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“What’s the occasion?”
“Well, while you were at work slaving away, I was going through all the paperwork for that store, and it’s perfect.”
“Seriously?”
“Quiet road but with a parking lot nearby. Space out back for a truck to load and unload. There’s room for customer toilets to go in if we want them. Only eighty thousand to buy, or ten thousand a year in rent. It’s a steal!”
“Why’s it so cheap?”
“Because it’s been empty for ages. They just want someone back in before the place gets burned out or squatters set up home in there or something.”
“Got a kitchen?”
“It’s small, but it’s in situ. Just needs the utilities connected. Big enough for a separate fitting room. It’s perfect, Bex, it really is. Big plate-glass windows. We can have lots on display. An affluent neighborhood, so we’ll get lots of eyes passing by every day. We could make this work.” She shakes the bottle of wine. “So that’s why we’re celebrating.”
“You didn’t hear then?”
“Hear what?”
“About work.”
“No, I went from the store to the lawyer’s place to the grocery store and then here. Why? What’s happened? Last I heard, you were deciding whether to babysit the new boss’s kid.”
“Strap yourself in. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
“Then I better open this first.”
She grabs a corkscrew while I turn down the heat under the pan. “That can simmer while we talk,” I say as she passes me a glass of red. I take a sip. “Not bad,” I add.
“Guarantees you get your eyesight back after two days. I only buy the best. Now come on, what’s going on?”
I tell her about the detective coming in about Melanie’s false accusation. About Hunter’s second offer. Through it all, Ursula sits in silence, her face moving through a range of expressions from shock to horror to awe. “Wow,” she says when I finish. “What a day for me to take off.”
“You’re telling me. I did the right thing, yeah?”
“Turning him down? I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Well, you’ve got to do what you think is right, but I know what I would have done.”
“Which is?”
“I’d have gone to meet the kid and taken the ten thousand. We only need two for the deposit on the store. That leaves eight to start finding stock. We wouldn’t have to wait a year to open while we save up.”
“But come on, you heard what I said. He’s a criminal.”
“You think he is. You don’t actually know. Why don’t we look him up?” She digs out her cell phone and opens Google. “What was his name? Hunter Lombardi?”
“You got it.”
She types it in and scrolls down the screen. “Businessman according to this. Holy shit, pretty rich too. He’s got holdings in Europe, Asia, and Central America. His family owns a lot of things.”
“He’s got a family?”
“Some of this stuff is in his father’s name. Augustine Lombardi. There’s a pic here of Augustine with two sons. That’s Hunter, right?” She turns the screen to face me.
My body reacts in a way I don’t like at the sight of him. Three men in suits posing at some gala or other. His brother is older than him, thinner, with a more pointed nose. The father is a mixture of both of them. It’s odd to see what Hunter will look like in his sixties. “That’s him.”
