I browsed some more, stopping to fiddle with a folding bellows camera.
“In working condition,” the woman called.
Dad would have loved to own something like that, but a quick glance at the price tag—Early 1900s $800—told me it, too, was out of my price range.
“You looking for something particular?” she asked when I stepped away from the camera.
I gave her a bored hand wave, trying to convey a wealth I most definitely did not have. “Just browsing,” I said.
I picked up a few more things before finally landing on a figurine. An elephant made of blue glass. The tag on the bottom read slag glass, and I had no idea what that meant, but it was only twenty-five dollars, and I did have that much on me. Buying the elephant would give me a chance to talk to the woman, even if only for a second. Plus, it was kind of cute.
I took the elephant to the case and handed it over. The case was covered by porcelain tea sets and crystal lampshades. Inside, the shelves held trays overflowing with glittering costume jewelry set in tarnished mountings. They came at me in a multifaceted silvery glow. The cash register, sitting on top of the case, was simple and old-fashioned. A dusty credit card machine was pushed against it. The woman behind it was tiny and had full, graying frizzy hair and olive skin. Only when I was up close did I realize she was quite a bit older than I’d originally thought. Was this the matriarch of the Basile family? Zanobi’s wife? Had she seen her sons go to prison? Did she know that one of them murdered a teenager? Maybe she was just as far in it as the rest of them.
“Trunk is up. That’s good luck,” the woman said as she hopped off the stool she’d been sitting on and took the elephant from me. She tapped the elephant’s trunk, then immediately and expertly began wrapping it in paper.
“I need all the good luck I can get,” I said, scanning the register area furtively, trying to block out the bric-a-brac and find something useful to go on. Loose papers, a spray can of furniture polish with a rag draped over the top of it, a silver bowl filled with peppermint candies—all normal business things. I tried to eye the little pad of paper that she had been writing on when I came in, but all I could see from my angle was a mishmash of colors—a couple of A’s, the number 2, nothing really identifiable. To put the colors together into something that would make sense would mean I would need to lean over the counter, which I obviously couldn’t do with the Basile matriarch standing two feet in front of me, talking about elephant trunks.
“Yes, we all could use more luck, I think,” she answered, pulling out a receipt book. She scribbled something—I recognized the word slag—and totaled up the purchase with a quick stroke of her pen on the receipt—pink-white-black—then pushed a few buttons on the register and opened the cash drawer.
“Twenty-six eighty-seven,” she said. I handed her two twenties and she made quick change.
Wait.
Pink-white-black.
Pink-white-black was not twenty-five. Pink-white-black was two hundred fifty.
Maybe I had seen it wrong? I squinted toward the receipt book. Pink-white-black clearly came back at me.
“Can I have a receipt, please?” I pointed at the ledger.
“Yes, of course,” she said. But when she went to rip off the carbon, it wasn’t there. “Uffa! Those boys, they never prepare the book correctly.” She flipped the book open and pulled out the pristine carbon paper, which had been blocked from its partner by the cardboard separator that was meant to protect all the receipt carbons from picking up the writing on one receipt. “Here, let me write a new one.” She bent over the carbon and wrote directly on it. $26.87—pink and green like Easter grass—just as she’d charged me. Definitely not pink-white-black.
She tore off the receipt. “There you go. Good as new.” She attempted a smile, finally, but it only came across as an uneasy grimace. One that said, Now, get out much more than Thank you, come again.
As I studied the receipt in my hand, trying to brain out how I could have possibly mistaken the Easter colors in my hand to be pink-white-black—it was possible—she began rooting around beneath the counter.
She huffed. “They also never restock the bags. You want something done, you do it yourself, yes? I will get you one. Just a moment.”
I nodded, distant, still studying the receipt. Had the carbons been mistakenly left under the cardboard, or had it been purposeful? And, if purposeful, why?
