“Fine, but if you get me in trouble, I’m calling my union rep.”
“Yeah, okay.” Laurel didn’t seem overly concerned about that.
“You two have fun with your protocol debate. I’ll catch you later.” I backed away.
“Wait. We still need to talk. You were out of line,” Laurel said.
“I wasn’t, but you are. Right now.”
Laurel started to respond, but I chose to walk away.
Chapter Eighteen
Nate directed me down an alley and told me to park where there was no parking space. Apparently, we were barbarians. Having finished his job as navigator, he handed back my phone.
We went in the large, open door as per Patricia’s directions. The hallway we entered was wide enough to drive a small truck down. It made sense. She moved furniture in and out of her space constantly. It would need to be big enough for large cargo. The building was an old warehouse split into smaller workshops. Presumably, the other mini warehouse units were occupied by similar businesses. Patricia’s unit occupied the southwest corner of the bottom floor. We found it and knocked on the doorframe.
“Who’s there?” Patricia called from the far end.
“It’s Cash and Nate.”
“Come in.” She popped up from underneath a wide oak dining table. “Sorry about the smell. I should know better than to strip paint when it’s too hot to open the doors.”
“It’s not bad. Just a bit stuffy.”
“You should have been here an hour ago. I think I’m still intoxicated.” Patricia came around the table. She was wearing lightweight coveralls, but had them unbuttoned far enough to show the flimsy cotton tank she was wearing underneath. “We’ve never officially met.” She held out her hand to Nate. He shook it. “I’m Patricia.”
“Nate. It’s a pleasure.”
“It certainly is.” They smiled at each other, a mutual acknowledgment that they were both pretty. It wasn’t sexual, necessarily. Just understanding.
“Cash said you have a plan to save us.”
“I do. Come sit in my office.” She led us to the outer corner of the space. Office was generous, but all of the furniture looked like it was both finished and used. Nate and I sat in spindly wooden chairs. Patricia went to the desk turned workbench and pulled a small gift bag out of the drawer. “Did Cash give you a rundown of everything we talked about?”
“Yeah. I’m a broke college student selling Grandma’s jewelry,” Nate said.
“Oh, nice detail.” She nodded in approval at me. “Here.” She handed him the bag.
Nate pulled out two sky blue jewelry boxes. They were worn. One’s velvet had been rubbed off the corner, the other was slightly bleached from the sun. He opened the smaller box. It held a pair of ruby drop earrings. They looked art deco to me, but I knew more about architecture from the twenties than jewelry. A matching necklace was in the bigger box. The central ruby was cut to the same shape as the earrings, but larger.
“These are your pieces, I take it?” Nate asked.
“Yes, but I inherited them so there’s no record of my possession.” Patricia crossed her arms and leaned back against the workbench. The movement stretched her already slender form. I noticed that the coveralls were cuffed halfway up her calf. A partially healed pink scrape across her ankle suggested that she commonly wore them that way and maybe it wasn’t a good idea.
“Aren’t you and Robert cataloguing your assets?” I asked.
She grinned. “Ah, yes. Our declaration of disclosure. It’s quite fun, I must say.”
“Yeah. That. Isn’t the jewelry listed there?”
She shook her head. “He has no idea what jewelry I own.” She tucked back a wisp of blond hair that had escaped its knot.
“So I’m going to take the earrings into your shop?” Nate asked.
Patricia nodded. “The earrings are worth about eleven thousand. Well, the rubies are. The fact that they’re vintage is worth more to some than others. Either way, you’ll suggest twelve. I’ll bargain you to nine.”
“What about the necklace?” He snapped both boxes shut and put them back in their bag.
“I’ll be so impressed with the earrings that you will tell me there’s a matching necklace. I’ll be dying to see it. We will arrange an afternoon meeting a few days later.”
“And what am I asking for the necklace?”
“Fifteen. Which is unreasonable, you fiend.”
