Page 46 of Caper Crush
“Is there a code that you flash?”
“I can’t share that. It’s classified.”
“Did you stick your tongue out at them?”
I stick out my tongue at William. “No.”
I wind up my race car toy, and it speeds over to him. “Jealous?”
“I would be if I was five.”
“I got the boy toy for you,” I say.
William’s eyes widen, and he runs his hand through his black hair.
“I was worried you might not know the secret code,” I say.
William picks up the toy car, looking flustered.
I dip my chicken nugget into the peanut sauce. He winds the car up and zooms it over to me.
“You don’t want it?”
“No, I want it,” he says. I wind the toy car up again and send it back to him.
“I already have one. They’re good value.” I finish my fries. “I think Edmund was the one who toldThe Squirrel. Do you think Vinnie and Edmund could be working together? I didn’t hear anything suspicious.”
“We learned that it could be a possibility,” he says.
“Let’s put them both as having a personal motive to hurt me.” I mark it down in the spreadsheet. “But if they are working together, why would they want us to know that?” I lean back against my chair.
“If this crime is supposed to be personal, maybe they want you to know you have two enemies.”
Two enemies.Great.Just what I need. Vinnie or Edmund risking jail to sabotage my career is hard to believe, but it has to be one or both of them.
William reaches out a hand as if to reassure me, then pulls back. I don’t want him to worry.
“We should get a McDonald’s ice cream for dessert,” I say.
“Funny,” he says. “I also always skip the ice cream trucks and get a McDonald’s ice cream instead when I crave the softy ice creams in the summer. Juri always made fun of me about that.”
“Who’s Juri?”
“She was my girlfriend in business school.” His eyes turn dark, and his brow puckers a bit, but there’s also a faint shadow of a smile on his lips.
“Why’d you break up?”
“She wanted to move back to Japan, and I didn’t,” he says.
Is William still in love with Juri? Is Juri the one who is now married? That would be too obvious to ask. Does he regret letting her go?
I place my empty containers and wrappers on the tray. “Why didn’t you want to move back to Japan?”
“I lived there for a year after college, before business school. I loved it, but ultimately, I feel I’m just too American to live there for the rest of my life. I do need to visit frequently to recharge.” He stands. “I’ll go order the ice creams.”
I empty our tray of containers into the garbage and then wait by the exit. William joins me and hands me my ice cream cone. It’s dark outside now, and the air is cool.
“I know what you mean about being too American,” I say. “My dad is Dutch. I did an art internship in Amsterdam, and I loved it. But living in Amsterdam permanently … I’m too much of a New Yorker. I couldn’t even move to California when Peter asked me to.”
