learn.” I poured olive oil and ground salt and pepper into the bowl. I tossed it a few times until everything down to the zucchini was coated. Then I pulled off sheets of foil and formed two big envelopes.
“Nice.”
“This ain’t my first rodeo.” I divided the contents of the bowl between the foil envelopes.
“Really? Rodeo?”
“Yep. That’s what I said.”
Laurel nodded in a judge-y way. But she was smiling. When she finished the pickles, we wrapped the cutting board in plastic and put it in the fridge. I leaned against the counter.
“Do you need to help Andy?” Laurel asked.
“Nope, she’s got this.”
“So we don’t need to go back out there?” She took a step closer to me.
“No.”
“You know, we’re in here being, for all intents and purposes, domestic as hell. But there’s something about it that feels…”
“Queer?”
Laurel laughed. “Sure. Queer.”
“We’re not exactly wholesome, are we?”
“Well, you’re not,” she said.
“Says the chick who punched a drug dealer.”
She stepped closer until we were almost touching, but not quite. “Not one of my finer moments.”
“I don’t know. It worked for me.” I was suddenly very aware of the warmth radiating from her. It was a pleasant heat, a respite from the air conditioning that seemed to cling to my bare arms.
“Yeah? Violence does it for you?”
“Apparently. I’m learning all kinds of fun things about myself.”
“Like what?” Laurel hooked her finger in the front of my tank top and looked down. “Fair game.”
“It appears that I’m into chicks who fight my battles for me.”
“Not very chivalrous of you.”
“I never said I was chivalrous.” I pulled her close and kissed her. She held back for a moment, as if she was going to keep it chaste like before. And then she let go. Her weight pressed into me. I tugged at her bottom lip with my teeth. She opened her mouth and let me in. I cupped the back of her head, pressed closer. I’d only meant to kiss her, but suddenly I wanted her under me. She slid a hand under my tank and dragged rough fingertips across my stomach. Something shifted and she was
in control. Her lips moved away from mine, which was tragic. But then she was kissing my jaw, my neck. I gripped her hair and brought her back to my lips. We kissed, a simple press of her mouth against mine, but it was perfect. Her hands dug into my sides, pulling me harder. I slid my thigh between hers. Her breath hitched. That small catch seemed sexier somehow than the passionless joy of fucking someone else. I realized right then how deep I was, how fucked I was. She opened her mouth again and licked the edge of my lip.
“So I take it the buns aren’t ready for the grill?”
Laurel jerked away from me. We turned to find Andy leaning against the doorway, her hands over her eyes, and a massive grin on her face.
“Perv,” I said.
“I am not. I just want my burger buns and I’ll be on my way.” Andy stuck one of her hands out and stumbled blind into the kitchen. “I think I left them on the counter.”
“Anderson, stop screwing around.”
Andy coughed. “I hate to state the obvious here, but I think that statement might be a bit hypocritical.” She found the edge of the counter and slowly felt her way forward.
“You just had to make her download a dictionary, didn’t you?” Laurel said to me.
“I never said I was perfect.”
Laurel scoffed. She grabbed the package of buns, took Andy’s hand, and set the package in it.
“Thanks.” Andy spun and booked it out of the kitchen.
“That was interesting,” Laurel said.
“It sure was.”
“We should probably go outside.”
“I suppose you’re right.” I pushed up off the counter.
“One thing.” Laurel leaned in and kissed me again. I tried to pull her against me, but she took a step back. I groaned. She trailed a hand down my chest and walked away.
“Tease.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
I was going to have to call Henry. My supplies were tragically low. Maybe he would meet me at the farm again. Or maybe it was a bad idea to pick up drugs when I was giving Laurel her first tour of the farm. Yeah, that probably violated some rule book.
I sorted through what I had left and decided to only hit the big deliveries. My three in Land Park would take the rest of my OxyContin and Xanax. I wanted to make Brant wait another day or two, but I needed to be prepared after holding out on him. Last week I’d lied and said I was low so I only gave him a half order. But it was a timeout, nothing else. So I texted to see what he would need.
How much produce do you need this week?
I didn’t need to monitor Peggy so I texted her the same message. She could probably hold out for a week, but she liked to have a little stockpile. She wrote back right away.
The usual order, please. How is Thursday? Peggy’s texts were always flawless and polite. She was of the generation that had mastered texting, but refused the shorthand.
Perfect. I’ll see you then.
Nickels watched me sort bags of pills with an air of disinterest that didn’t hide her tiny kitty disappointment.
“I’ll be back before you know it,” I said. She meowed. “You’ll fall asleep anyway. You won’t miss me.” She walked back into the living room and climbed in her bed. It was her equivalent of telling me to go fuck myself. “I love you too.”
I had just started my car when Brant wrote back.
I’m good this week.
That was odd. Really? You still have some?
Yeah. I’m good.
Interesting. Brant never struck me as the self-regulating type. Not great for my bank account, but good for him.
I hit the first housewife in Land Park. I didn’t even know her name. I called her Mrs. Peacock in my head because she reminded me of Clue. She wasn’t a regular customer in the sense of time—I’d gone half a year without hearing from her and I’d delivered to her three times in a month—but she was like clockwork in that she called me whenever her husband went overseas on business. At first, I thought she missed him. Then, I thought she was drowning her sorrows. It wasn’t until I ran into a nineteen-year-old rent boy coming out of her house that I figured it out. She wasn’t buying drugs for herself. She was paying for services with them. Lovely woman, though. Always offered me fresh baked cookies. Today, it was a package of biscotti.
My next stop was three streets over. I was parking when my phone rang. It was Nate.
