Chapter Thirty-Five Nic
Chapter Thirty-Five
Nic
After Harriet storms off, I shove our argument out of my mind and angrily search through Luke’s papers, where I find absolutely nothing of use.
The final email in the thread ends in a warning: George needs to handle Luke before things spiral further.
Handle? What the hell does that mean? Was George planning on killing Luke? Did Luke catch wind and kill George first?
Or am I overreacting? Maybe handle meant…I don’t know. Send him to rehab.
But doubt gnaws at me.
Then I uncover something even more interesting. A forwarded invoice for “consulting services” from a Gmail address belonging to someone named Ryan Krischer. It’s for thirty thousand dollars, dated four days after the motel fire.
A quick search of locals with that name turns up his LinkedIn.
He’s a Pleasantville native and a bank teller at a local Chase.
Why the hell would George pay a random bank teller so much money?
The timing is suspicious as hell too. But I can’t see any connection between Krischer and the LIFD.
Maybe I’m conflating things, seeing links where there aren’t any, because I’m so tired, so fucking pissed off about what happened between me and Harriet.
The audacity of her trying to pretend that she’s not only here for her career. I know what I heard. I’m not some dumbass seventeen-year-old virgin anymore, thinking with my dick and not my head.
I push her out of my mind, turning back to the screen and snapping photos of the emails and invoice to look into later.
Doing this alone has made the process twice as long, and I still need to figure out how I’m getting back to the island. I’m reluctant to take an Uber because it’ll run me fifty dollars, but I’m due at my parents’ house for dinner in thirty minutes.
Then I hear the sound of a door opening in the inner office.
Did Harriet come back for me?
“You know you’re—” I start but cut off when a man appears in the doorway.
Mid-forties and balding, with deep frown lines carved around his mouth. Decidedly not Harriet.
“Who the fuck are you?” he says. “And what the hell are you doing in George’s office?”