The Price of Cash

by Ashley Bartlett

  “Do you know who else was selling to him?”

  He shook his head. “No. You don’t know either?”

  I grimaced. “No. But I’d like to.”

  “Why?”

  “Honestly?” I asked. He nodded. “I wanna fuck them up.”

  Dawson brightened. “Really? Can I come?”

  Nothing says fun like a good ass kicking? “Totally. Can you find out who it is though?”

  “Fuck yeah. I’ll get all the guys on it.”

  I glanced at Laurel. She shrugged. I read it as acquiescence. “Awesome.”

  Dawson finished his beer. I offered to grab him another. We spent the rest of the evening listening to drunk college boy stories. They were all really into their genitals. So that was neat.

  Laurel had a talent for listening. She saw people and coaxed intimate detail from them. I wasn’t sure how I’d missed that before. She was also a master at making it look like she was drinking as heavily as everyone else, but staying absolutely sober.

  The party broke up after three. We convinced Dawson to let us walk him home. It was a long four blocks. On the way back to her truck, Laurel yawned and veered into me.

  “Sorry.” She righted herself.

  “Tired?”

  “No, I just think it’s fun to stumble around.”

  “I feel like that was unnecessarily sarcastic,” I said.

  “No one cares about your feelings.”

  “Is it weird that I think you’re super hot right now?”

  Laurel laughed. “Yes. You’re fucking weird as hell.”

  The moonlight we had been walking in dimmed as we went under a massive tree. The roots were starting to crack the sidewalk. It reminded me of Scout and Jem being stalked. I wondered if the ground would feel cooler if I was barefoot. “So I’ve got a strange request for you.”

  “Cool. What is it?” Laurel veered the other direction. I dragged her closer to me and draped my arm over her shoulder. To help her walk. That was all. She put her arm around my waist. I liked the weight of it.

  “I need you to tell me if you’re not down. Or even if it seems uncool. No pressure. Okay?”

  “Sure.” There was a distinct lack of sincerity.

  “You understand that it’s no obligation?”

  “Cash, tell me.”

  “Andy wants your number. So she can talk to you or something,” I said.

  “Andy? Little baby Andy with the big angry words wants to talk to me?” She stared pensively at her feet, which made her trip. The sidewalk and trees ended suddenly. I looked up and realized we were at the end of the block. We crossed the street. Laurel blinked at the single streetlight.

  “Yeah, she got all weird when I asked why so I didn’t push it. I think she wants to talk about me. I told her I would get back to her.”

  “But what about you? Like what does she want to talk about?”

  “Probably the drug dealer thing,” I said.

  She nodded and made a noncommittal noise. The trees of the next block closed overhead. She rubbed the seam of my shirt between her fingertips. It was rhythmic and soothing. She seemed unaware that she was doing it.

  We finally got back to the truck. Laurel let go of me. She crossed her arms and leaned against the bed. She misjudged the distance and a loud, metallic pop echoed down the street.

  “You should give her my number,” she said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “No, I just thought about it for five minutes to lend an air of legitimacy.”

  I laughed. “Fine, I won’t ask dumb questions.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Laurel nodded. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. Her breathing got deep for a moment. I was pretty sure she had just fallen asleep standing up.

  “Let’s get out of here.” I took advantage of her diminished reflexes and pulled the keys out of her pocket.

  “Hey.” Her eyes shot open.

  “I’m driving. You apparently don’t function well when you’re tired. Everything you say is extra snarky and arrogant. And you forget how to walk.”

  “Nuh-uh. I’m a badass cop.”

  “Kinda proving my point.”

  “I’m not tired.” She squinted at her watch. “It’s barely after four.”

  “And you get up at disgusting times. So you’ve probably been awake for like twenty-four hours.”

  “Twenty-three.” She rubbed her eyes. Which made me want to tuck her in and kiss her head. I didn’t like that feeling. It was creepy. “Besides, if you drive, how will I get home?”

  “You won’t. You’re crashing at my place. Or I’m crashing at yours. It doesn’t matter. You can’t drive.” I opened the passenger door and hit her with a pointed look.

  Laurel stared me down for a solid minute before she got bored. Or sleepy. So she climbed in. “You’re overreacting. I hope you realize that.” I closed the door.

  The drive was fast. The streets were empty. Laurel crashed before I even got to a main road. She had slung her arm over the back of the seat. The crystal face of her watch caught the passing streetlights and shot glowing patterns across the dash. One of her feet was up on the seat, her legs spread wide like taking up space was so ingrained she did it in her sleep. Despite that arrogance, despite her oxfords and chinos, she still looked shockingly innocent. There was a purity in her that couldn’t be stripped by the accoutrements she hid behind.

  I knew it was unnecessary to tell her to sleep at my place. I could just as easily drop her off and take her truck. Or walk home. Or twenty other options. It was an excuse. I wasn’t proud of myself. But when I looked over at her, slumped and curled between the bench seat and the door, I didn’t really blame myself either. I felt an odd sense of honor. Not that I was protecting her, but that she allowed me to see this vulnerability. We both knew I didn’t deserve such a measure of faith.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I was pouring coffee the next morning when Laurel stuck her head around the corner. I jumped and barely managed to avoid pouring coffee everywhere.

