Page 10 of Taken for Granite
Insurance money went to rebuilding the house, which didn’t leave a lot for new furniture. Everything came second-hand from a thrift store or IKEA. She couldn't afford to be picky, but she preferred mid-century designs and liked color. Imagine that, the gal with the blue hair liked color.
“It’s eclectic chic,” Juniper said.
“And the drapes? That real velvet?” He pointed to the cream and jungle green drapes with a floral brocade.
“It’s whatever they made in the seventies.” Mickey didn't want to swap design ideas, so why chat about her curtains?
“I like you, Junie,” he said.
Juniper tensed. He did?
“We came up together. I feel like we understand each other. You always tell me what’s on your mind, which no one else has the balls to do. So tell me, why would someone I consider a friend, screw me like this?” He clasped his hands between his knees, waiting for her response.
Juniper didn’t know how to unpack that statement. “I’m your friend?”
“Of course. My old man gave you a loan as a favor to me. He kept the terms simple because you’re my friend, Junie. And as a friend, I’ve never insisted on repayment.”
“What loan? What did you do?” Chloe asked, voice rising in alarm.
Mickey studied Chloe with those flat, dull eyes before shifting his focus to Juniper. For a moment, she recalled the cloudy gray and purple of the gargoyle. “She doesn’t know? Secrets are a terrible thing to have between sisters.” He tutted. “I pay your tuition, Chloe. You’re welcome.”
“Thank you?” Chloe tugged on Juniper’s ponytail. “You said Dad’s life insurance paid my tuition.”
“Not entirely,” Juniper said.
“Not entirely or not at all?”
Damn that Chloe for being clever. “Not at all,” Juniper admitted.
“But I don’t understand. Dad and Mom had a policy. I remember finding it in the filing cabinet.”
Juniper remembered digging through the filing cabinet, too. “It lapsed. He missed a few payments. All the money covered was the funeral.” Barely. Even with the insurance money, the neighborhood took up a collection for the burial expenses.
“And I was more than pleased to send a neighborhood kid to Longwood. It’s the best school in the city. Look what I did with my Longwood education,” Mickey said with a sharp-edged smile. “But your sister isn’t as smart as you, Chloe. The job I gave her only has two rules, but it seems I have to remind her. So tell me,” he said, turning his focus to Juniper. “What are the rules?”
“Don’t look at the cargo and no stops,” Juniper said.
“And what did you do?” Mickey asked in a deceptively sweet, crooning voice.
Juniper’s first impulse was to cave, confess that she stopped and opened the back, but she had already lied. It’d be worse for her now to confess and really, Mickey set her up for failure. He sent her to chauffeur around an angry gargoyle with no heads up, not even a baseball bat.
“That thing busted out of the crate. It came at me. What was I supposed to do? And thanks for the warning, by the way. You could have told me there was a live… whatever that was, in the crate. Or given me a gun.” The words spilled out of her.
“Junie, I have GPS on the van. You sat in that parking lot for fifteen minutes.” He stood and strolled around the room, picking up knick-knacks and inspecting the thrift store paintings on the walls.
“I was in shock!” Panicking, actually, and trying to get her story straight.
Mickey frowned. “They said the specimen had been sedated.”
She breathed a sigh of relief as Mickey’s attention shifted from her rule-breaking to his shady business contacts.
Mickey stopped in front of the credenza with an ancient tv on top. Casually he picked up a faded photo of Juniper and Chloe’s parents, dusted the frame with the cuff of his shirt, and laid it face down.
Her chest tightened. Not good. So not good.
“You tell a convincing story, Junie, but if the specimen came at you, the way you claim it did, I’d expect the barrier to be busted.”
Shit. She knew she should have taken a tire iron to the plywood barrier.
