CHAPTER TWO
NOLA
For one stupid second, Nola thought Dre had dropped his phone upstairs.
Then she remembered Dre had been asleep on her couch.
Not upstairs.
The couch.
She slammed the door, threw the chain loose, and opened it again before either man could say anything.
“Stay right there.”
The bigger one with the beard lifted an eyebrow.
“I mean it.”
“Nola—”
“How you know my name?”
“Emergency contact.”
That answered nothing and somehow made everything worse.
She left them on the step and crossed the living room.
Blanket on the couch.
Pillow on the floor.
No Dre.
The kitchen door was locked. Downstairs bathroom empty. She took the stairs two at a time and checked her room, spare room, bathroom.
Nobody.
Then she saw the spare-room window.
Open.
Screen pushed out.
“Dre, you stupid motherfucker.”
She grabbed her phone from the charger and called him.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
A third time like persistence might change telecommunications.
Nothing.
By the time she got back downstairs, the two men were still outside.
Good.
At least they listened.
She stepped onto the porch and pulled the door closed behind her.
“Show me.”
Beard looked at her. “Show you what?”
“Whatever makes you think my brother took eighty-seven thousand dollars. Because if you came to my house at one-thirty in the morning talking crazy off somebody’s word, I’m calling the police and letting all three of us figure it out together.”
The other man smiled a little.
Beard didn’t.
He took out his phone, opened a video, and handed it to her.
Nola watched Dre enter a hallway at a business she recognized as Vaughn Recovery. He had started there three weeks ago after bouncing between two warehouse jobs and a delivery app that barely covered gas.
A minute later he came back carrying a gray lockbox.
Her stomach tightened.
She watched it twice.
“What’s in the box?”
“Money.”
“You see him open it?”
“No.”
“You see him leave the building with it?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t have video of him stealing eighty-seven thousand dollars. You got video of him carrying a box.”
The man’s mouth moved at one corner.
“That’s your argument?”
“That’s what your video shows.”
“His badge opened the office it came from.”
“Was he allowed in there?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“Did his badge open wherever you keep eighty-seven thousand dollars sitting around like loose change?”
The other man turned his face away, shoulders shaking.
Beard looked at him. “You got something to add?”
“Not a thing.”
Nola folded her arms.
“My brother is stupid in regular twenty-two-year-old ways. He’ll spend sixty dollars on DoorDash and complain he can’t save.
He’ll stay up till four playing a game when he got work at eight.
But running off with eighty-seven thousand from the same job that has his address, social security number, emergency contact, and probably a picture of every angle of his big-ass head? That’s advanced stupid. I need more.”
Beard stared at her long enough to become irritating.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You keep looking like you’re waiting for me to fold.”
“Am I?”
“No. That’s why you confused.”
The other man laughed outright this time.
Beard gave him another look.
“I’m Dez,” the laughing one said, offering his hand.
Nola did not take it. “Congratulations.”
“I like her.”
“Nobody asked,” Beard said.
Nola pointed at him. “And you are?”
“Kai.”
She looked him over more carefully now that the immediate urge to slam the door had eased.
Tall. Broad. Black thermal stretched over shoulders that suggested he either lifted regularly or had been born personally offended by narrow doorframes. Full beard. Low waves. Diamond stud. Gold chain tucked under his shirt.
Confident face.
Too confident.
Then she saw it.
A small thin patch underneath the left side of his beard, close to his jaw. Barely noticeable unless somebody was looking for a reason not to be impressed.
Nola smiled.
Kai’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You just made a face.”
“I’m trying to figure out why your confidence so high with that little bald patch hiding under your beard.”
Dez bent over so fast he had to brace a hand on the porch rail.
Kai touched his beard.
Nola pointed. “There it is.”
“There what is?”
“The insecurity.”
He dropped his hand.
“I ain’t insecure about shit.”
“You checked.”
Dez was making noises now.
“Get in the truck,” Kai told him.
“Hell no. This the best part of my night.”
Nola should not have been amused. Her brother had climbed out a window after apparently carrying a box with eighty-seven thousand dollars in it, and two strange men were on her porch.
But Kai looked so personally offended by his own hand touching his beard that a laugh slipped out.
His gaze changed.
Just a little.
It moved over her face, stayed there, then came back to her eyes.
Nola knew that look.
She had been big since middle school. Men either liked big women, didn’t, or wanted to act confused about it because they thought their friends might have opinions. She stopped auditioning for anybody’s desire years ago.
Whatever Kai thought, he could think it quietly.
“You said emergency contact,” she said. “So what exactly happened?”
Kai gave her the timeline.
No dramatic threats. No chest beating. He explained badge access, the missing camera window, the safe override, Dre’s car still sitting at work.
