Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Nans had one rule about situations like this — when you don’t know the answer, buy time. Stall. Ask a question. Let the room shift around you until you see the opening.
The Cadillac was the opening.
It sat two rows over, dark, engine off, parked at an angle that gave its occupants a clear view of everything happening in the lot.
Ruth’s text had done its work. Frankie Malone was here, and he hadn’t come alone.
Nans could make out the shapes of at least two other people in the car, large shapes, the kind of shapes that made a living being large.
Nans didn’t look at the Cadillac again. She didn’t want Crane to follow her gaze — not yet. She needed a few more seconds.
She let her eyes move naturally across the parking lot, the way a nervous person’s might, and she found the second thing she needed.
The security camera. It was mounted on a pole near the facility entrance, a small white dome with a blinking red light, angled to cover the lot.
It had been pointed at them since they’d arrived, recording everything — Crane’s SUV, the confrontation, Sal advancing, all of it.
And then there was Ruth.
Ruth, who was standing rigid with her iPad clutched to her chest, her face pale, her knuckles white.
Ruth, who looked like a woman frozen with fear.
Except that Ruth’s fingers were moving on the back of the iPad — small, precise movements, the kind that came from years of practice.
Tapping. Swiping. Ruth wasn’t frozen. Ruth was working.
Three pieces. The camera. The Cadillac. Ruth. That was enough.
Nans turned back to Crane and let the fear drain out of her posture. When she spoke, her voice was as calm and clear as a bell.
“Mr. Crane, I’m going to save us both some time.”
Crane raised an eyebrow. Sal stopped advancing but didn’t step back.
“There are no diamonds,” Nans said. “Not in our pockets, not in Ida’s purse — though I understand the temptation to check, it’s very large — and not hidden anywhere on our persons.
Your delivery man left a bag at the wrong back door in the dark because your new restaurant is two doors down from my granddaughter’s bakery and they look identical at four in the morning. That’s not our mistake. That’s yours.”
Crane’s expression didn’t change, but his weight shifted — barely, almost imperceptibly, the way a man shifts when something isn’t going the way he expected.
“If stones are missing from your count,” Nans continued, “then either your Montreal supplier shorted you, or your associates helped themselves before handing the shipment over. I’d suggest you ask Sal about that.
But it has nothing to do with a baker who was half-conscious on her kitchen floor when they left. ”
Sal’s jaw tightened. “I didn’t take nothing.”
“Nobody asked you yet,” Nans said, without looking at him.
Crane’s mouth twitched — not a smile, just a flicker of something. Amusement, maybe. Or recalculation.
“That’s a compelling theory,” Crane said. “But theories don’t solve my problem.”
“No,” Nans agreed. “But this might.”
She paused. Nans knew the power of a pause — the way silence made people lean forward, the way it turned a statement into an event.
“That security camera,” she pointed to the pole near the entrance, “has been recording this entire conversation. Your SUV. Your face. Your associates threatening five women in a parking lot. That footage is stored on a hard drive in that office, and the young man at the desk has been watching his television, but cameras don’t need an audience to work. ”
Crane’s eyes moved to the camera. The red light blinked back at him.
“Additionally,” Nans said, “my friend Ruth — the one you might assume is standing there paralyzed with fear — has been live-streaming video from her iPad for the last four minutes. To three people. One of them is a detective with the Brooke Ridge Falls Police Department.”
Ruth held up the iPad slightly, angling it so Crane could see the screen. It showed the front-facing camera view — Crane, Sal, Needles, the SUV, all of it, framed neatly in a video window. A small red dot in the corner pulsed: broadcasting.
Crane stared at the screen. His composure held, but something behind his eyes went very still — the stillness of a man rapidly reassessing every decision that had brought him to this moment.
“And one more thing,” Nans said.
She let herself look at the Cadillac now. She raised her hand and pointed.
“That car belongs to Frankie Malone. I think you know the name. I’m sure you’d prefer not to have a professional disagreement with him. He’s been sitting there since before you arrived, and if I’m not mistaken, he brought friends.”
As if on cue — though Nans suspected Frankie had been waiting for exactly this moment, because Frankie understood theater the way Ruth understood technology — the Cadillac’s doors opened.
Frankie Malone stepped out first, his silver hair catching the fluorescent light, his silk shirt replaced by a dark overcoat that made him look less like a restaurant owner and more like what he actually was.
Two men flanked him, both considerably larger than Sal, both standing with the relaxed posture of people who were comfortable in situations like this and didn’t need to prove it.
Frankie leaned against the hood of the Cadillac, crossed his arms, and gave Crane a small wave. Just a wave. Casual, almost friendly, the way you’d wave to a neighbor across the street.
It was the most threatening wave Nans had ever seen.
Needles grabbed Sal’s arm. “Sal.” His voice was thin, urgent. “Sal, we need to go.”
Sal didn’t move. His eyes went from Frankie to Crane to the security camera to Ruth’s iPad and back to Frankie. The math was changing, and even Sal could see it.
Crane was quiet for a long moment. The wind picked up, pushing loose snow across the pavement in thin white ribbons. The fluorescent lights buzzed. The camera blinked.
Then Crane did something Nans hadn’t expected. He smiled. It was a small, tight smile — the smile of a man who recognized that he’d been outmaneuvered and was choosing to be graceful about it rather than stupid.
“It seems,” Crane said quietly, “that I’ve misjudged the situation.”
“Yes,” Nans said. “You have.”
“This was a misunderstanding.”
“It was.”
“And the recipe card?”
“Is ours. It was always ours. And we’re leaving with it now.”
Crane held her gaze for another moment. Then he nodded — once, a small, precise movement — and stepped back. He said something to Sal in a low voice. Sal’s face darkened, but he moved. Needles was already retreating toward the SUV, his overcoat flapping behind him like a flag of surrender.
Crane turned and walked back to the SUV without hurrying. He opened the rear door, paused, and looked over his shoulder.
“Your granddaughter makes very good pastries,” he said. “I’ve heard the bakery is excellent.”
“It is,” Nans said evenly. “You should come in sometime. Through the front door.”
Crane almost smiled again. Then he got in the car, and the SUV backed out of the lot and pulled onto the road and disappeared into the dark.
The parking lot was quiet.
Ida exhaled — a long, shuddering breath. “I was going to spray him with the hairspray.”
“I know,” Helen said.
“Right in the eyes.”
“I know, Ida.”
Ruth lowered the iPad. Her face was pale, but her voice was steady. “Jack’s calling. He watched the whole thing.”
“Of course he did,” Nans said.
And then, rising from the south she heard sirens. Distant but getting closer. Getting louder.
Frankie was still leaning against the Cadillac. He caught Nans’ eye and tipped an imaginary hat.
Nans nodded back.
The sirens got louder.