CHAPTER 21 #2
“Yes. But how do you know my work schedule?” Had she been following him? How had she learned when he was at the station? He parked his truck blocks away so the repo man wouldn’t find it. No one could tell if he was working or not unless he told them. And he definitely hadn’t told Sam.
Sam rolled her eyes. “I have my ways. After your run-in with the boyfriend, I figured they’d come straight to you. I’m not dense when I plan things out,” Sam said. “I knew to break in when both you and the dingbat were at work during the day.”
Mac never thought Lainey was stupid. Maybe na?ve? But Sam thought otherwise. She had absolutely no remorse or respect for Lainey.
“You can’t make moves like this without warning me,” Mac said.
“I can make any move I want, fucktard,” Sam snapped. “I’m the boss here, if you’ve forgotten.”
Mac swallowed his indignation. She had him by the balls, and he knew it as much as she did.
“If you must know... we did NOT find the coins.”
“We? Who else knows about the coins?” Mac said.
“Calm down. Bryce and Devin, my two meth cooks.”
“You’ve pulled them into this?” Mac combed his fingers through his hair.
“They have a mountain of legal costs from their drug bust on Old 40, and I’m footing the bill. Good news, their lawyer thinks he may get ‘em off on a technicality,” she said genially, shifting focus.
“No one needs to know about the coins but us, Sam. Damn it!” And she’d accused him of telling someone else when he’d told her about Jan Bingman questioning him.
“Bryce and Devin had no idea what we’re looking for. I only told them, they’re old coins.” Sam giggled. “I caught them cutting into the couch cushions. They don’t even know how many there are or what they weigh.”
“Sam, why? I thought we’d plan something together. Give me time to get back into Lainey’s good graces.”
“Ha! Like that was going to happen. What were you going to do? Show up and say, I’ve known your husband was a lyin’ cheat for years, but forgive me while I clean your gutters and kiss your ass,” she mimicked in a low voice. “As if?” she said with a sardonic laugh.
Mac drew a deep breath. “Does she have a safe deposit box at the bank?”
“I went through every paper in that file cabinet, and I didn’t find any record of a safe deposit box or even a storage facility. But! We tried to get into the gun safe. She might keep them in there. We need a blowtorch next time.”
Next time? “Sam, I’ve seen inside the gun safe. They’re not in there.”
“Maybe they weren’t in there before, but now they are.”
Mac leaned against the wall. “They’re not, believe me. I noted the combination, and the safe used to be in the garage. I checked it regularly. The only reason it’s in the basement now is because Geoff’s dad wanted it out of the garage. It wasn’t a safe place to keep it, he told Lainey.”
Sam chewed on the new information.
“Welcome to my world,” he scoffed. “For the last three years, I’ve had absolutely no idea where Geoff hid those damn coins.
He texted me that night and said he'd put them in a safe place, but didn’t say where!
When I came over the next morning to do the split, he didn’t answer the door.
I thought Lainey had already come home early, and they’d gone somewhere.
I didn’t know he was lying on the kitchen floor already dead until later! ”
Sam idled her stare on the wall.
“I’ve been over the timeline again and again,” he said.
“He left the restaurant at eight-pm. He discovered the fire at eight-fifteen. Found the coins and sat them by the back window before climbing the stairs and finding Bingman on the second floor. He pulled him outside, did CPR, but he was already gone. My engine arrived on the scene at eight-twenty-five pm while Geoff was still doing CPR on the front lawn. He didn’t have time to go back and get the coins, so he asked me to hand them out the back window.
Geoff couldn’t have dug that deep of a hole or hidden them that well. He promised me we’d split them.”
Sam crossed her arms. “You know we didn’t even do it that night?”
How can she be thinking about sex right now? Mac thought.
“He just kept hacking and hacking...I eventually couldn’t take it. Annoyed, I went home.” Sam distanced her gaze again on the wall. “If I would’ve done CPR or called an ambulance?” She caught him staring at her. “That’s of course if I’d stayed,” she said.
This was the first time Mac had heard a hint of remorse over Geoff’s death from her.
She shrugged off the thought. “Oh well, the bastard’s dead now. Life goes on, as they say.” The compassion was short-lived, and Sam’s heart returned to its frigid temp.
“Now that you’ve searched the house, I don’t know where else to look,” he surmised.
Sam thought for a moment. “I think she knows.”
“Knows what?” Mac asked. “You think Lainey knows where the coins are?” He shook his head. “I’ve considered it, but aside from straight up asking her, showing our hand? I don’t see how we’d ever find out.”
Sam nodded. “We need to straight-up ask her, then.”
“How? Even if she knows, she wouldn’t tell us. Lainey’s not like us, Sam. If she knew Geoff and I stole them, she’d give them back.”
Sam glared at the wall in thought again. “I’ll figure something out.” Then she opened the office door. “Now leave. I have shit to do.”
Mac stomped out. He’d made a deal with the devil and, suffice it to say, he was no closer to finding those damn coins.