The Price of Cash

by Ashley Bartlett

  “Wow, there’s a customer in the Fab Forties that Jerome hasn’t poached?”

  “She’s skittish. I think her husband is a prosecutor or some shit. Jerome wouldn’t even get in the door.”

  Nate laughed. “Who knew that you would be the respectable one?”

  “I’m shocked too.”

  “I’ll text later with details.” He opened the door. “And be careful with Laurel. I don’t know what’s going on, but she’s always going to be a cop first. Don’t forget that.”

  I tamped down my anger. He was speaking out of love or whatever. “I know.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Laurel called an hour after Nate and I went our separate ways. I let it go to voice mail. Nate was right about her loyalties. I needed to be careful. But that didn’t seem to alter my visceral reaction to seeing her name pop up on my phone screen.

  I pocketed the phone and got out of my SUV. Heat enveloped me. I’d parked under the tangled limbs of a sycamore and a massive ash tree, but even that shade wasn’t going to accomplish much. I went up the wide walkway and rang the bell. I could hear the faint rap of heels on the staircase. The heavy door swung in. Patricia Chadwell cocked a hip and smiled at me. She was wearing a simple shirtdress that came to her mid thigh. It moved gently when she leaned against the door.

  “Cash, it’s been too long.” She tucked a soft, blond curl behind her ear.

  “It has been. You never call me.” I was aiming for admonishment, but fell short.

  “I know. I’m terrible. Come in.”

  I stepped over the threshold. Patricia leaned close and kissed my cheek. It was a whisper of a kiss. Everything she did seemed that way. A suggestion of movement rather than something concrete. She spun and led me into the house. Air drifted through the hallway, cool and smelling of rosemary and cucumber.

  “How have you been?”

  She looked back over her shoulder and smiled enigmatically. “I take it you don’t read the papers?”

  “National, not local.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  We entered the kitchen at the back of the house. Patricia’s discerning tastes were most present here. The cabinets and sink were originals, painstakingly restored after a hundred years of abuse. The walls were covered in reclaimed tile. The only new items were the appliances, which were thirties retro. More environmentally friendly and functional than those they had replaced. There was also a single pane of glass that was new. Third down and one to the left on the French doors leading to the patio. It was the only pane that didn’t waver slightly in the summer sunlight.

  Patricia waved me into a seat at the bar. She started pulling ingredients out of the fridge. “You want a drink.”

  I smiled at being informed, not asked. “So what have I missed?”

  “In skipping the Sacramento Bee?” She laughed. “Not much, I suppose. But my bastard husband left me for a twenty-two-year-old.” As she spoke, she tore mint leaves and split them between two glasses. The scent filled the room.

  I blinked at her in surprise. The woman was charming and brilliant. Gorgeous too. I knew she was approaching fifty, but she was too classic, sophisticated to have aged. The only time you could see she wasn’t thirty was when you watched her eyes. “So he proved himself to be the idiot you always suspected he was?”

  “It gets better.” She poured an inch of cloudy lemonade into each glass. “The twenty-two-year-old hacked into half our bank accounts, stole my identity, did untold damage to Robert’s stock portfolio.” She muddled the contents of each glass with a small pestle. Her movements precise, yet flippant.

  “You seem to be handling it well.” I was aiming for neutral. What was the appropriate response to a woman’s life being turned upside down by her husband’s mistress? It was a conventional tragedy, but no less damaging for being plebeian.

  “Oh, I’m absolutely tickled by the entire thing.” She added roughly crushed ice to each glass.

  “Tickled?”

  “You see, if you read the Bee, you would know that my soon-to-be-ex-husband was arrested last month,” she said. I laughed. “The twenty-two-year-old’s brother is serving time in County. Robert was the prosecutor. In revenge, the girl posted the entire contents of his work computer online. Open cases, closed, briefs, what he really thinks of the judges in this county. It was a disaster.” She topped off each glass with more lemonade. I took the glass she handed me. It was the most uselessly beautiful lemonade I’d ever seen.