That last part worried her more than the money.
Dre loved that raggedy Nissan like it was a Benz.
“He left his car?”
“Yeah.”
“His wallet?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“Work bag?”
“Hoodie was in the car.”
Nola looked back at the townhouse.
Dre had come in around eleven. She had been on a late shift at county dispatch and got home shortly after midnight. He was on the couch with the television low, shoes still on. She had asked why his car wasn’t outside.
He said Keem dropped him off because the battery was acting up.
She had believed him because Dre’s battery had been acting up for two months.
Now she remembered he never looked away from the television when he answered.
“He got here before midnight,” she said.
Kai’s attention sharpened. “What time?”
“I don’t know. I got home a little after twelve and he was already here.”
“What did he say?”
She told him.
“Did he have a bag?”
Nola tried to picture the room. Blanket. Shoes. Controller. Hoodie?
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Did he seem nervous?”
“He always looks guilty when I ask him anything. Been like that since he was ten and tried to blame a broken lamp on a dog we didn’t have.”
Dez smiled.
Kai didn’t.
“I need to see the room he was in.”
“No.”
“Nola.”
“Kai.”
His eyes narrowed again.
She almost smiled.
“You don’t walk in my house because you decided you need something. Tell me what you’re looking for.”
“The box. Money. Phone. Anything he brought from the yard.”
“And if I look first?”
“You might miss something.”
“And if I let a man who just told me my brother stole eighty-seven thousand dollars wander through my house, I might be stupid. We’re both managing risk.”
For the first time, Dez stopped smiling.
Kai looked at her for a long second, then nodded once.
“Fair.”
That surprised her more than if he had argued.
“You can come in,” she said. “Both of you stay where I can see you.”
They searched the living room together.
No lockbox.
No money.
Dre’s old backpack was under the coffee table. Inside: charger, work gloves, two granola bars, folded pay stub.
Nola checked the trash because Dre threw receipts everywhere.
Kai noticed a gas-station receipt under the couch.
10:06 p.m. Bottled water. Cash.
Address three miles from Vaughn Recovery.
“You got his location sharing?” Kai asked.
“No. He got mine.”
“Why?”
“Because I work nights sometimes and he worries.”
Kai looked at her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You keep saying that and looking like it ain’t nothing.”
He put the receipt in a plastic sleeve he pulled from his pocket.
Of course this nigga carried evidence sleeves around.
“You police?”
“No.”
“Then why you got that?”
“Because people lie and paper don’t.”
She couldn’t decide whether that was irritating or attractive.
Probably both.
Her phone rang.
Mom.
Nola stared at the screen.
2:04 a.m.
Her mother never called after ten unless something was wrong.
She answered immediately. “Ma?”
“Why your brother calling me from some number I don’t know and hanging up?”
Nola went still.
Kai saw it.
“When?”
“About ten minutes ago. I called back and some man said wrong number. What is going on?”
Nola looked at the two men in her living room.
At Dre’s empty couch.
At the open window upstairs she could still feel without seeing.
She made a decision she would later hate having to defend.
“Nothing. He’s fine. Probably borrowing somebody’s phone because his died. Go back to sleep.”
Kai’s expression changed.
Not judgment exactly.
Recognition.
Her mother grumbled, told her to make Dre call in the morning, and hung up.
Nola lowered the phone.
Kai said, “You lying to your mother already?”
“You don’t know my mother.”
“I know you just lied.”
“I promised my parents if they let Dre move in with me I’d keep him straight. I’m not calling them at two in the morning to say he might’ve stolen eighty-seven thousand dollars when I don’t even know what happened yet.”
“You can’t keep a grown man straight.”
Her irritation came back immediately. “And you can’t keep your beard connected, yet here we are managing disappointment.”
Dez walked straight out the front door.
Kai closed his eyes once.
When he opened them, he almost looked like he wanted to laugh.
Almost.
“Get dressed,” he said.
Nola stared at him. “Excuse me?”
“Your mother got a call. We got a gas receipt. Dre’s using borrowed phones and moving. I want to check the station before footage rolls over.”
“You just told me to get dressed like I’m one of your employees.”
“Would please make it better?”
“A little.”
“Please get dressed.”
She pointed at him. “See? Growth.”
His mouth finally broke.
Barely.
But it did.
Nola went upstairs.
She was halfway to her room when she realized she had agreed to go looking for her brother at two in the morning with a man who claimed Dre stole eighty-seven thousand dollars from him.
She turned around at the landing.
Kai was standing exactly where she’d left him.
“If I get in your truck and don’t come back, my mama will burn this whole city down.”
“Noted.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
She studied him.
Then his beard.
“Quit looking at it,” he said.
Nola smiled all the way to her bedroom.