“Hey.”
“Okay, so in a week you’ll make fun of me, and in a month this will be your favorite joke, but right now I’m being totally serious,” Nate said.
“I’m intrigued.”
“I think I’m being followed.”
“What?” That didn’t sound remotely funny.
“I’m probably just paranoid and I’m fine with that. But I swear I’m being tailed by a dark blue, late nineties Civic. I haven’t gotten a decent look at the driver yet, but they are tall. The windows are tinted so that’s all I can see from a distance.” He sounded clinical, which meant he was panicking.
“Start at the beginning.”
“Last night, I hit some of my usual rounds. I started at that bar in downtown Davis. Not the one that cop was at. The place without a name.”
“The one with the bright blue walls?” It was always Nate’s kickoff point. The bartenders didn’t mind because he tipped them well. Okay, he bribed them a little.
“Yeah. Then I did a few house calls and a frat party. I noticed the car at my first house call because the license plate starts with eighty-four and that was my lacrosse number in high school.” Nate played lacrosse in high school? “Anyway, I saw it outside the frat party later and thought it was weird.”
“But it could be a coincidence. Was your first delivery in a college neighborhood?” I asked.
“Yeah. I know. You’re thinking maybe I just saw the car and then the owner went to the frat party.”
“Exactly. Nothing to worry about.”
“That’s what I thought too. But I was on campus all morning. When I left, I thought I saw it again when I was leaving the parking lot. It was like four cars behind me.”
“See? So they’re a student.”
“Except I just did two deliveries in East Sac. I saw the Civic parked in the apartment complex next door at my first stop and on the street at my second stop.”
“Fuck.” Davis and East Sacramento were both college towns, but that was where the similarity ended. They were separated by twenty miles, a county line, and very different brands of militant liberalism. The chances that a Davis student would end up near Sac State were nonexistent.
“Damn right.”
“Fucking motherfucker.” I took a deep breath in addition to the profanity and that didn’t help either. “Okay, did you see any more of the license plate? I can have Henry run it.”
“I’m not a fucking amateur. I have the license plate and photos including two of the driver. Like I said, you can’t see any detail, but it’s better than nothing. I’ll text you everything.”
That seemed to help in ways the breathing and cursing hadn’t. “You’re fucking professional as shit.”
“I know.”
“Go home. Take a long route. Lock the door and chill.”
“Done. But, Cash, there’s one more thing.”
“What?” This shit show wasn’t enough?
“If I’m being followed, you probably are too.”
*
It took Henry five hours to call me back. I knew it was because he was on shift, but logic wasn’t exactly helping me freak out less. By the time my phone rang, I’d given up on my usual distractions and settled on pacing the kitchen.
“Good news or bad news?” Henry asked.
“Just tell me what you found out.”
“It’s not a cop.”
“Thank God.”
“The car is registered to Raymond St. Maris. Younger brother of alleged drug dealer Jerome St. Maris. Raymond has a record, but nothing compared to his big brother.” All of my profanity failed me. “Cash, you still there?”
“Yes.” This was bad.
“It looks like Raymond works with or for Jerome.”
“What does he look like?”
“Similar to Jerome. Six one, two hundred and forty pounds, Caucasian, dark brown hair. Left arm tattooed.”
“Does it say what the tattoos are? Is there a Catholic looking saint and some text?” I thought hard about the guy I’d seen working with Jerome. There were three guys I’d seen most often. The tallest had to be Raymond.
“Says here that he has the Virgin Mary and the word respect on his outer forearm.”
“Yep. I’ve met him. He’s not as smart as his brother and a lot meaner.”
“That matches his record. Jerome’s is a lot of minor drug offenses, but Raymond’s got assault, battery, sexual assault, and a manslaughter charge that didn’t stick. Cash, you and Nate need to be real careful.” He was using his big brother voice. That was never good. It meant he would try to help and get in the way.
“I understand. We won’t take any risks.” I mostly just said it so he wouldn’t play hero. “What else can you tell me? What does Jerome drive? I’ve seen the Cadillac, but does he have any other vehicles? What about his other lackeys? I want to make sure I’m not being followed too.”
“Umm.” Henry’s voice trailed off. Christ, I was tired of micromanaging. “I’ll look it up. You going to be up a while?”
“Yeah, sure.” It was only midnight. I’d chosen my job so that I could stay up all hours of the night whenever it suited me.
“Cool.” He hung up.
I flopped onto the couch. Nickels jumped up and curled up on my chest. “Hey, Nick, Nick, Nickels, don’t answer the door if I’m not home, okay?” I rubbed behind her ears. She scooted closer until her little gray nose was an inch from my chin. “I love you too.”
I tried reading, but quickly conceded defeat. How the hell was I going to get Jerome to back off? I’d had some minor issues before, but a visit from Nate and me and a well worded threat generally did wonders. Maybe Henry could dig up something we could exploit. An hour later, Henry texted. New silver Cadillac CTS. Blue ’98 Civic. Black Ford F-150. ’84 Volvo station wagon.
I thanked him and tried to review my entire day. I could have been followed so many times, it was barely worth considering. I thought about the drive from my place to the light where I liked to turn. I thought about the small side streets I passed and the nearly perfect grid of midtown blocks. Envisioning did nothing for me. The streets never changed, the cars and people constantly did. I could get up and look out the window and see a vehicle matching at least one of the descriptions Henry had given me. I stared at the white and gray tips of Nickel’s ears. She was perfect. My crown molding looked fantastic. Paying Andy to paint had been a good idea. I was on the edge of sleep when my phone rang. Nate at two in the morning. That couldn’t be good.
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