Nate laughed and held up his hands. “I’m just a poor boy trying to make rent, miss.”
“Oh, miss. Cash, he called me miss,” she said wistfully. “Isn’t that quaint? So much better than ma’am.”
I smiled at the pair of them. They got on just as well as I imagined they would. Under different circumstances, they could have been friends. But this was our circumstance.
“So what will you bargain me down to?”
Patricia looked at him oddly. “Whatever is left over from the money you brought. Cash said it would be just under twenty thousand.”
“Except I lied. I brought more.” I attempted contrite. Failed contrite.
“Why?”
“Because I’m paying the transaction fee you refuse to acknowledge.”
“Cash.” Her tone was all warning, no substance.
“It’s that or I don’t charge you for merchandise. But it will take you a while to go through what I just sold you.”
“Okay, I’ll consider it.”
“Thank you.”
Nate tucked the gift bag into his backpack and pulled out a brown paper bag. He crossed to the desk Patricia was leaning against and cleared a small space. He stacked the cash we’d brought. It was a mix of smaller and larger bills.
“We both counted it, but you should check as well.”
“I will.” She stacked it back up and tucked it back in the bag. “But not now or here.”
“But—” I started.
“If it’s incorrect, I’ll write you a smaller check,” she said.
Nate looked at me and shrugged. I returned the gesture. “That’s fair,” he said.
“Good. Are you available tomorrow afternoon?”
Nate reclaimed his chair. “Sure. Is there a specific time?”
“Between noon and four, preferably. Natalie will be working here in the warehouse in the morning, but she will definitely be back in the gallery by noon.”
“And is Natalie aware of what’s happening?” he asked.
Patricia chuckled. “You think I’m going to tell my only employee that I’m laundering money?”
“No, I suppose not. So we will be meeting for the first time? And Natalie will be our guaranteed witness? Seems simple enough,” Nate said. Patricia nodded. Nate and I stood.
“You’re an absolute peach,” I said.
“I know.” Patricia kissed my cheek, then Nate graduated to a kiss as well. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Nate smiled. “Looking forward to it.”
*****
I’d thought a beer would break up the monotony, but it just made me sleepy. We had four different screens playing footage from a week’s worth of video of the lab. Our laptops were set on either side of my TV. Nate’s TV was sitting on the floor. There was a mess of cords piled on the hardwood taunting Nickels, but she had managed to resist thus far. All of the videos were equally boring. I hit pause four times.
“What’s up?” Nate asked. He sounded as sleepy as I felt.
“I’m making some coffee. This is too boring.”
“Is there a threshold of boring? Like an acceptable amount of boring?”
“You’re annoying,” I said.
He didn’t seem too upset about that.
I was halfway through making coffee when the doorbell rang. I stuck my head back out in the living room. No Nate. The faint sound of water running came from the bathroom. I glanced that direction. Yep, door was closed. I answered the door.
Shelby.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on.” She walked i
n without being invited and shoved a bag of produce into my arms. A sheaf of papers stuck out of the top. “But I don’t like seeing him like this. And I haven’t seen you, but I’m guessing you’re just as pouty as he is.”
“I’m not pouty,” I said.
“That was childish. I’m supposed to be the charmingly youthful one. You’re supposed to be serious and cynical. And Clive is supposed to be like the cool dad who isn’t quite like a dad, maybe an uncle. Okay, I guess that’s accurate because he’s your uncle. But whatever. You guys are all fucked up and it’s making me backward. And now I’m blaming you for my state of mind and you know I hate blaming people.”
Shelby walked to the couch and flopped. I closed the door she had left open. She huffed at the ceiling. Nate came down the hallway. The shock of hair that fell onto his forehead was damp like he’d dunked his head in the sink.
“Did the doorbell ring? I thought I heard voices.” Nate emerged from the hallway. “Shelby.”
“Nate,” she half exclaimed, half whined. She was able to accomplish a lot of strange, high pitches with her voice. Few were enjoyable. She jumped up and threw herself at him.
