Chapter 29 #2
“I had to try three different places to find beer at this hour. Better grab a slice. Pizza’s getting cold.” A can snapped open.
“Be there in a minute. I need to restart this print job or it’s going to take all night. I’ve still got one more batch to run.”
“Good. As soon as it’s done, I plan to crash.” This second man’s voice sounded vaguely familiar, though I couldn’t seem to place who it was.
The front door chimed once more. A third male voice called out, “Sorry I’m late.
Some cop came by my condo, wanting to know if I had seen or heard from Theo.
Someone from the bar must have called them.
Don’t worry, I handled it.” Vero turned to me and mouthed, Ben?
“I made up a story about him visiting some friends. Then I called the bar and told the manager the same thing. That should buy a couple more days. Problem solved,” he said. “How are they looking, Jacks?”
“See for yourself.”
Ben’s low whistle was almost reverent. “Holy shit, Jackson. These are good. Like, really really good. They could totally pass for the real thing.”
“I almost hate to hand them off. The whole idea was genius.”
“That’s why they pay Ben the big bucks,” the second man teased.
“I should have gone into business,” Jackson grumbled.
“Your art degree was good for something,” Ben reminded him. “These things are worth at least twenty times what it cost to print them.”
The second man laughed. “Only because that paper was a steal.”
I turned slowly toward the box we’d just opened.
To the logo of the printer spitting out the dollar sign.
My eyes climbed to the shelf above it, to the cases of toilet paper, hand soap, and photo-processing chemicals …
and several bottles of bleach. My mind raced back to the night in Theo’s house.
The laundry machines. The empty boxes. The ironing board and the wet dollar bills.
The stacks of buckets and jugs of bleach.
Everything someone would need to wash money.
… That paper was a steal … These things are worth at least twenty times what it cost to print them.
“They’re counterfeit,” I whispered to Vero.
My sister had once told me about a method of altering money involving bleach.
She had regaled us with stories about it over dinner, after she started working cases in Organized Crime.
Regular paper was difficult to pass off as real currency, so amateur counterfeiters often resorted to bleaching the ink from real dollar bills.
They could be washed, dried, ironed, and reprinted to look like higher increments.
It was a laborious process, but if it was done with a commercial-grade scanner and high-quality inks, one dollar could easily be made to look like a twenty, or even a hundred-dollar bill.
Making party flyers was only part of what Jackson and Bennett had been doing here.
“This might have been your sorority’s money once,” I told Vero, “but it’s not anymore.” And the bills in that box were worth a lot more prison time than the charges Vero was wanted for.
“Forget the money,” I said urgently. “We need to put it back where we found it and report everything we saw to the police.” I folded down the cardboard flaps and pushed the box toward the nearest shelf.
The edge of the cardboard stuck on something, and the box refused to slide all the way under.
“Help me with this,” I whispered, leaning a shoulder into it.
Vero turned around and shoved with her backside, but between the two of us, we couldn’t get it to budge.
“Save me that last slice of pizza,” Jackson called out. “I’ll grab another case of paper from the back.”
“He’s coming! Get under the shelf!” I yanked Vero to the floor.
We got down on our bellies and shimmied under the bottom rack just as the door swung open.
I held my breath as the overhead lights turned on.
My body was pressed up against something long and solid.
It crackled when I pushed against it, like crinkling plastic, and I forced myself to hold perfectly still.
Jackson’s sneakers strode toward us, pausing close enough for me to count the stitches holding them to their soles. I gripped my box cutter tighter. There was a rustling sound as he rooted through a box. I didn’t start breathing again until he turned and walked away.
Vero’s handcuffs clanked as she sagged with relief. She wrinkled her nose. “Yuck!” she whispered. “It reeks under here.”
I took a cautious sniff, my throat and eyes beginning to burn from the pungent odor.
“Something on the shelf must have spilled.” I lifted my head, craning my neck to look around us to make sure we weren’t lying in a puddle of toxic chemicals.
All I could see was the large plastic roll beside me.
It looked like a giant burrito with grommets at the top.
