Page 12 of A Medium Fate


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Laughing, I nodded. “You can call it whatever you want, but please try to be specific. Nic, you’re on the fourth floor. Bubba, floor two. I’ll hit the first floor as soon as I make the calls to keep on the lights.”

“Dean says he’s filed an injunction on Goldstein’s estate, including freezing his financial assets so if you do change your mind, you should still be able to get your money back.” Nic said, pausing at the doorway.

“I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that. I love this place. You should see all the stuff he has just sitting upstairs. He really needed someone with some design experience working for him instead of paying salesmen way too much with nothing to show for their efforts.” I opened the laptop and went to the folder called costs. I should find what I was looking for here. Or at least a starting point. Nic was still standing by the door watching me. “What?”

“You are enjoying yourself, aren’t you? I could use you in clearing out some of the locations that aren’t making a profit in our family business.” He smiled and left the office.

His message was clear. If I decided that cleaning up Goldstein’s Antiques wasn’t worth my time or that Matty had sold me a failing or dead business, I could go work for the family. It wasn’t a job I wanted. But as I made my first call to the power company, it was nice to know I’d be appreciated. And honestly, that I had a fall-back position that wasn’t running back to Seattle.

By the end of the day, I had a full list of what was and what wasn’t in inventory. I’d check the list against what had been sold the last quarter, but I knew I was missing a lot of stuff. We sat at a table on the main floor, drinking a six pack, and eating tacos that Nic had someone from his office, deliver.

“You have a lot of nice stuff up there. My mom would love to come look at some things for her dining room. She remodeled the house when my brothers and I left home for college. Now that my dad’s gone, she’s doing it again.” Bubba ate another taco and washed it down with a swig of the beer. “This would be a fun place to work at.”

Nic shook his head and grinned at me. “You’ve already brainwashed him to your side. No wonder I can’t keep good employees.”

Bubba choked on the swig of beer he’d just taken. “Oh, no, I didn’t mean I didn’t love my job with Ardronic Enterprises. I do. Since you assigned me to watch your sister, I’m a lot more active. Usually, I stand for ten hours a day. Just stand in one place and watch. Which is a good thing, I’m not complaining since it means nothing bad is happening. Maybe I should just shut up now before I talk myself out of a job.”

I giggled as I leaned back and looked around at the furniture. “I do have a fun job. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell my brother for years. I’d die if I was stuck sitting at a desk all day. Doing this, I get to be around pretty stuff all the time and make other people’s homes beautiful.”

“You do seem to have a talent.” Nic nodded to the dining room set I’d put up front while I was doing inventory. “Maybe I should hire you to redo the family house. It’s been a while since anyone touched anything there. Sometimes it feels more like a shrine to our family history than a home.”

“Now that you own it, you can do anything you want.” I knew how hard it had been for him to stay behind. To be the one taking care of the family and the business. “If you’re serious, I’ll take you on as my first client. I can get some great photos and experience that way. And maybe we can have the house highlighted in a local magazine. I’m sure there’s a few that would die to get inside our home.”

“More than likely,” Nic pushed his last taco away, clearly not happy with the idea of more attention. “And now you’ve ruined my appetite. Let’s talk about this place. When will you have a list so we can go to Goldstein’s house? The sooner we do this, the more likely it is that you’ll get your property back.”

“It’s Wednesday, right?” When Nic nodded, I continued. “I can match up the missing inventory with the sales records tomorrow.”

“I can help.” Bubba said, and then added, “and watch your back.”

“Okay, with me and Bubba working on it, we should be done tomorrow before five, maybe six.” I had kept the lists in front of me and had gone through, highlighting what was missing. The list of misplaced things was really small. Only one or two items per floor. No, the missing items were mostly off site somewhere else. Like Matty’s house.

Nic opened another beer for me and handed one to Bubba as well. When he tried to refuse, Nic set the open bottle in front of him. “I’ll have someone drive you home when your shift ends, don’t worry.”

“Thank you, sir.” Bubba finished his last taco.

“Anyway, if you can have the list ready by then, I’ll have Dean set us up a visit to Goldstein’s house first thing Friday morning. Then you can have the weekend to decide if you’re keeping this money pit.”

Bubba laughed and then covered his mouth. “Sorry, that was a funny movie. My mom used to watch it all the time.”

“I’m not changing my mind about the sale. I might ask for some money back to compensate for the missing items.” I took in the antiques we were sitting and drinking beer around. Some had come over from Europe with local families whose houses no longer highlighted the beauty of the pieces. Others had been sold in estate sales or when the family fell on hard times. No matter how the pieces had arrived here, they had a story.

You just had to listen to hear it.

A vision swirled around the empty chair next to me. A man in an old fashion suit and wire rimmed glasses smiled at her. “I have to say, I’m quite enjoying listening to you and your thoughts about the items here. You seem to understand the value of things, not like so many of the others who wander past here, looking for the next plastic piece of furniture to waste their money on.”

I heard Bubba’s gasp but ignored it. If he was going to be hanging around with me, he needed to get used to the appearance of visitors. I focused on the apparition. “I’m assuming you’re Harry?”

“Harrold Eugene Winchester at your service. I owned this place a few hundred years ago, it’s hard to keep track. Long before Mr. Goldstein bought the place and named it after himself. Such an ego, that man. I called the shop, New Orleans Best Antiques. He thought it sounded commercial. Of course, it’s commercial. How do people know what you’re selling if you don’t announce it.” He pointed to the last taco. “Now that smells amazing. What is it called again?”

I explained tacos and their country of origin, at least what I knew about the food. As Harry started to disappear, I realized he might have witnessed Matty’s murder. “I’m sorry to bother you, but did you happen to see Matty Goldstein when he was killed?”

Harry nodded, his face sad. But when he opened his mouth, no words came out and the last of his spirit disappeared.

I slapped the table with my open hand. “I should have asked him that earlier. But no, I go on a long explanation of tacos and Mexican cuisine.”

“You were talking to a ghost,” Bubba said.

“It’s a common problem. You get comfortable chatting and forget the most important subject. It’s like calling someone and forgetting to ask the one question you called about because you get involved in the conversation.” Nic pointed out.

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