34 Ollie
Ollie
“So then he jumped out the window and landed on the street and ran off!” Ollie tells Safiya as they sit in the dog park, the puppies frolicking around them. “It was so fucking cool.”
Malkia brings a tennis ball over, and Ollie takes it from her and throws it again, then turns to Safiya. She doesn’t look as impressed as he thought she would by what happened after she left last night. Her mouth is open a little, but her eyes look sort of frightened.
“You had me at a party where you were interrogating a guy who got someone else killed?”
“Uh.” Ollie scratches his chin. That doesn’t sound great. “Well, it wasn’t an interrogation exactly…”
Safiya closes her mouth and smiles. She looks sad. Ollie knows this look. “Ollie, I like you, but that’s insane. Everything you just told me is insane. And you involved me in all this dangerous stuff and didn’t even tell me!”
“I’m sorry, I just wanted to see more of you.”
She stands up from the picnic table they’re at and brushes her jeans off.
“That’s sweet. But I don’t need that kind of drama in my life.
” She reaches out, and Ollie thinks she’s going to take his cheek, give him one last kiss, but instead she pets Pete, who is sitting on the bench next to Ollie.
“I’ll miss you,” she says. Probably to Pete.
Then she shrugs and starts walking away.
Ollie lies back and sighs. She’s not wrong, he supposes. He can’t blame her. But he also just feels so excited after everything they did. They saved the day! He’s a hero, right? But maybe that life isn’t for everybody.
He pulls a zip drive out of his pocket. None of them were sure what to do with it exactly.
Hand it over to the marshals, who would give it to the CIA or someone, who would probably use it to take over the Velvet Alley and use it for U.S.
interests? He wants to talk to Victor about it.
Find someone they can really trust to take the place down.
But for now, it lives with Ollie. They told everyone else it was destroyed.
Maybe one day it will be. Easy enough to throw in a sewer.
He puts it back in his pocket as his phone dings.
SAFIYA
I just dodged the biggest bullet
Oh sorry, this was for someone else
Ollie frowns and dials his mother.
“Ollie! It’s my son, gals! He’s starting a podcast. We’ll all have to listen to it. Which means you have to get better hearing aids, Sally. I mean it! Just a second, Ollie, let me go outside.” Ollie hears the laughter in the background. “Now, what’s up? Did you find anything new in the case?”
“Actually…yeah,” Ollie says, then tosses the tennis ball back and forth with the puppies as he tells his mother everything. She takes it a lot better than Safiya, “oooing” and “aaaaahing” in all the right places and gasping at the ending.
“I can’t believe Nicole did that!” she says.
“Yeah,” Ollie says.
“And Ian turned Victor down?”
“I guess,” Ollie says.
“That’s all so exciting. I’m so proud of you, honey.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“It’s going to make a great podcast.”
“Actually, I was thinking, instead of a podcast, maybe I should start a detective agency.”
There’s a pause as his mother considers it.
“That’s a great idea!” she says with glee in her voice.
“Really?”
“Yes, I’ll help! Oh, and then I can do the podcast. About your cases. You can be my cohost, and we’ll talk about all the exciting things you did. Won’t that be so much fun? Oh, I’m so proud of you, Ollie.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Ollie says, relieved that someone thinks it’s a good idea. “I’ve been thinking about what I need to do. I’ll need a website, and then I’ll need to put some ads out, develop a clientele…” He lists everything he needs to do as the dogs circle around him.