  “Christ. I didn’t even hear you get up.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean…” She yawned. “Can I have some coffee?”

  I handed her the mug I’d just filled and grabbed another from the cabinet for myself. “Sleep okay?”

  She nodded. “But I’m becoming far too acquainted with your couches.”

  “You know, if you start sleeping like a normal person, you might have better success with the whole making it to your own bed thing.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  “Or not. Porch?” I asked. Laurel nodded and followed me outside. “I kinda like you when you’re sleepy. You say really dumb shit.”

  Laurel set her coffee down and stretched before lowering herself into her chair. “I do not. I’m always in control. That’s why I’m so good at undercover.” There was no arrogance in it. It was just a statement of fact.

  “You know, that’s similar to what you said last night.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You informed me that you were a badass cop.”

  She blinked at me. “Fuck. I did, didn’t I?”

  I just grinned. My phone started vibrating so I wrestled it out of my pocket. It was Nate telling me to let him in. I made a noise that was part curiosity and part panic. And then I decided to analyze the panicked guilt later. “So Nate is here.”

  “Hmm. Yeah. Okay.”

  And with that uncomfortable conversation firmly behind us, I went to answer the door. Laurel didn’t follow me.

  “Hey, I’ve been knocking for like five minutes.” Nate walked in and closed the door behind him. “But I saw your car.” He looked around pointedly. I felt the moment he zeroed in on Laurel’s oxfords piled on the floor. He took a couple steps forward and glanced into the study. The pillows and blanket felt like a condemnation. “At least you’re not fucking her. You’re not fucking her, right?”

  “I’m going to need you to not be an asshole right now.”

  “How
am I being an asshole?”

  “Because that’s not how you talk about people. And that’s not how you talk to me. I’m your friend,” I said.

  “Yeah, it’s because I’m your friend that I say with the utmost respect: you’re not fucking her, right?”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Because she slept here and she’s hiding on the porch right now like a goddamn shameful secret.” He pointed out back.

  “She’s not hiding. She’s having coffee. You want some?” I went into the kitchen and poured him a mug. He took it from me with a glare. “I’m not accountable to you, but you’re obviously freaking out so I’ll explain.”

  “You know, when you’re guilty, you tend to tell the other person everything they’re doing wrong.” Nate set his coffee down and crossed his arms. “It’s a defense mechanism that usually works in my favor, but right now I’m not digging it.”

  I didn’t like that analysis so I ignored it. “We were working late at a party. We might have a lead on the douche selling fentanyl, by the way. But it was almost four by the time we were finished. She was tired, I told her to crash here. You really are blowing it out of proportion.”

  He relaxed infinitesimally. “If that’s all it is, why are you acting so guilty?”

  “I’m not. I just know it looks bad. I overreacted.” I shrugged, which was a struggle because it felt like every muscle had seized the moment I started lying to him.

  “Or you’re not crossing any lines of propriety, but your judgment is still completely impaired because you’re in love with her.”

  The door opened. “Hey, Nate.” Laurel closed the door behind her.

  “Kallen.” Nate sat on the couch and picked up a book. “I need to speak with Cash. Are you going to be here long?” He didn’t even glance at her. Laurel looked at me. I shrugged. I’d never seen cold Nate. I wasn’t liking it. “I can come back if you guys are working.”

  “No, I was just leaving.” Laurel went in the kitchen and rinsed her mug. She gathered up her wallet and keys, kicked into her shoes. Nate casually fake read some poetry. It wasn’t awkward. On her way to the door, Laurel stopped in front of me. “Thanks for driving last night. I’ll work on that normal sleep thing.” We smiled at each other. She ran her palm down my arm. Heat flashed through me. I shoved my hands in my pockets to hide their shaking.

  “I’ll let you know if I hear anything,” I said.

  She hesitated and her eyes flicked to Nate. She decided against whatever she was going to say. When she left, I stayed still. Nate kept pretending to read. The door of her truck popped when she opened it. I didn’t move until the rumble of her engine faded.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” I asked.

  Nate set the book down and shifted to face me. “What is wrong with me?” His eyes got wide. “Were you just here in this room?”

  “I don’t even know what that means, man.”

  “How can you still like her?”

  I sighed. “We’re going to be working with her for a while. We should probably aim for civility.”

  “Civility?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Civility?” he shouted.

  “Whoa. Take it down a notch.”

  “Civility is what I was just doing. I was polite. Not totally engaging, but polite. Which is straight up more than she deserves.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because she fucked over my buddy.” He said it incredulously.

  “Yeah, well, your buddy is telling you to back off.”

  “No. It’s my right as your buddy to hate her on principle. You can—” He waved his hand as he cast about for something. “You can fucking marry her.” He looked pleased with what he had landed on. “And I’ll still hate her just a little bit. Not because she arrested me. Or you. Not because I resent her job. Not because I hate cops. But because she used you. It’s irrational and childish, but this is how we are playing it.”

  “No. That’s not how we are playing it.”

  “You can’t hate her. Maybe you can’t admit she hurt you. I can. I do.”

