Page 46 of Thief of Night
As soon as the door on the store swung closed, she tried the exercise thatBalthazar had attempted to teach her. Tried to see out of Red’s eyes. Tried to focus on being there with him, on the line of shadow between them.
But it didn’t work any better than it had in Balthazar’s place.
Sooner than she expected, Red was walking back to the car, hands in the pockets of his coat. He must have found the message easily. A few people glanced his way as he crossed the parking lot. Tall and broad-shouldered, handsome, driving a Porsche—what wasn’t there to like?
Immensely annoyed, Charlie got out of the car and headed for the store.
“Gotta pee,” she said as she passed him. What was he going to do, stop her?
Inside, it turned out there was a men’s and women’s bathroom. She pushed her way into the men’s, startling a guy in a backward baseball cap at the urinals.
“Hey!” the guy yelled, having pissed on his own shoes.
“Sorry!” she said cheerily as she headed for the single stall.
Rose hadn’t been subtle. The words “For a good time, kill” followed by an address in Greenfield were written in red marker over the toilet. Charlie took a photo with her phone.
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” the guy told her, zipping up his trousers.
“Whoops! Wrong bathroom,” she said as she went out the door.
Just in case he was going to follow and scold her some more, she walked quickly to the car. If Red heard what she’d been up to, he would definitely be able to guess why. But he’d evidently finished filling the gas tank, because the car was idling, waiting for her, and as soon as she got in, they sped away.
“Carli, you said your name was?” the church receptionist asked. She was in a plum sweater over a navy skirt, her hair dyed a dark red with gray showing at the roots. Charlie didn’t remember her from when Mom got married, but it seemed possible that she’d been there.
“And you’re Melissa, right?” Charlie confirmed, clipboard in hand. Her head hurt from lack of sleep and her heart hurt from Red failing to confess during the rest of the drive, but at least she’d made it to Grace Covenant Church on time. “We spoke on the phone. It won’t take long to document the damage to the, uh, undercroft.”
Melissa wrinkled her nose. “We don’t call it that. Ours is just a regular church basement, nothing fancy. It has wall-to-wall carpeting and a drop ceiling, for goodness’ sake! It’s not some medieval tomb.”
“Wall-to-wall carpeting?” Charlie echoed with a wince.
“Yes, that will have to be replaced,” Melissa said sharply. “But that’s the least of it. The cement floor underneath is ruined. It wasn’t sealed, you know, and cement is a very porous material. We need it replaced, not just some skim coat over it and certainly not just new carpeting. Don’t even think about cheaping out. This is ahistorical building.”
“I’m just doing a job,” Charlie said, holding up a hand and hoping she was playing this right. “Sometimes people think they’re going to use an insurance claim to get all kinds of deferred maintenance done for free.”
Melissa sighed. “I knew how this was going to go. Sweet as pie on the phone—making all sorts of promises—and a piranha as soon as you get through the door.”
“No, no,” Charlie reassured her, not wanting to come off as suspiciously generous but not wanting to get tossed out either. “I’m saying it’s wrong when people take advantage like that and make it harder for good honest folk like you to get the coverage they deserve. I know you need everything you asked for—my job is to find the codes to submit that will get it done.”
“The sooner the better. You wouldn’t believe the people wanting to get in and see it the way it is.” Melissa took off her glasses and rubbed them on her shirt. “We didn’t need a bunch of rubberneckers making up nonsense about a tragedy. You can’t believe what they put on the news and especially online.”
Charlie nodded. “I’m sure and I feel twice as bad after you telling me that, but I am going to have to see the space too.”
“I understand.” The woman picked up keys attached to a large plastic dinosaur. She smiled when she saw it had drawn Charlie’s eye. “The reverend loses the keys all the time. We had to put this on it to make sure we could find them for him. He’s a sweet man, but one of those people who would walk straight into the exit door five times before he thought to look for the entrance.”
Which meant that one of those lost keys could have been stolen with no one the wiser. Time for Charlie to turn on some charm. “You must take care of a lot of things around here.”
“Oh, you don’t even know,” the woman said. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“I’d love one.” Rand had always told her that people felt safer when you accepted their generosity. Plus, Charlie never said no to coffee.
“Milk and sugar?”
“Both, please.” Trustworthy people liked things light and sweet. Not Charlie’s normal preference, but light and sweet also covered a lot of caffeinated sins.
The woman poured her a cup and doctored it heavily with powderedcreamer. It carried the burnt scent of sitting too long in the pot, but Charlie drank it with a smile. “I needed that,” she said. “Thanks.”
By the time they’d gone down the steps, Melissa seemed in a much better mood. “I have to confess I never much liked going down here and it’s worse now. I’m the one who found them, you know?”
