Page 123 of A Breath of Life
Our love persevered.
Months ago, during a Sunday family dinner, I complained to my mother that Diem and I seemed to spend a lot of time quarreling, and she laughed.“Sweetheart,”she had said,“relationships are multifaceted. They’re easy when you get along, but the nature of human beings means that isn’t always the case. No two people are the same. The true test of love and companionship is learning how to blend the parts of your personalities that don’t always mesh. Arguments happen, but learning to resolve them is how you grow stronger.”
And boy, did we have contradictory personalities. I sassed. Diem smothered. I always had too much to say, and Diem never communicated enough.
A rap of knuckles at the hotel room door startled me from my thoughts. It was followed by a woman’s voice calling in a thick accent, “Room service.”
“She’s here.” I lurched from the bed where I’d been impatiently sitting and dove for the door. Before I got there, a firm hand planted in the middle of my chest halted me.
Costa shoved me back on my ass, shaking his head in admonishment. “Amateur. How are you not dead?”
“What? It’s Kitty.”
A dog barked.
“See? And Echo.”
“Or a man with a gun, holding her hostage, ready to paint the wall with your brain.”
“No need to capturethe visual.”
At some point, Costa had secured a holstered weapon to his belt. He undid the clasp and rested his hand on the grip as he approached the door, using the peephole to confirm what I already knew.
“What’s on the menu?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes. Was this really necessary?
“Top sirloin and pinot noir,” the woman replied, using the code words Costa had insisted on. Any other answer would have alerted us to trouble.
“I was going to ask the question,” I mumbled under my breath, put out that my cousin thought me incompetent.
“Before or after you flung the door open?” Costa undid the dead bolt and admitted Kitty into the room. Echo bounded happily behind her, tongue lolling.
“There you go, darlin’. Go see your daddy.” My co-worker removed her leash, and Echo immediately dashed to me, snuffling my hands as I greeted her. She insisted on bathing me in kisses, and I submitted.
“She’s been to the bathroom, and I found some food for her in the closet like you said. She ate while I waited out the hour.”
“Thanks, Kitty.”
Satisfied with my attention, Echo glanced around the room as though looking for Diem. She huffed a question and approached Costa, who introduced himself and let her sniff his hand, but my cousin wasn’t who Echo was looking for. Her demeanor changed, and she went to the door and whined.
My heart ached. “He’s not here, Echo.”
She pawed as though wanting out, and I wished I could explain so she understood.
Kitty handed Costa a black garbage bag stuffed with crumpled papers—to pad it out and make it look like it was full. The notebooks we’d collected from Clarence’s house were nestled inside.
“Excellent.” Costa drew them out and flipped through the information before sitting at his makeshift workstation.
“Did you see anyone watching the building?” I asked.
“Yes, I did, but they paid this little old lady no mind.” To Costa, Kitty said, “I had a look through Clarence’s bank account while I waited. It confirmed what I suspected.”
I moved in behind Costa as he opened the bank’s homepage and copied the login information from the notebook into the proper slots. “Which is?” he asked, hitting enter.
The screen changed, and a full rundown of Clarence’s financial data appeared before us.
Kitty tapped the screen. “This account is nothing more than a front, or rather, the everyday-use one. Clarence opened a second account shortly after his wife was killed.” From a pocket on her floral dress, she withdrew a sticky note filled with random numbers and letters. She handed it to Costa and gave him the name of a financial institute.
