Page 11 of The Woman with the Wallet

It’s not like I knew he had that many diamonds in his wallet.

What the hell was he doing walking down the street with that much money on him?

Really, he only had himself to blame.

Lil looked back at her diamond scale.

“Want me to hold onto this for you?” she asked. “I doubt he counted how many diamonds were in there. And one could have easily gotten misplaced when he put them in. Consider it your payment for doing the right thing.”

I knew it was stupid.

The diamonds weren’t mine, even if I did steal them fair and square.

But I was still me. Forever paranoid about being without money again, without a home, without food and heat and clothes on my back.

“Okay,” I agreed, nodding.

“Okay,” she said, taking the diamond and sticking it in a little red velvet bag before tucking it into a drawer. “Babe, it’s gonna be alright. You will give them back. He will do whatever he was gonna do with them and forget you even existed. No harm, no foul.”

“Yeah.”

“But get it done. ASAP. The sooner, the better. Then he doesn’t get a chance to really panic or get pissed. Or, worse yet, get his boss on his ass.”

“Definitely,” I agreed. “Thanks, Lil. I appreciate your help,” I said, already mentally planning what I was going to say to this Miko guy when I found him.

“Anytime. Come back when things blow over. I will give you back your little payday.”

“You’re the best,” I said, finishing my coffee then making my way to the door.

This time, the cold air outside was welcome. It cleared my mind and steadied my nerves as I made the long walk back toward the apartment building.

It was the dead of winter, so by the time I made it back, it was already dark as fuck outside, and I was wondering if maybe I could delay the delivery by one day.

Exhaustion was starting to tug at my eyelids, was weighing down my body.

The apartment was dark when I made my way into it, and I figured the girls had likely come back, grabbed their stuff, and headed out to the protest, since the poster on the table was missing.

I made my way to the fridge, finding a sticky note taped to it.

Brought you home Chinese. Please sleep tonight.

XX Megs and Nicole

The longer I was home, eating fried rice and sinking into my mattress, the more and more convinced I was that it was okay to wait until the morning to drop the wallet back to that Miko guy.

The past twenty-four-plus hours without sleep was making me groggy and frazzled. I could use a couple of solid hours.

Decision made, I was out cold sitting up in bed, the damn carton of Chinese food still in my hand.

It was the footsteps that woke me up, frazzled, unsure what time of day—or day of the week—it was.

I shot up, knocking fried rice all over myself and my bed, as something crashed in the living room.

Logic tried to reason with me, insisting that the girls were likely stumbling around in the dark and knocked something over.

But so many years of expecting the worst, because that was all life had to offer, had my adrenaline surging through my veins, making me feel racy as my heart thundered against my ribcage.

I winced as I shifted my legs off the bed, annoyed at myself for not replacing my noisy metal frame that creaked and groaned like an old man. All the excuses I’d made in the past—it was free, it worked, it was kind of a vibe—suddenly seemed really stupid if it was going to give me away to potential intruders.

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