Chapter 9 #4
Rosa sent Christine a doubtful look. “We’ll need to take precautions, just in case,” she said, “and watch our backs, too, until we get this done.” She looked up at the wall of seven clocks in her little bookstore.
The overlapping sound of their ticking was soothing to her. “What time will Bonnie know something?”
“After school, she said,” Diane filled in.
“So in the meantime,” Christine said, then she leveled her gaze on Rosa and turned it up to its most powerful setting. “What the hell is going on with you?”
Rosa widened her eyes. “Well, that sounded nasty.”
“You’re frequently tired, you’re frequently achy, you’re—”
“I’m frequently frickin’ sixty-five years old. I’m supposed to be achy. It’s kinda my job.”
“We’re both older than you, Rosa.” Diane’s voice was low and gentle. “You just…you don’t look well. Something seems off. We’re worried.”
“We’re not prying,” Christine said. “Yes, we are. We love you, stupid. Tell us what’s going on.”
Rosa looked from one of them to the other. Her eyes welled a little, but she lowered her gaze and closed them. Christine felt as if she’d closed a door when she did that, and she wondered if Diane had felt it too.
“I don’t know what it is,” she said. “I went to the doctor this morning. They ran some tests. I didn’t want to worry Jenna or anyone else, you know?”
“What kinds of tests?” Diane asked.
“Yeah, what are they testing for?”
Rosa shrugged. “I don’t know. Lyme disease, some shit like that.” She finally met their eyes again, Diane’s first, Christine’s briefly. “Gosh, you two look so serious. I’m fine. What the hell?”
“Lyme disease, huh?” Christine asked. Then she sighed. “That’s what the doc thinks is wrong?”
Rosa shrugged, shifted her gaze to the bagel she hadn’t touched, and picked it up. “That or arthritis,” she said. “And arthritis makes me seem old, so I’m team Lyme.” Then she bit in. But she still hadn’t looked them in the eye.
Bonnie’s Lyft driver, Coy Ross, got out, came around, and opened her door. He already knew she preferred to ride in the front beside him. “Afternoon, Miz Tucker.”
“Afternoon, Coy. I have a proposition for you and a bribe to go with it.”
“Oh, Miz Tucker. You know I love you, but I have a girlfriend.” He closed the door on her laughter, then went around and got behind the wheel. “Straight home, then?”
“Depends on how much talking this takes. Drive slowly.”
He glanced sideways, his eyebrows rising so high his curly brown hair moved. “You’re starting to make me nervous.”
“Oh, psssh.” She waved a hand. “I just need to hack into my husband’s phone. You’re a tech genius, right?”
“You worried he might be stepping out on you, Miz Tucker?”
“He would never. He died. A year ago this past December.”
He faced her and he even touched her shoulder, and the sympathy in his eyes was real. “Aw, that’s awful. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you, Coy. I didn’t have the heart to look at his phone at first. But now that some time has passed, I want to.
The thing is, I can’t remember his passcode.
I knew it, I always knew it, it’s just…” She opened her fingers near her forehead.
“Poof! Gone. Happens when you get to be my age, you know.”
She smiled at him, for once appreciating her wrinkles and gray hairs.
She’d already taken the rainbow cover off the little phone to keep from mixing it up with her own.
Now she took it from her bag and set it on the console.
“My son knows the code, but like I told you before, he already thinks I’m getting senile, and—”
“And you don’t want to end up in a home,” he said. “Yeah.”
She smiled up at him, even blinked a couple of times. “So? Can you help?”
“Well, wait, wait, now. Didn’t you say something about a bribe?”
She smiled and pulled a large plasticware container from the depths of her teal and yellow beach bag. “Half-moon cookies. My best recipe. I believe you mentioned roommates once, so I made two dozen.”
“Holy—!” he said, pressing a hand to his chest. “The phone’ll take me five minutes or so, back at my place.”
“Well, here’s the thing, Coy. I need to be there when you do it. I need my eyes to be the first ones to see…the things Mark left behind. You understand?”
“You…want to come my place while I hack the phone?” he asked.
“That would be the perfect solution, wouldn’t it? I mean, if it’s not an intrusion.”
“Shoot, my roommates won’t mind a bit. I’ve had your cookies.” He smiled at her and said, “I’d’ve helped, even without the bribe. You know that, right?”
“I know that, Coy.” She patted his shoulder, then took out her burner phone and texted the girls.
Bonnie: My friend can do it. On our way to his place now. Will keep you updated.
Christine: His place? You sure you’re safe?
Bonnie:
“Only a couple more minutes from here,” Coy said. And then he drove through town, up into the hilly college area, and pulled into the driveway of a lovely Victorian home that had been turned into apartments for SUNY students.
Coy got out and came around to her side to open her door and relieve her of the heavy cookie container.
They went through hardwood double doors into a foyer with a curving staircase that split in two directions.
There was a large common room on the ground floor.
Two young men were on a sofa with game controllers in their hands.
“Yo, guys, this is Miz Tucker. She brought cookies.” He set the box on a stand, and the guys surged off the sofa, game forgotten.
Coy grabbed a couple of cookies before they reached the bowl.
“Thanks, Miz Tucker,” said one of them, and he sent a curious look at Coy as he led the way up the broad staircase.
They went down a carpeted hall, then through a door into a bedroom-slash-computer room.
It had a bed, desk, computer, and dresser, juxtaposed with crown molding and elaborately tooled wood trim around tall 1890s-era windows and ten-foot ceilings.
The original light fixture still hung from the ceiling, with three time-yellowed glass globes.