  “So how did he manage to get arrested?”

  “Oh, the investigators were convinced that he was complicit in the whole thing. It’s sorted out now.” She sat next to me and carefully crossed her legs at the ankle. “Luckily, I filed for divorce a month before his little disaster struck. And my lawyer is far more competent than Robert—they were roommates in law school. It felt poetic to watch.”

  “I’m glad your divorce has been so fulfilling.” I took a sip of the lemonade. It was exquisite.

  “I told you I was tickled. You didn’t believe me.”

  “I didn’t believe you.”

  “Okay, your turn. Why are you a cash-only business now? I let it slide on the phone, but I want gritty details.”

  “I can’t possibly compete with your husband’s wandering passwords.”

  “Please, password. Passwords implies that he had more than one.”

  “I suppose that much was obvious from the story,” I said.

  “So titillate me.”

  I sighed heavily, but she was unswayed. “My distributor was this dirty sheriff from up the hill. Someone got wind of him raiding the evidence locker and tried to shut him down.”

  “Oh, I think the Bee did a story on that too. Didn’t he kill a Sac PD officer?”

  I wasn’t sure what magic kept Laurel’s name out of that story, but I suspected the FBI had something to do with it. “Tried to. Didn’t succeed.”

  “What a fool. If you’re going to kill a cop, finish the job. You’re screwed either way,” she said.

  My vision went black for an instant. Not long ago, I would have agreed with that statement. Hell, I still did agree with that statement. But I realized in that instant that Laurel could have died that night. I’d known that all along. Henry had wanted to kill her. But before, it seemed so far from the realm of possibility. Laurel was invincible in so many ways that the concept was laughable. Yet it was real. That abstract idea of killing cops—something that never bothered me in the past—applied to someone I cared for. It didn’t sit well.

  Patricia was looking at me strangely. I forced a grin. “Apparently, my taste in business associates is bad.”

  “What about that other young man you work with? The tall Asian guy?” She raised a hand to indicate his height. In case I didn’t know what tall meant, I suppose. “He’s really handsome?”

  “Nate.” I tended to forget that Nate was good-looking until someone reminded me.

  “Yes, Nate. He’s smart, right?”

  “Smarter than me,” I said.

  “Not possible.”

  “Smart enough to not go around assaulting people.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize the bar was so high,” she said.

  “Super high bar.”

  “So your former associate went ballistic?”

  “Yeah. He’s got a connection to the farm I launder money through, which means it’s too hot for me right now.” I wasn’t lying, really. But I couldn’t very well tell customers the actual story either.

  “Can’t you start a new small business to launder money through? When I opened the gallery, it only took about two minutes.” Patricia owned one of those boutiques that refinished vintage furniture and sold it for a fuckload. It wasn’t pretentious enough on its own so she called it a gallery to really push it over the edge.

  “I would. Except the farm belongs to my uncle. I’d rather lie low and take the fiscal hit.”

  “Aww, but you came when I called? That’s sweet.”

  “Fo
r you, anything.” I winked exaggeratedly.

  She threw back her head and laughed. “Does anyone not find you charming?”

  “Plenty, I promise.”

  “Good, it wouldn’t be fair otherwise.”

  I shook my head. My ego was big enough all on its own. “Okay. No more me. How’s the store?”

  “Oh, it’s wonderful. SN&R did a piece on the nouveau vintage scene in Sacramento. It was indulgent and over-the-top, but we got a nice little boost from it.”

  “Nouveau vintage? What does that even mean?”

  She lifted her shoulders artfully and let them drop. “It doesn’t make a lick of sense to me. But the pictures were pretty.”

  I drained the last of my lemonade. Damn. That meant I had to go run stupid Nate’s stupid errands. “On that note…”

  Patricia sighed loudly. “All right. I suppose I’ll let you go.”

  I pulled out a bag of white pills. They were long and slim and proudly proclaimed their brand. I wondered if Mateo was printing brand names on our repackaged pills. Patricia took the bag and tucked it into a drawer. She pulled a stack of bills, neatly folded and clipped, out of the drawer and handed them to me. “Always a pleasure.”

