This was who Gary sent?
“Right,” Michelle said. “Come in.”
Her name was Carlene. “Cute place,” she said.
“Thank you.” Michelle supposed she was being polite. There was nothing about her industrial-upholstered hotel furniture decorated apartment that was remotely cute.
“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked. “Some water? Some…”
What did she even have here?
“Wine?”
Carlene hesitated. “A Coke or sweet tea, if you have it.”
“Sorry, I don’t.”
“I’m fine, then.”
Shit, Michelle thought. She needed to stall her, somehow. To get a hold of Gary. To make sure that she was actually supposed to hand over nearly a million dollars in cash to a sort of dumpy woman wearing a Tinkerbell necklace.
But why else would Carlene be here?
Her phone was in her purse, which was still slung over her shoulder.
“You know, let me check the fridge,” she said. “There might be a Coke left in there.”
“Oh, thanks,” Carlene said. She smiled at Michelle. Something about her eyes looked blank.
Michelle shuddered, in spite of the heat.
Out in the kitchen, she retrieved her phone and dropped her purse on the counter. Opened the refrigerator and shuffled around the bottles of Pellegrino and cartons of coconut water with one hand and texted Gary with the other. One word:
carlene?
She moved a few more bottles around, hoping for an answer. Got out a Pellegrino and poured it in a glass. Nothing.
Shit, she thought again. She wanted her phone, and she wanted her gun, because the woman sitting on her hunter green industrial upholstered couch might look harmless, but if Gary sent her?
She tucked her revolver into the waistband of her yoga pants, at the small of her back, not sure about the holster Terry had given her. Felt the steel cylinder press against her skin. The T-shirt she was wearing was pretty baggy. She hoped it hid the gun well enough. She hoped the waistband was tight enough to hold the gun in place.
She especially hoped she didn’t accidentally shoot herself in the ass.
She left her phone on the counter.
I will never wear pants or shorts without pockets again, Michelle thought.
As she took a step toward the living room, glass of Pellegrino in hand, her phone skittered on the counter. A text.
:d
That was it.
Fuck you, Gary, she thought.
Back in the living room, Carlene still sat on the couch, texting on her big phone… no, not texting. Playing a game, it sounded like. As Michelle drew closer, she saw that it was something that involved cartoon birds.
“Sorry,” she said, putting the glass down on the wood veneer coffee table. “I thought there might be a can of Coke in the back of the fridge, but there wasn’t. I brought you some sparkling water. Just in case you’re thirsty.”
“Thanks.”
Carlene picked up the glass and took a sip. Her lips puckered, like she’d sucked on a lemon. Maybe because there was no sugar in it. “I should probably get going,” she said. “It’s past my bedtime.”
“Oh. Sure. I’ll be right back.”
Michelle pulled the blue canvas suitcase out of the bedroom closet and slid the mirrored door shut.
Gary had to have sent Carlene, as unlikely as it seemed. If he was going to LOL in response to her questions, what else was she supposed to do but hand over the money?
Besides, this wasn’t her money. As tempting as it was to think about keeping it, about running away with it, it wasn’t hers, and nothing good could come from keeping it.
“Here you go,” she said as she wheeled the suitcase out to the living room. “You need help with this out to your car?”
“Maybe getting it into the trunk,” Carlene said. “I have a bad back.”
Michelle heaved the suitcase into the trunk of Carlene’s car, a late-model silver Hyundai with a bumper sticker that said owned by a pug. After that, she stood by the door for a moment as Carlene slammed the trunk shut.
“Thanks for coming out on such short notice,” Michelle said.
“Not a problem. Just doing my job.” Carlene gave her one last, unblinking look. “That’s a not a very good way to carry,” she said.
My back’s fine, Michelle thought, and I lifted with my legs.
And then she got it. The gun tucked into the waist of her yoga pants, pressing against her back.
“Yeah,” she said. “You’re right. Thanks.”
Chapter Twelve
“I don’t know, hon, where do you think we should stay?”
“Well, it depends on what you like,” Michelle said.
She and Caitlin sat in the Great Room at Caitlin’s house, Michelle with her Safer America-issued laptop, a tiny Sony VAIO. It was just after 3 p.m., which meant that Caitlin had opened a bottle of wine. Another chardonnay, which seemed to be her go-to.
Maybe I can get her into sauvignon blanc, Michelle thought, or a good rosé or even vinho verde. Something light and crisp for a horribly hot day like today.
But that wasn’t why Caitlin was drinking, was it?
She’d arrived at ten this morning per Caitlin’s instructions to find that Caitlin was still in bed.
“Is she okay?” Michelle had asked Esperanza.
“Sometimes she just sleeps late,” Esperanza had replied, with an eloquent shrug. “You know… she doesn’t always feel so good.”
When Caitlin finally did show up, just after 11:30, her face looked puffy, her eyelids swollen. “Sorry to keep you waiting. I had a little bit of a migraine.”
Maybe she’d kept drinking after Michelle had dropped her off last night. Or maybe she’d just been too depressed to get out of bed. You couldn’t be too hard on her for that, Michelle thought. She’d had a few days like that herself, after Tom had died.
“I guess we might as well stay at the Century Plaza,” Caitlin said now, leaning back against her beige-wheat couch. “That’s where the fundraiser is.”
“There’s nice hotels in Santa Monica,” Michelle found herself saying. “Right by the ocean. It’s a really great area with a lot of good restaurants. Maybe you could… take a little extra time. Enjoy yourself.”
It’s not that I really care, she told herself. Caitlin’s problems were Caitlin’s problems, and Michelle had plenty of her own.
But the way Caitlin looked, the dark circles around her eyes, the slight tremor in her hand…
I’m supposed to be taking care of her, Michelle thought, and she doesn’t look good at all.
“I know some good yoga classes in that part of town,” Michelle said. “Plus there’s great hikes, there’s the beach…”
Caitlin’s smile remained in place, but her eyes looked puzzled. Lost.
“You wanted to start working out, right?”
“I suppose I did,” Caitlin finally said. “All right.” Something in her shifted. Focused. “Why don’t you pick the hotel? Arrange an extra day on either end. We’ll get started on that.”
Stupid, Michelle thought, as she checked hotel prices and availability on the desktop in Caitlin’s office. Really stupid.
She’d lived in Brentwood for seven years. She had friends who lived in Santa Monica. She’d taken yoga in Santa Monica.
What were the odds she’d run into someone who knew her?
Maybe she should book a hotel in Beverly Hills.
She shook herself. And thought: So what if someone recognizes me? So what? I’m Michelle again, not Emily. It might be a little awkward, she’d have to trot out Gary’s stupid story about traveling around the world to find herself or rekindle her passion for life, or whatever it was she was supposed to have been doing for the last couple of years. But she didn’t have to worry about getting arrested.