The woman scurried through a darkened doorway that was separated from the rest of the shop by a bamboo beaded curtain. It rattled when she pushed through, and I couldn’t explain why, but the sound reminded me of something skeletal. Rusty peach and putrid brown enveloped each bead. Beneath the scent of lemon furniture polish lingered the must of antiques, which only served to further the creepy feel.
The deadly feel.
My heart started racing as crimson threatened to push in on me. I felt twitchy—as if Luna would suddenly appear from behind the bamboo, the skeletal rattle actually the crocodile sound of her cold eyes sizing me up.
Boo! Found you!
I glanced around. A phrenology head on the shelf to my left was smeared with a single drip of crimson. A centaur relief on the wall behind me floated in a crimson bath. Everything darkened, pushed out the peach and brown, bubbled up in gray and black.
I had to get out of there.
Now.
But I couldn’t just go empty-handed. If I was going to come here—and most likely get my ass chewed by the detective for doing so—I had to come away with something to show for it. I snatched the woman’s phone off the counter and thumbed it on. Fortunately, there was no password protection. I went to recent calls and mentally logged the colors of the last call received. White, white, white, sea green, bronze, white, purple. I repeated the colors to myself, then replaced the phone.
“Now where would you put the darned bags, Zanobi?” I heard the woman mumble from behind the curtain, punctuated by the industrious sound of drawers opening and closing. “I’ll be right back with you,” she called.
My eyes landed on a pad of paper. Whoever she’d been talking to when I’d walked in, she’d told them she was writing down whatever they were saying. Where she was sending one of the boys. Sure enough, the top sheet was a pulse of colors.
“Aha!” the woman said. “Found it!”
Boo! Found you!
Without thinking, I lunged across the counter, my shirt rising so that my belly pressed against the cold glass, and ripped the top sheet off the pad. Crumpling it in my fist, I crammed it into my front pocket. Stretched across the counter like that, my nose was practically in the receipt book. And I had been right—pink-white-black. I didn’t know what that meant, but I thought maybe it could mean something—if not to me, then maybe to Detective Martinez. I pulled out my phone, leaned over the counter, and snapped a photo of the receipt, then started to run. Two steps from the counter, I turned back and grabbed the wrapped elephant. I really did need all the luck I could get.
Crimson pushing at my feet, I raced out the door, nearly toppling over a mannequin head that was modeling a crusty feathered hat, and practically fell into my car. I dropped the keys on the floorboard and had to spend a terrifying minute searching for them.
I squealed away from the curb just in time to see the woman come to the front door. She gazed after my car, holding a stack of plastic bags. I’d seen crazy. Luna had come at me with fully loaded crazy. But somehow this calm detachment seemed to scare me a little bit more.
AFTER I GOT on the highway and had time to calm down, I told my Bluetooth to call Detective Martinez.
“I’m kind of in the middle of something here,” he said by way of answering.
I ignored him. “Tesori Antico,” I said. “Ring a bell?”
There was a pause, during which I swore I could hear him mumble an excuse me. “What about it?” he asked, his voice low and urgent. “Don’t tell me you went there.”
“Don’t tell me you knew I would be walking into a mob house
if I did.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t know that before going. Damn it, Nikki, I told you we would do this together.”
“You move too slow,” I said.
“Yeah, it’s been a whopping few hours. You must be so frustrated that I haven’t solved the case yet.”
“Every hour counts,” I said. “This is my life we’re talking about here.”
I heard a door close, and Detective Martinez’s voice got louder. “That’s right,” he growled. “This is your life, Nikki. Not a game. You can’t just go rushing into things all by yourself and expect everything to come out fine.”
“But everything did,” I said. “For all they know, I was just a random shopper.” I tried not to think about the interested way the woman had watched my car pull away.
He sighed, the sound roaring through the phone into my ear. “So what did you find?”
“I have a phone number for you. Got a pen?”
“Go.”
White, white, white, sea green, bronze, white, purple. “Five, five, five. Six, nine, five, three.”
