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“Isn’t Sully’s shop located there, too?” Julia’s eyes grew larger. “Annisa, when Trevor asked you to store the scuba equipment at your place, did he mention anything about opening his own shop?”
Annisa stayed mum, but her eyes darted from side to side, giving her away.
“What do you know?” Julia gave Annisa the Korean ajumma look. It was a mixture of accusing and disdain at the same time, and the intent of the look was to make the guilty person confess their wrongdoing. Unfortunately, I was on the receiving end of this look several times when my older Korean aunts visited my family.
Sure enough, it worked. In a small voice, Annisa said, “Trevor said he was going to open his own dive shop.”
I could feel the heat crawl up my neck in irritation. “Why didn’t you tell us this before?” Annisa’s piecemealing of information was giving me a headache. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath through my nose.
“Annisa, you need to tell us the whole truth. We have stopped everything these past few days to help you, and you haven’t been honest with us. We deserve more than that,” Aiden said.
“I didn’t tell you guys everything because I didn’t want you to find out that Trevor offered to let me sell the stuff that my cousin sent me from Korea,” Annisa said reluctantly.
“You were going to go into business together?” I asked incredulously.
“At first, yes, but the more I got to know Trevor, the more he started to weird me out, and I became scared of him. I was in the process of moving when all this happened.”
“Ah, that’s why your apartment was so neat. All your pictures were taken from the wall,” Julia said, commenting on the neatness of Annisa’s apartment.
Annisa nodded and said, “Once I was moved out, I was going to have my realtor call Trevor to come pick up his stuff because I didn’t want him to find out where I was moving to.”
“If you were so afraid of him, why did you go on the scuba diving trip?” I asked with disbelief etched on my face.
“I thought I would be okay with a bunch of people around. I didn’t know that he would try to talk to me alone.”
I found that unbelievable. If Annisa was storing thousands of dollars of scuba diving gear, and she was avoiding my calls, I would want to talk to her in any situation.
“I take it that you backed out of the deal?” I asked, still mystified that Annisa would continue with the dive. Uncharitably, I thought that she continued with the trip because she wanted to ruin our dive.
“We didn’t have anything formal set up. It was something he mentioned,” Annisa said. She was licking her lips nervously and not making eye contact, so I asked, “What made you think twice?”
My question made the others stop what they were doing. Aiden had been glancing around the living room, but he tilted his head and looked at Annisa as though she was on the witness stand. Julia placed a hand over her mouth, and I wondered if she was restraining herself from making an excuse for Annisa.
When Annisa saw us staring intently at her, she took a few steps back. Her shoulders sagged, and she released a sigh before she said, “On our date, he told me that he had some people in Miami that were interested in his shop to use as a base for other things.”
My mouth dropped open. “What other things? And why would he tell you that?”
Annisa shifted her weight from one foot to another before she said, “He figured that if I was willing to sell counterfeit stuff, I wouldn’t mind doing other illegal stuff, too. And that’s not the case. I don’t think selling knock-off items on the internet is the same as selling stolen merchandise.”
“It’s still a federal crime,” Aiden said, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“If it helps, I didn’t sell anything yet. I was going to, but?—”
“But you got caught,” Julia said, finishing Annisa’s sentence. Her face was flushed, and the sharp tone made Annisa bow her head in shame. Julia’s accusation made my head lower as well, and when I realized what I was doing, I jerked it back up. I’m not the guilty one.
“If you don’t have anything to add, I should probably just take you home,” Julia said. Even though she had moderated her voice, she was breathing heavy through her nose, so I knew my best friend was furious.
“What about Leo?” I asked before they left without taking the cat.
Julia’s face softened when she looked at the tabby cat stretched out on the back of the couch. “Oh, right. We’ll take Leo with us,” she said and reached forward to pick him up. The poor cat gave a startled meow when he felt himself being lifted from his comfy resting place.
“Thanks! It’ll be interesting to see what Grumpy thinks of him.” I chuckled at the thought of the dog cocking his head to one side when Julia stopped by with the cat. And I hoped that after she took Annisa home, she would stay at the apartment until Aiden and I got there.
“Alright, we’ll meet you back in San Fran after we try Sully’s shop one more time.”
With our plans set, we went our separate ways.
Chapter Thirty-Two
