Page 77 of This Time Around
“I’m not sure I should say much,” she said. “I read all that stuff you gave me about ORS 98. There’s that stuff about witnesses or other people being legally bound by the notice or report requirements, and I was worried about?—”
“Right, right . . . theft by deception, probable cause, yada yada yada. I know the law. Still—” Wade cleared his throat. “Can you at least tell me by any chance if whatever you found needs to be . . . laundered?”
Allie felt the hair prickle on the back of her neck. She licked her lips. “Laundered?”
Wade glanced toward the house, then quickly back to Allie. She thought she heard Skye’s hairdryer going upstairs, but Wade took a step closer and lowered his voice anyway.
“Yes, laundered,” he said. “You know.”
“I—um. I guess it’s possible. I guess I’m not sure how I’d know.”
He frowned. “You didn’t look closely at it?”
“You can tell by looking?” Allie felt her brow furrow. “How?”
He gave an awkward little laugh. “For starters, I guess I was thinking maybe you saw the stains.”
Allie’s mind reeled. She tried to remember something she’d seen on Dateline about the dye packs used by banks in robberies. The teller would stick something in the bag of money that would stain the cash when the robber tried to remove it. Or was it about staining the robber’s hands? Maybe that’s where the phrase, caught red-handed came from? God, why hadn’t she paid more attention to that TV special?
Wade watched her intently, and she tried to imagine him robbing a bank. She couldn’t picture it. Then again, she couldn’t picture her parents stealing money from a bunch of innocent investors.
She answered carefully. “I—uh—I guess I didn’t think to look for stains.”
“Right, I get it.” He frowned. “I suppose you didn’t smell it?”
“Smell it?” Allie gaped at him. “What on earth would that tell me?”
Wade frowned. “Well, mostly that my client spent entirely too much time in a cigar bar.”
“What?”
“Though the cum stains were really the bigger issue. That, and the threat of a DNA test.”
Allie stared at him. “What the hell are you talking about, Wade?”
“The dress. A custom Versace, one of a kind. Extremely expensive. I assumed you of all people would recognize it.”
Allie stared at him. “Versace,” she repeated, trying to buy herself time to figure out what the hell he was talking about.
“My client—some starlet who shall not be named—said it was worth six or seven grand. I hid it in your grandma’s attic a few years ago when I came over for dinner in the middle of that divorce case from hell. Your grandma asked me to help her move some boxes up there, so it was a convenient spot.” Something in her face must have registered utter disbelief, because Wade stopped talking and frowned at her. “Wait, what were you talking about?”
“The dress, of course.” Allie took a deep breath and turned the radio dial again. She kept spinning it until she found something that sounded like acid rock, with a lead singer that screeched like someone had his testicles in a vise. Allie kept her gaze down until she was sure she could safely look Wade in the eye. He was still frowning when she glanced up.
“Look, I just couldn’t believe you’d think I’d go around sniffing other people’s smelly clothes,” she said. “Your secret’s safe with me. Want to tell me about it?”
He eyed her for a few beats, probably trying to assess if she was full of crap. Allie kept her expression flat.
“It’s no big deal,” Wade said at last. “Not anymore. I meant to come back and grab it, but then the client and her husband worked things out and decided to terminate divorce proceedings. She asked me to burn it, but by then you and I weren’t dating anymore, and it seemed unnecessary to go digging it up again. To be honest, I’d kind of forgotten about it.”
“Right.” Allie nodded and glanced toward the fence. More birds had gathered and this time she was pretty sure she saw a woodpecker. At least she assumed it was a woodpecker. It had a long, pointy beak and little beady eyes. It studied her like it knew she was up to no good, or maybe she was just projecting.
She turned to Wade again. “Anyway, the dress is safe. I left it right where I found it. You can go get it if you want.”
“I suppose I should. It’s apparently worth a lot of money.” He kept watching her, and Allie resisted the urge to squirm. He’d never been that perceptive, but maybe he’d figured out?—
“I found some money, okay?”
She’d blurted the words before she’d had a chance to think them through. The second they were out of her mouth, she felt relieved. Wade was a lawyer. He could fix this, couldn’t he?