  “You spoil me,” she said. We started walking toward the door. “Would it be crass to ask how you’re paying the bills? I don’t imagine you can pay them with cash.”

  There were plenty of people I would have minded that question from. Patricia wasn’t one of them. “I’m still working on that. We’ve been getting by on cash, but tuition is coming up quick.”

  “Tuition? I thought you graduated years ago.” She studied me like she might find some previously missed indication of age.

  “Right. Sorry. Nate’s tuition. He’s a grad student.”

  “Got it.” She nodded. “I’m sure you two will figure it out. You’re both too good-looking to fail.”

  “I like that philosophy.”

  “It’s been mine for years. I’ll let you borrow it.” Patricia opened the door. I leaned in and she kissed my cheek.

  When I got back in the car, I checked my phone. Nothing more from Laurel. Kyra wanted to meet at a downtown brewery that evening. I sent her an affirmative. There was a series of messages from Nate. Two screenshots of an external battery and an ominous text.

  They’re out of stock everywhere except the Apple Store.

  If he was suggesting what I thought he was suggesting, I was going to be pissed. So we’re getting a different battery?

  I made my way back to Folsom Boulevard. I was halfway to Home Depot when he wrote back.

  Apple Store is holding two batteries in your name. K thanks.

  He was sending me to the fucking mall? Asshole.

  His response was entirely in emojis. It was too bad I didn’t condone violence.

  *****

  Kyra was already sipping a beer on the patio when I arrived. The horizon was pink and orange behind the Capitol and deep blue toward the Sierra Nevadas. I sank into the chair next to Kyra and she slid a beer toward me.

  “I love you,” I said to the beer.

  “Why thank you, Cash, dear.”

  “You too.”

  Kyra shoved me with her shoulder. “You’re not very nice.”

  “Sorry. I had to go to the mall today. It was terrible. My filter is gone.”

  She looked appropriately shocked. “What possessed you to go to a mall?”

  “Nate needed something from the Apple Store and he needed it right away. It was very serious,” I said.

  “Sounds like.”

  “But I got aviators for Andy. I saw Ray-Bans in one of those glasses shops and they had smaller sizes in stock and now I’m going to be her hero.”

  “Andy is next door, right? Robin’s daughter?” she asked. I nodded. “I thought Ray-Bans were Wayfarers.”

  “They also make the best aviators. Duh.”

  “Of course. I feel shame.”

  “As well you should,” I said. She ignored me. “I took her to see Top Gun so aviators are now a priority.”

  “I don’t need to pretend to understand this, right?”

  “Nope.”

  A waiter appeared at my elbow and deposited a large, paper-lined bowl on the table. He slid a piece of wood with cutouts for small condiment cups in front of Kyra. He pointed at each cup and named the dipping sauces. Two of the four were in French.

  “Thanks.” Kyra smiled at him.

  “No problem. Do you ladies need anything else?”

  “In about ten minutes, another beer for me.” Kyra looked at me. “Same?”

  “Yeah, that’s perfect.”

  He nodded and went back inside.

  “You’ve had fried pickles, right?” Kyra asked.

  “Please. I think you know my pickle obsession.” I studied the contents of the bowl. It was a pile of fried stuff. Pickles and onions were my guess. I snagged a pickle and tossed it in my mouth. It was glorious.

  “This is why I picked this place.”

  “You’re so good at food. And ordering.”

  “You’re easy to impress.” She wasn’t wrong.

  “I know.”

  “You seem better than last time.”

  I met her eyes and held for a minute so she would know I wasn’t being flippant. “I am. I owe you, I think.”

  “No, just keep being happy. Or happier than you were.”

  “I can do that.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Nate led me across the UC Davis campus. It was a hike. Seriously, they took the whole agricultural, granola thing way too far. It was all trees and recycle bins and bicycle racks. I was all for a Mother Earth loving school, but this was absurd. Nate brought me to the building that housed Mateo’s lab.