I could hear him mumble the numbers as he wrote them down. “And this number is?”
“Not sure. I only know that it’s somehow related to this. Hang on.” I edged to the side of the highway, turned on my flashers, and pulled the crumpled paper out of my pocket. I smoothed it on my leg. “You still there?”
“Where am I going to go?”
“Just checking. Jeez. Here.” I read the blocky handwriting scrawled across the paper. Powdery tan, the color of moth wings, blinked out at me. The word auction. “There’s an auction. Looks like it’s Thursday night. Says Tesla here. What does that mean?”
“Tesla,” he repeated. “As in Randall Tesla?”
“Who?”
“Randall Tesla. Serious wealth. Did he die recently?”
“How the hell would I know?”
“More importantly, what does this have to do with finding Rigo Basile?” Detective Martinez asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “She said she was going to send one of the boys. Maybe we should be there.”
“Maybe,” he said.
A toilet flushed in the background.
“Wait. Are you in the bathroom?”
“Don’t worry about where I am. I’m more worried about where you are.”
I smiled, the nerves fading away a little. “Well, I’m not sitting on a toilet. Classy, Detective. Hopefully it’s at least a halfway decent bathroom. You’re not talking to me from a gas station urinal, are you?”
“If you must know, Nikki, I’m at dinner. With Blake. I excused myself from the table when my phone rang.”
“Ooh, romantic times, a date,” I teased. “You know, you really shouldn’t be answering other girls’ calls when you’re out with your girlfriend. It’s kind of skeevy.”
“Listen, Nikki. I want you to go home and . . . do something normal. Take a nap or watch TV or read a book or something. Forget about—”
“My potential murder charge? Oh, sure, okay, I’ll just let that one go for now while I watch some romantic comedies. Maybe I’ll make some cookies too, and then everything will really be okay.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Well, come on, how do you expect me to just relax and pop in a movie? I could go to prison for life, Detective, as you have been so very eager to point out to me. And while you might be able to scarf down some cheese dip and margaritas with your squeeze, I can’t do that.”
He got quiet. “I know,” he said.
“Luna is out there. So is Rigo.”
“I know,” he said again.
I drove for a good stretch, unsure how to force words past the lump in my throat. “I’m scared.”
“I know.”
I swallowed back the lump and rolled the window down to get some fresh air on my face. “But I’ll go home so you can finish your dinner or . . . planning my case together or . . . whatever it is you and Blake are doing.”
“That’s not what we’re doing,” he said. “You know that.”
I was reminded of lemonade and butter every time I thought of Detective Martinez. He was that trustworthy-yellow, inside and out. But something still felt wrong about knowing that he was sexing up the woman whose job was to put me away. Even if she claimed she didn’t want to.
“Go enjoy your dinner, Detective. Let me know what you come up with on that number.”
There was another hesitation, and then, “And you’re going to stay safe and wait for me?”
“Sure,” I said.
“You’re going to stay away from the Basiles?”
“Yep.”
As I pressed the button on my steering wheel to hang up, I turned my car in the exact opposite direction from my house. I was going to stay away from the Basiles, but I had no intention of going home.
I pressed the Bluetooth button again and said, “Call Jones.”
11
OH, JESUS,” JONES said, lurching out onto his front stoop the moment he saw me. He wrapped me into a hug, a magenta blast. I couldn’t breathe.
“Whoa, dude, okay,” I said, pushing him away. “Let me live.” I chuckled uncertainly as he stepped back and closed his front door. I could feel him trying to hold back his magenta so I wouldn’t see it. He knew how that crap freaked me out.
“I didn’t know if you got released or what,” he said. He sounded out of breath, upset. “I was going to call your dad if I didn’t hear from you by tonight.”
Shit. This was the danger of letting Jones in. He was way too goody-goody, by the rules, Mr. I Genuinely Care About You. Of course he would call for backup. “No. Jones. Do not call my dad. For any reason. He doesn’t know. And I don’t want him to.”