“What are you doing here?” He picked her up and spun in a circle.
She squealed. “Put me down,” she said in a voice that suggested she did not want to be put down. Nate put her down. “I’m making Cash sign some dumb papers because she and Clive are having the most silent war ever.” She flopped back on the couch.
“They are?” Nate shot me a look.
My eyes rolled entirely of their own accord. I set the bag of produce on the kitchen table and pulled out the folder. It was a document gifting a percentage of the farm to Shelby. Clive had done the exact opposite of what I suggested. Whatever. It was his mess now. I grabbed a pen and signed all of the pages with little neon sticky notes.
Nate and Shelby seemed perfectly content to speak with each other so I went into the study. I scanned a copy of the document, then shoved the papers back in the folder they had come in.
“Here.” I handed the folder to Shelby.
She took it. “Thanks.”
There was no way she knew what she was holding.
“We aren’t at war. We just disagree about a fundamental value,” I said.
“Okay.” She drew it out. “What fundamental value?”
“The inherent worth of human beings.”
“So nothing major?” Shelby turned to Nate and whispered, “silent war.”
I wanted to shout. I wanted to shake her. I wanted to tell her that friendly Uncle Clive had a chink in his armor and it was going to kill us all. But I didn’t. I went to the kitchen and finished putting together the coffee machine. Shelby followed me. She stood in the doorway and watched me move around the kitchen.
“Door is over there.” I nodded at it.
“You know, I was going to tease you and leave, but now you’re being a dick. Whatever is going on doesn’t involve me. I’ve done nothing to warrant your anger. So don’t take it out on me.”
I took a deep breath and sat at the table. “What do you want me to say?”
Shelby loomed in front of me. Behind her, Nate sunk into the couch and tried to make himself invisible.
“I don’t know.” Shelby shrugged. “Tell me you want to fix whatever is wrong. Tell me you miss him. Tell me this sucks.”
“Fine. Yes. All of that.”
“Whatever, Cash. Screw you too.” She turned to go.
“I was being sincere.”
She spun back. “You could have fooled me.”
“It does suck and I do miss you and the farm. I even miss him. But it’s not Clive I miss. It’s Uncle Clive and he’s a lie. He’s a memory from childhood that I just grew out of.”
Tears started to gather in Shelby’s eyes. “How can you say something so cruel?”
I sighed. “Because he doesn’t trust me. It’s complicated and messy, but that’s the crux of it. He doesn’t respect me enough to trust me.”
“That can’t be true.”
“It is. I’m sorry.” For a moment, I wondered why I was sorry. I’d done nothing wrong. Sure, I’d violated that unspoken rule of polite society that you always forgive your parents unless their crime is so egregious it cannot be spoken. Even then, they’re your parents. You love them, but don’t visit. That wasn’t the line I was drawing. I hadn’t cut Clive off. I was just waiting for him to understand something I’d known for years. It was amorphous and subtle, yet concrete. The kind of knowledge that Shelby possessed, but Clive—in his white masculinity—couldn’t.
Shelby brushed at her cheeks. “Well, I hope you forgive him.”
“It’s not about forgiveness.”
She shook her head, swiped at her eyes again. Then she leaned down and hugged me for a long time. Her hair tickled my face. It smelled like sunshine and strawberries. Her fingertips dug into my rib cage. Her arms tightened, squeezed, then she let me go. Nate stood. Shelby went up on her toes to kiss his cheek. She left.
I walked into the living room and sat on the couch. The screens in front of me showed the same two images. The lab, in darkness, from two different angles. Nate moved into my sightline. He held out a mug of coffee. I wrapped my hands around it.
“Tell me what happened,” he said.
I didn’t really think about not telling him. There was no reason to. I just hadn’t yet. Last time I’d seen Clive, I’d been too raw. But that pain had dulled.