  I decided to refill my coffee. Mostly because I wanted to leave the room. When I returned, I wasn’t any calmer. “What did you want to talk about?”

  “I might have a lead.”

  “On what?” I could think of quite a few helpful leads. Steady supply line, money laundering, a way to nail Jerome.

  “On the fentanyl thing.”

  “Seriously?” That got my curiosity. I sat on the couch.

  “Mateo isn’t the only one pressing fresh pills.”

  “Explain.”

  “Straight up, he told me someone else was using his lab equipment. He’s pissed,” Nate said.

  “How do we know it’s related to fentanyl?”

  “We don’t. But it’s got enough commonalities to make it worth checking out. You said half the victims were Davis students. They were all pill users. Plus, we don’t have anything to lose by looking into it. The cops don’t have time for maybes. We have nothing but time.”

  I shrugged. He was right. “So is Mateo going to tell us who it is?”

  “No.”

  Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. “Well, that takes the fun out of it.”

  “He’s skittish about the whole thing. Doesn’t even want to process the Adderall I gave him—which is just as varied as the Oxy, by the way.”

  “So you’re just an ambassador of good news, then.”

  He grinned in his devious Nate way. “I have thoughts. Your girlfriend won’t like them.”

  I’d calmed down enough to let the girlfriend jab pass. He would become bored of that novelty soon enough. “Are they illegal thoughts?”

  “How can thoughts be illegal?”

  “Are they thoughts about plans that are illegal?” I asked.

  “Probably. I’m unclear on a lot of the laws around surveillance. I’d like to stay that way. Ignorance is key.”

  “I can get behind that.”

  “We’re meeting Mateo in his lab tomorrow evening. I told him you want to meet him.”

  “Why do I want to meet him?”

  Nate studiously didn’t look at me. “Because you need reassurance after offering to increase his fee to ease his fears.”

  “That was generous of me.”

  “I’ve always found you to be generous.”

  “And why am I so eager to meet him?”

  Nate scooted closer on the couch and pulled out his cell phone. “Because I ordered two of these.” He pulled up a photo and handed me the phone. It took me a moment to process that I was looking at a camera. The lens looked like a small glass teardrop. “And I’m going to distract Mateo while you install them in the ceiling.”

  “Ambitious.” I handed the phone back. “But what if this other dude uses a different lab?”

  “There’s only one lab on campus with the right equipment.”

  “How will you distract him?”

  “I’ll accidentally lock myself out of the building.”

  “What if you’re wrong and it’s a dead end?”

  “Then we wasted some time and money.”

  I tried, but I was out of questions. “Okay. Let’s give it a shot.” Nate didn’t seem surprised that I agreed. If he was going to keep working autonomously, then I really needed to take him down a peg or two. Or not, since his arrogance tended to benefit me.

  “Here’s a list of supplies.” He tapped his phone and mine lit up.

  I glanced at the list. Drill, USB cables, tape, external battery pack, iPhone. “I don’t know what to make of this list.”

  “Do you need to understand it?” He wasn’t trying to be a dick. It was a valid point. He leaned over and looked at the list with me. “Oh, I got iPhones so don’t worry about that.”

  “Plural?”

  “Yeah. Get two of everything except the drill. And you should get cordless, but like super small so we can carry it in easily.”

  “What exactly are we buil
ding? Aren’t the cameras self-

  contained?”

  “Yeah, but we need a way to transfer the video. Unless you want to go in every twelve hours, wait for the room to empty, pull out the cameras, download the video, and reconstruct everything.”

  “I’m going to pass on that.”

  “Then we need the iPhones to transfer video to the laptop I’m going to set up outside the room. The external batteries will give us—”

  I held up my hand. “You’re right. I don’t need to understand it.” I went to the stash of petty cash in the hutch and pulled out some money for Nate. “This should cover it. And I know you need to eat.”

  “Yeah, I knew I shouldn’t start that food thing. It’s addictive.” Nate grinned.

  “I’m going to figure out a way to get money in our bank accounts soon.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He tucked the cash into his wallet.

  “Actually, I have a backup plan for tuition. You know, in case we don’t figure it out.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Money orders.”

  Nate cocked his head. “Those things you get for security deposits?”

  “No, that’s a cashier’s check. A money order is like cash, but not cash. I don’t know. Crazy people who keep their money under the mattress use them. And drug dealers, I guess.”

  “Okay.” He didn’t bother hiding his skepticism.

  “Drug dealers without the luxury of a money laundering business,” I said.

  “Why don’t we just do that all the time?”

  “It’s inconvenient. And I’m pretty sure the max for a money order is a thousand bucks. So we have to go into a bunch of different 7-Elevens.”

  “Oh, so it will be less suspicious? Spread the love?” Nate asked.

  “That too, but mostly I just want to show you the world. Take you to every 7-Eleven in Sacramento county,” I said in my most dreamy voice.

  “Aww, you spoil me.”

  “I know.”

  He stood. “So you’re good with being the errand boy? You’ll get it done today?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got a customer in the Fab Forties who wants Xanax. I’ll hit Home Depot when I’m out there.” I loved living in an area so concentrated that five miles was a trek.