Page 106 of Not a Word

Really need to talk to you.

“There was no price on the shelf for this one,” the elderly man said, holding up a can of beef stew for her to examine.

Alicia looked up from her phone. “Huh?”

“There’s no price.”

“I’ll scan it.”

“If it costs too much I don’t want it.”

“Hang on.”

Beep!

“Four fifty.”

The man pondered this information, grimaced. “I’ll take it.”

She sent it on down the belt to be bagged in a moment, picked up her phone again, and typed:

At work. Later.

She scanned the rest of the man’s items, stuffed them into the two reusable bags he’d brought, and even though it was still a few hours before Catherine would make the drop-off, she kept stealing glances of the dumpster, making sure it was still there.

“It’s all set,” Catherine told Crane over the phone.

“You do what I said?”

He’d instructed her to find a small box, fill it with paper, heavy enough to feel like cash. Old magazines, a catalog. Once filled, wrap the box in plain paper and secure it with several rounds of duct tape.

“Don’t want her opening it on-site,” he said. “Ideally, she takes it home with her, opens it there.”

“I did all that.”

She told him where she had been told to leave the bag, a dumpster in an alley.

“I can find it,” he said.

“I heard beeps.”

“What?”

“The last time she called me, I could hear beeps. Like when you go to the grocery store and they scan your items. Lots of beeps.”

Crane thought about that. “There’s a grocery store across the street?”

“Yes.”

“You sound on edge. Can you do this?”

“Yes. It’s the least of my worries. Call me after you’ve talked to her?”

Her false naivete made him smile. Acting like she didn’t know what was going to happen. Like she was worried someone was listening in, that this would be proof she had no idea what was going to happen. Deniability.

“Of course,” he said. “We’ll have a little chat.”

Alicia missed it when it happened.