Jones searched my face uncomprehendingly. “He doesn’t know what?”
“Anything. He doesn’t know about any of it. I was supposed to be spending the night at a friend’s house, so I just played it off like I had.”
“Then how did you get out?”
I thought about Detective Martinez showing up at the jail, holding two coffees, and ushering me out to his car. For some reason—a reason I couldn’t even explain to myself—this seemed like information Jones did not want to hear. “They let me go. Charges dropped.”
“Charges dropped. Just like that.” He grabbed my hand and guided me to the porch swing, just like we were in a dorky romance movie. Everything about Jones was a dorky romance movie. I wouldn’t have been surprised if his mom came out with two iced lemonades on a tray for us. I sat, relieved to have somewhere safe to rest. My legs had never lost their noodly feeling from my shopping foray at Tesori Antico.
“I talked to the assistant DA about Peyton Hollis. The police think I murdered her.” He jerked, surprised, his mouth dropping open. “I know this sounds totally cliché, Jones, but I’m innocent. I didn’t have anything to do with Peyton’s murder. Those drugs weren’t mine, and I have no idea how they got into my car. I think someone’s trying to frame me.” I leaned into his chest. “You believe me, don’t you?”
I could feel it through his skin—he would have believed anything I had to say. “Of course.” He kissed me lightly. “You want to take a walk? Maybe shake some of the nerves off?”
I didn’t. Walking in the open still made me feel a little too vulnerable. But he was right—I was pumped full of the jitters, and maybe a little fresh air would help calm me. “Sure.”
Twenty minutes later, we were side by side on the bike trail behind Jones’s house, our feet scuffing the dirt and gravel with each step. I hadn’t worked out in months, and it felt good to get air pumping through my lungs again, even if it was just walking air. The old Nikki would have scoffed at calling a walk a workout. I felt a far-off itch to jam my elbow or fist into a sparring dummy. The feeling took me by surprise. I swept it away. Walking was one thing, but I wasn’t ready for fighting yet. I strolled in silence, listening to Jones ramble on about everything that flitted through his mind.
 
; “So my mom is starting to freak out about me going to college,” Jones said. “She can’t let go. Says I’ll never come home again. It’s just New Mexico, you know? But she’s acting like it’s the other end of the earth. She didn’t bust her guts when my sister moved out. I don’t get it. You’d think she’d be used to it. My sister says it’s because I’m the favorite, but as you already know, my sister’s a bitter person. But it’s hard to argue, when our mom is acting like this. I swear if I told her I’d changed my mind about going to college, she would be thrilled. It’s messed up. Isn’t she supposed to want her kids to move out and have lives?”
“I think secretly my dad would be thrilled if I were going away, because it would mean I was doing something. Maybe we should get them together.” I was only half joking. Jones’s mom and my dad would make a good pair. If Jones’s mom wasn’t already married. And if my dad wasn’t so dedicated to his loneliness.
“Have you figured it out yet? What you’re going to do?”
We walked a few feet, a squirrel racing across our path. “Next subject,” I said.
He paused. “Okay, how about the stuff that went down at the Hollises’ that night? You’ve never told me about it.”
“Not that subject.”
“Come on, Nikki. Don’t you think it’s time? Especially now, if they’re saying it was you.”
“What is there to tell? You saw it all on the news, I’m sure.”
“Yeah, but have you ever actually talked about it? To anyone? Luna Fairchild tried to kill you. She shot a guy right in front of you. And you’re okay with that?”
“Of course I’m not okay with it. Christ, Jones, you know me. You know what happened to my mom. This whole thing scared the shit out of me. And now that it’s over, I just kind of want to let it go. I need to get my life back.”
“You’re right, I do know you. And you’re not working out. You’re not doing tae kwon do. You’re getting wasted at a beach party. Which tells me you haven’t exactly let it go.”
“I’ll get back to my old self. Give me some time. I’m not a robot.”