Page 7 of The Whisper Place
Panic crawled up my chest as I realized she was waiting for me to tell her my name. I swallowed and looked past her at the TV.Say something. Say anything except your actual name. The silence drew out uncomfortably long, until the customer at the counter started talking, drawing Blake’s attention.
I headed for the back door and threw a weird wave over my shoulder.
“Darcy.”
Max
“Max. No.”
Twenty thousand dollars sat on the desk between us. I’d counted it.
I’d texted Jonah to stop into the office after his assignment. By the time he got here it was after ten o’clock and the other businesses in the strip mall had closed up shop ages ago.
Jonah paced the same track Charlie Ashlock had worn into the floor earlier tonight. His hair fell into his face as he shook his head at things I couldn’t see. “You said you weren’t going to pull this shit again.”
“I know, but we need more paying clients.”
“This case sounds like a needle in a haystack.”
He didn’t know the half of it. I’d given him the basics, but I was still easing him past the fact that I’d broken business Rule #3, mostly by pointing at the big pile of cash.
“We’ve got the time. You said you got enough footage for the Jensen case.”
“Yeah.” He pulled a hand through his hair, still pacing. He seemed edgier than he normally did after fieldwork. Which was probably my fault.
“Great. I’ll call her on Monday and wrap that one up. And you haven’t had any dreams lately.”
He didn’t disagree and I was doing everything I could to keep my energy light and positive. Jonah picked up a lot from the people nearest to him. In the last twenty years I’d become the poster boy for Good Vibes Only, at least when I needed to.
“What about Nicole?” Jonah asked.
“She’s completely happy.” Nicole Short was the HR manager of ACT, one of the biggest employers in Iowa City. They administered standardized tests to assess high school students’ readiness for college. My wife, Shelley, knew Nicole from book club and had spent countless unpaid hours talking up the agency to her. Six months ago Nicole hired us to perform a background and due diligence check on a single new hire. It was a test, obviously. We killed it, bending over backward to deliver everything she asked for and then some. Nicole was thrilled and ACT quickly became our steadiest income stream. “I had coffee with her the other day. She said they might be on a brief hiring freeze soon. So we’ll have even more time for this case.”
Jonah grunted. “And you panicked and grabbed for the first shady stack of cash you could find.”
“Technically it found us, not the other way around.” I scooped up said stack and locked it in our safe. “Let’s talk over beer.”
Jonah and I spent happy hour in one of two locations: his deck overlooking the Mississippi on the eastern edge of the state, or my backyard fire pit. Since my suburban Coralville neighborhood was five minutes from the office, we generally ended up at my place.
When we got there, Jonah grabbed beers from the garage fridge and headed out back. I stopped inside first. Garrett was already asleep, his lanky fourteen-year-old limbs hanging off his twin bed and every light in the room turned on. I switched off lamps, screens, and devices before heading to our bedroom, where Shelley was rubbing lotion on her legs and reading a book.
I leaned in to kiss her. “He barely fits on that bed anymore.”
She made a noise of agreement. “I saw a full-size frame on Facebook Marketplace the other day. Just needed some paint.”
“And a mattress.”
“Which would be three hundred dollars, delivered, but I’m waiting for an end-of-season sale.” She smiled at me. “How did the new client meeting go?”
Nightly check-in time. Before I left the force, things were rough. It was early-pandemic. I’d been investigating a case that spiraled out of control and almost got me killed in the process. Again. Shelley had reached her limit with me and I got it. I didn’t just need a new start in my career. Our marriage needed it, too. So, for the past year and a half, we’d been seeing a therapist on Zoom and this was one of her suggestions. Checking in with each other every night. Taking time to share what was important. Being honest. And honestly? I sucked at it.
“The meeting was interesting. Jonah’s out back. We’re going to talk it over.”
“So you took the client without asking him.”
I sighed. Calling me on my bullshit was one of my wife’s superpowers.
“He gave us twenty thousand dollars, Shel.”
