Page 52 of A Spot of Tea
As she walked in, the memory of visiting with Joey hit her with a wave of nausea. He’d pretended to know nothing about the wheelchair that day.
How could he do that? How could he be so convincing? What else was he capable of?
She pushed the memory out of her mind and walked up to the counter. “Hey, Wally.”
“Eliza! How’s it going? Did you find that wheelchair you were looking for?”
“Oh,” she said slowly. “I don’t think he’ll be needing it anymore.”
“That’s good, because someone threw it away.”
“What? Why?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “We got a fine for having an overflowing dumpster. Turns out someone threw the wheelchair in there. We caught them on video, but no one recognized them.”
She swallowed. This could be it, the evidence she needed to prove it was Joey. “Can I see it?”
“Sure. Come on back.”
He led her to the storage room where a black laptop sat idle. Sweat slid down her back and she stood, trying to control her breathing.
“Here you go.” He spun the screen around and clicked play. “You can’t really make out who it is. Well, maybe you can. I can’t.”
Eliza leaned in and watched a hooded figure in a black jacket dragging the wheelchair behind the dumpster. They struggled to close it, then to throw it into the dumpster. The person’s face briefly flashed at the camera in a blur.
“Have you shown this to the police?” Eliza asked, trying to freeze the frame on the person’s face.
“Nah. Grace didn’t want to deal with it and it was her wheelchair. I just thought it was strange.”
She zoomed in on the face and, at first, her mind refused to absorb what was in front of her.
She had expected to see Joey – his chiseled features, his ever-laughing mouth – but it wasn’t him. It was a lady, dark hair pouring out of her hoodie.
Eliza should have felt relief, but curiously, the nausea was back in full force.
“Do you know her?” Wally asked.
Eliza stood, straightening her back. “No,” she lied, eyes lingering on Agent Stacy’s face. “I wish I could help.”
“Don’t worry about it. Do you want a matcha latte?”
“Yeah,” she said. “That’d be great.”
Nineteen
Though Mackenzie didn’t agree with it, she sort of admired Cora’s determination to get discovered.
They were all sitting in the kitchen, drinking tea, when she stomped in and insisted Russell record her audition video.
“An audition for what?” he asked.
“For whatever someone thinks I’d be good at!” she snapped, smoothing her hair with one hand and giving him her phone with the other. “It’s set up to record. Action!”
They erupted into laughter, and every attempt thereafter was ruined by either Granny, Mom, Eliza, or Mackenzie breaking into giggles.
Russell even ruined one take, trying so hard to hold in his laughter that his hand shook, ruining the shot.
Cora was undeterred. She thanked him for his help before going back upstairs to pack.
