Chapter 20
I’m washing dishes when my phone rings with an unknown number. Given the situation, the attorney, all the people I have on the ground working through this problem, I take the call.
“Ace here.”
“I need my camera.”
Vera must hear that it’s the photographer because she leans in close to the phone and says, “Anna, I’m so sorry.”
The normally talkative woman goes silent on the other end of the line. Then she erupts.
“Oh my God,” she screams. “Oh my God, it happened again. I did it again. I put two people together and they clicked!”
I shut my eyes, grit my teeth. “Anna, stop. Skull put us together as a joke. Not you.”
She ignores me.
“I want to talk to Vera. Put her on the phone. I need her side of the story of how she ended up with you when she was on the way to the slammer the last time I saw her.”
Jamming my thumb into my eye, I count to ten, twice and say, “No.”
Anna gasps in anger. “You really are a big, mean bastard.”
“Correct.”
“I want my camera back.”
“We’ll see.”
She’s pissed now and her breathing is hard. “You owe me a lot of money.”
“Send me an invoice by text.”
Vera holds out her hand. “May I speak to her?”
With a grimace, I pass her my iPhone and lean in close to Vera’s ear where I can whisper, “Remember the line could be recorded.”
Vera’s eyes pop wide when I pull back.
“Seriously?” she asks.
I nod.
She gives herself a mental shake and lifts the phone to her ear. “Hey.”
As Anna tells Vera something that I can’t hear, Vera drifts over to my bookshelf, running her fingers over the spins of my books.
I can’t tear myself away from watching. She’s in my shirt. Her long, curvy legs are bare. Her hair is tucking in some kind of gravity defying knot and she is gently handling my books.
A man has never been more done in his life.
With a sigh, I scrub both hands over my face.
Now I need to get that felony charge cleared, because there is no life where Vera’s in prison. She lives here now.
I make her another coffee, and she mouths, “You’re the best.”
A crack forms around my heart. The big kind. I’m contemplating how to fix it with concrete and rebar when all of a sudden Vera’s flying across the room, putting Anna on speaker.
“Ace needs to come see you now, Anna. Do not talk to anyone.”
“Coming to me?” Anna asks. “Is that a good idea?”
“I’ll send someone,” I tell both women without even knowing what’s up.
It’s an hour when Hoss returns. He’s got a memory card in the palm of his hand when I open the door.
“This was her message word-for-word. ‘Sugar, I am a professional. That camera body writes to two cards at once. I wasn’t letting both of them go.’”