Page 92 of Things We Hide from the Light
“I work for an insurance agency,” I explained.
“You trying to sell me some bullshit car warranty? I’m behind bars, bitch. You see me driving?”
It was clear who’d gotten all the brains in the womb. “I don’tsellinsurance, Tina. I find insured things when they go missing.”
“Huh?”
“I’m like a bounty hunter, only instead of finding people, I find the things they stole. I think Duncan stole something that’s valuable to my client, and I think he stole it while he was plotting criminal world domination with you.”
“How valuable?”
It was on-brand for Tina not to care about the details, just the bottom line.
“To my client? Priceless. Market value? Half a million.”
Tina snorted. “Priceless as in a sentimental bullshit baggie of baby teeth? Never did understand that shit. The tooth fairy. Elf on the stool.”
I felt a twinge of sadness for Waylay and the way she’d been brought up. At least my parents had smothered me with love. An active disinterest would have done much more damage. Thank God for Naomi and Knox and their extended families. Waylay now had an army of loved ones at her back.
“Priceless as in a 1948 Porsche 356 convertible that’s been in the family three generations.”
“So you’re saying not only did this dickweasel leave me high and dry to get blamed for the whole damn thing, he also cut me out of some windfall?”
“Pretty much.”
“That son of a bitch!”
“No yelling, Tina,” the guard outside the door called.
“I’ll yell if I wanna fucking yell, Irving!”
“Did you remember if Duncan was with you on this weekend in August?” I asked, showing her the calendar on my phone.
Last time I was here and asked, she’d suggested I ask her “social secretary,” then told me to fuck off.
“That when your expensive-ass car got stolen?”
I nodded.
“I did some remembering since last time. Dunc and his buddies went on a spree that weekend. Came back with six cars. No old-ass Porsche though. But Dunc came back later than everyone else did. I remember ’cause I laid into him because his douchebags showed up without him and drank all my goddamn beer. Then here comes Dunc, struttin’ like one of those birds with the big, fancy tail.”
“A turkey?”
Tina rolled her eyes. “Jesus. No. With the blue feathers and the screaming.” She tilted her head back and let out a warbly scream.
Irving the guard opened the door. “One more warning and you’re going back to your cell, Tina.”
“A peacock!” I cut in.
Tina pointed at me. “Yeah! That one. What were we talking about again?”
Irving closed the door on a long-suffering sigh.
“Duncan coming home late after stealing six cars,” I prompted. “How late was he?”
She shrugged. “Long enough for those dickheads to drink a whole case of Natty Light. ’Bout an hour or two?”
I clamped down on my rising sense of triumph. I knew it. I was right. He’d stashed the Porsche somewhere within an hour of that original shop location. It might not still be there, but if I could find that first bread crumb, I could find the second.
