Page 17 of Kiss Me if You Can
“Did you always want to work with computers?”
“Yeah.” I sound boring by comparison. “Just maybe not along the path I took.”
“Maybe?” She winks at me before moving on to the next glass case.
An employee finally appears from the back room, looking us over with narrowed eyes. I should probably help Isla with the search, so I approach him with an easy smile.
“What do you have for wedding rings?” I ask, seriously hoping Isla’s theory about hiding in plain sight is correct. I’m shooting for the most casual posture I can manage, though I don’t know if “casual” can be achieved if you have to try.
The man, who looks far too normal for someone who works in a pawn shop, grunts and pulls out a box from underneath the counter in between us. It holds an assortment of jeweled rings and simple bands, so I pretty much just need to find the right sizes.
Before I can even reach for the first ring that looks like a possibility, Isla shrieks.
I jump and spin, expecting to find Frank Hadley with a knife to her throat, but Isla is still alone, pointing to something in the case in front of her.
“That’s my leg!” she says.
I press a hand over my heart, trying to calm it down. I’m not sure a man can survive this much stress in a day. “What?”
“My leg! He has my leg!”
I hurry over to her. “Are you sure?” I ask, though that’s a stupid question. It still has her shoe attached to it, the opposite to the one on her foot. The poor prosthesis looks a little battered, but hopefully it didn’t sustain too much damage. “Where did you get this?” I ask the employee. According to his nametag, his name is Geoff. Geoff with a G, a spelling I’ve always hated for some reason.
Geoff shrugs, folding his arms. “Bought it.”
That’s generally how pawn shops work, but it’s only been a couple of hours since the park. Who would have found it and brought it here, of all places? I highly doubt many people wander down that ravine.
“It’s mine,” Isla tells Geoff, her voice wobbling a bit. She’s been incredibly calm about her missing prosthesis, but I’m sure she wants it back. She probably thought, like me, that it would be waiting for her at the park as soon as it was safer to go look for it. “I need it back.”
Geoff grunts. “You can’t prove that it’s yours.”
Isla gestures to the missing bottom half of her left leg.
“That doesn’t mean anything. Plenty of people are missing legs.”
“It has my shoe on it!”
“That’s a pretty common shoe.”
It isn’t. It’s not name brand, and the teal and lime green colors are uncommon for footwear. Geoff is clearly hoping to turn a profit on this leg, and I worry Isla’s desperation isn’t going to make it cheap.
“How much?” I ask, keeping my voice calm and cool.
Geoff narrows his eyes at me. “Well now, that’s a good question, isn’t it? Legs like that are expensive.”
I don’t even want to know how much a prosthesis like hers costs. Because her leg was amputated above the knee, it takes a lot more for her to get a functional device that works for her. She has one of the nice ones too, the kind that has a computer chip and motorized functions.
I fold my arms to match our new friend. “Whatever you paid for it, we’ll pay you more. How much for the leg, Geoff?”
With a greedy gleam in his eyes, he smiles. “Ten grand.”
Those two words feel like a punch to the gut. “You can’t be serious.”
Isla groans. “That’s more than what I paid for it with my insurance,” she mutters so only I can hear. “But it’s worth more than that.”
I put my hand on the small of her back, feeling her tension and frustration in her stiff muscles. “I’ll give you a thousand,” I tell Geoff, hoping to call his bluff and that he doesn’t actually know the value of a prosthesis like that.
Geoff laughs. “No way.”