  “Go through the main doors. There are classrooms on the ground floor, but the stairwell at the end of the hallway leads to research facilities and offices on the upper floors.” Nate pointed at the mostly dark windows above our heads. “Mateo said he would prop the door to the stairs open because you need a keycard to get access at night.”

  “So I need to accidentally let it close behind me?”

  “Yep. From there you need to go to the third floor. His lab is room 317. It’s on the other side of the building. The door will be locked, but knock and he will let you in.”

  “Okay. I’ll text you once I’m there.” I sounded totally cool when I said it, but I was so not cool. Belatedly, I realized that I’d expected the plan to fall apart long before I was supposed to install cameras in a random lab at a university. At least when we had put trackers on our rivals’ cars I’d had Nate with me. This solo thing was bullshit.

  “You’ve got everything you need?” Nate’s gaze flicked over my backpack as if he could see inside.

  “Yeah, I’m good. Walk slow.”

  “You got it,” Nate said.

  I walked toward the door purposefully. Maybe if I looked confident it would make me confident? I let myself in. The hall was quiet, empty. Most of the classrooms I passed were dark, their doors pulled shut. At the end of the hallway I found the stairwell. A rock the size of my fist was stuck between the doorframe and door. I nudged it out of the way and let the door click shut behind me. My footsteps echoed as I climbed the stairs. It probably should have felt ominous, but I was pretty sure I was the bad guy in this scenario and I didn’t generally frighten myself.

  The third floor corridor was well lit, just like the main hallway on the first floor. I followed the room numbers until I found 317. A narrow strip of light shone from under the door. I knocked. The door opened.

  “Hi, you must be Cash. I’m Mateo.”

  Whoever I was expecting Mateo to be, this kid wasn’t it. He was strangely beautiful and ugly. His cheeks were rough with fresh acne and old scars. His golden-brown eyes were bright, lively, and framed by obscenely long eyelashes. Long, soft curls spilled onto his collar, his brow, his ears. The cut was awkward—nearly a mullet, but it looked more like he’d forgotten his last two haircu
ts rather than asked for that insanity. He smiled at me and tipped the scale to beautiful.

  “Yeah, hi. It’s good to meet you.” I stuck out my hand. He shook it with both of his. “Did I beat Nate here?”

  “You did, but it looks like he gave you good directions. Come on in.” Mateo held the door and ushered me into his bright shiny lab.

  Long tables divided the room into three distinct sections. Nate had sketched out the best places for our cameras. One above the door and one over the middle table where Mateo’s equipment was.

  I feigned a text message and dug out my phone. “Sorry.” I held the phone up in apology.

  Mateo waved me off. “No worries.”

  I typed out a message to Nate. I’m in.

  Almost immediately Mateo pulled out his own phone. He frowned at the screen. I speed dialed Reyes because I knew he would pick up. It was the one advantage of being his CI.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey.”

  “Cash?” Reyes asked.

  Mateo gave me a pained look. “Nate’s locked out,” he whispered.

  “Sorry, just a sec,” I said to Reyes. I moved my phone away from my mouth. “Oh, okay. I can wait,” I said to Mateo. I brought the phone back down. “Sorry about that. What’s up?”

  Mateo hesitated. I’m sure he didn’t want to leave me alone. Whether that was a trust issue or he didn’t want to abandon his well-paying client, I didn’t know.

  “You called me,” Reyes said.

  “Well, yes. That’s true. But I think that’s irrelevant at the moment.”

  “How could it be irrelevant when you called me?” Reyes sounded annoyed.

  “If that were true, I’d agree with you,” I said.

  “It is true. You called me.”

  “I’m going to let him in,” Mateo whispered.

  I nodded exaggeratedly so he would know I heard him. “Luke, I need you to stop focusing on minutiae and see the bigger picture,” I said.

  “Luke? No one calls me Luke. And you don’t even call me Lucas…Oh, I’m your cover call,” Reyes said.

  Mateo took halting steps toward the door.