My breath caught in my throat.
“What is it?” Vero whispered.
I swallowed. “I’m pretty sure it’s a shower curtain.”
Vero stopped breathing, too.
We slithered out from under the shelf like our asses were on fire.
Vero shimmied furiously, her legs and torso struggling for traction.
I urged her to move faster, ready to grab her and make a run for Officer Oates’s car.
Suddenly, she went still. I froze, still gripping my box cutter, my hands and knees pressed against the concrete floor beside her.
My eyes climbed Jackson’s high-tops, then his long legs.
His russet hair was wild and his eyes sparked with rage.
He wielded a fire extinguisher over his head like a bludgeon.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” He was the fiery, angry spitting image of his cousin.
Vero lifted her chin to look down her nose at him. “We’re looking for a murdering thief. Maybe you know him.”
Jackson stared at her, as if he wasn’t sure what to do next.
“Don’t play dumb with me,” Vero warned him.
“I know you took the money from my room. You and your cousin stole the backpack from my closet, and you were going to let me go to jail for it. Well, I’ve got news for you, jackass.
I’ve got a tracking bracelet on my ankle, and you should be crapping in your pants right now because my monitoring officer is probably on her way here.
” I glanced down at her ankle, wishing it wasn’t a bluff, but the flickering light had died after her tumble into the pool and it hadn’t come back to life since.
“My police escort is going to see all that money you’ve been printing, and she’s going to find what you’re hiding under that shelf!
I don’t know what kind of nasty crap you’re using to cover the smell, but it reeks, by the way.
You and your criminal friends are all going to prison,” she warned him.
Jackson’s jaw tensed.
Vero looked confused. “Why aren’t you freaking out and trying to kill us?”
“Now might not be the best time to offer ideas,” I pointed out. I really, really didn’t want to have to stab anyone.
Vero’s cuffs clinked as she twisted herself to look at me.
“I just told this bonehead the police are on their way here. He should be panicking, Finlay. Tell him he should be calling his friends. He should be screaming for them to run for their lives! They should probably hit the road before the cops get here. Right, Finn?”
Jackson kicked the box cutter from my hand. He kept his eyes pinned on us as he called out to his friends. “Hey, guys! We have a problem. You need to get in here. Now!”
Ben was first through the swinging door. His shirtsleeves were rolled to his elbows, and there was a half-eaten slice of pizza in his hand. His curious expression crumbled when he spotted Vero and me on our bellies on the floor. “I told you to stay the hell away from me,” he said through his teeth.
“You also told me you didn’t know where Theo was, but I’m betting you do,” Vero clapped back.
Ben glanced at Jackson.
“We know everything,” Vero said. “We know you and Mia were fighting because you wanted to hide the poker money at your frat house but Mia didn’t want to give it to you because she didn’t trust your friends.”
Jackson’s gaze shot to Bennett. Bennett looked away.
“And we know Ava was the one who stole the money, not me.”
Jackson’s attention snapped back to Vero. “That’s bold coming from you. If you’re going to talk shit about my cousin, you’d better have come here with proof!”
Vero jutted her chin toward the boxes we’d opened.
“We found all the proof we need, right here in your shop. We know Ava wasn’t the only thief involved.
She had an accomplice. Ava took the backpack full of cash from my closet so the cops wouldn’t find it, but then she tossed it out my window—to you!
And you were all too happy to help her get rid of it, weren’t you? ”
“She’s lying!” Jackson said, gripping the fire extinguisher. “There’s no way she has any proof!”
“Don’t interrupt! I’m not finished,” Vero snapped.
Ben’s head tipped thoughtfully. His tie was loose and a spot of pizza grease stained his button-down, but his eyes were shrewd, his demeanor sagacious.
“Go on,” he said in a cool, measured voice.
This wasn’t Bennett the Frat Boy, I realized; this was Bennett the Businessman.
The PR rep. The expert in damage control, assessing the extent of the fire he would now have to put out.
My fingers itched for a weapon, but the box cutter was out of reach.