“It’s not as dramatic as all that.” I waved my hand at the kitchen as if it could contain the energy of my argument with Shelby. “Clive thinks I’m being too hard on Henry.”
Nate made a strangled noise. He dropped to sit next to me. “Too hard on Henry.”
“Yep.”
“The guy who beat you up and tied you in a car and tried to kill Kallen and shot at all of us?”
“Yep.”
“How are you being too hard on him?”
“Hmm. Well, last time we spoke, I think I called him a psycho. And misogynistic,” I said.
“What am I missing here?” Nate asked.
I shrugged. “I’ve known Henry since I was nine. So like, I guess that gives him the benefit of the doubt? Oh, and he’s a nice guy.”
Nate stood and stalked to the other end of the room. “A nice guy.” He spun and started a full on angry pace. “A nice guy,” he said again.
I let him pace. A headache was starting to pound behind my right eye. My jaw hurt. I’d been clenching it without realizing it. I took a sip of coffee. The warmth spread out through my body. The AC had felt pleasantly cool, but now I felt stuck between extremes.
Nate completed another lap across the room. His righteous anger made me feel a hell of a lot better. It was validating.
“Nate?”
He paused long enough to make eye contact. “Yeah?” He continued walking.
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
I shrugged. “Being my friend.”
He huffed and sat down. “That’s dumb. Shut up.”
I squeezed his shoulder. “Serious.”
“You want me to talk to him? I was there. I fucking hate Henry. Fucking crazy-ass douche bag.”
“If Clive needs to hear it from a guy who was there to believe it, he doesn’t deserve to know. I told him. In detail. On multiple occasions.”
“So really there are two issues. He doesn’t respect you enough to believe you at face value.” Nate ticked off one finger. “And he defaults to trusting the piety of the white dude.” He ticked off a second finger. “Which I guess is the same issue.”
I shrugged and nodded. “If he doesn’t see that by now, at his age.” I shrugged again. With enough time and effort, I could probably convince Clive of my narrative. I loved him enough to try. But I didn’t respect him enough to try. That had been thrown out the moment I realized he needed convincing.
“So why didn’t you tell Shelby that? She will get it even though your dumbass uncle doesn’t.”
“But isn’t there a danger in that? I mean, it’s better she hear the lesson from you, right?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” I took another sip of coffee. It felt like salvation. “It just feels petty. Like I’m upset with him so she needs to be too.”
Nate nodded. “I get that. But, hey, now I’m mad at him too. Does that help?” He grinned.
I smiled back. “Immensely.”
“You want to get back to the security footage?” he asked.
“Not in the least. Let’s do it.”
Chapter Nineteen
All the videos were set to fast forward. For the night shots, any movement looked bizarrely out of place. We had footage of Mateo working until one in the morning after we’d left him. But that was it.
The videos all shifted to natural light. A minute later, a small class rushed in for their lab work. Nate stood and hit a button on the laptops to make them go faster. I did the same on the TVs. We had already discovered that watching the classes do lab work was pointless. No one was going to be pressing pills in the middle of a class. And no one worked in the labs solo during school hours.
I finished my coffee. A glance at Nate’s mug showed that he had finished as well. I carefully lifted the mug out of his grasp. He looked away from the screens briefly.
“Oh, thanks,” he said.
“Yep.” I crossed behind the couch so I wouldn’t block his view. I filled our cups and came back. I handed the mug to him.
We went through over fifty hours of video before we found something. The time stamp said it was four in the morning. Somehow that seemed even smarter than going in late at night. Plenty of college students stayed up late. Maintenance crews worked in the evenings. Surely someone would notice a light on at midnight. But there was little chance anyone would notice one at four a.m.
The guy was white. Like Nordic levels of whiteness. He had white blond hair and was pale. We couldn’t see eye color yet, but I was betting on watery blue. He was lean and muscled, which emphasized how tall he was. His clothes were dark and slim fitting. Not much to go on there. Basically, he looked like an early Bond villain.
The Price of Cash Page 15