Page 29 of Thicker Than Water
“Cash?” I slide to the edge of my chair. Julia sinks into the one beside me, clutching her stomach like she’s fighting a wave of nausea. I stretch out my arm to squeeze her hand, flash her an encouraging smile. “How much cash? Thatdefinitelysounds sketchy.”
“I don’t know. As soon as Gavin noticed me, he threw it into the gutter machine.”
“Okay, sketchy times two,” I say. “Did you ask him about it?”
Maeve’s pause stretches so long that I check to make sure the call wasn’t dropped. “I did,” she says.
“And?”
“He tried to distract me, which only made it weirder. He steered me away from the boneyard, cornered me against a stack of insulation.”
“Cornered you?”
A sense memory: my back pressed against a bedroom wall, the sheetrock hard against my shoulder blades. Clive’s crawling, squeezing hands.
“Yeah, like, backing me up to it, standing super close. Then he was like, ‘Oh, it’s funny, I had a dream that started just like this, you and me, alone in the warehouse, late at night—but oh, I shouldn’t tell you more details, that would bebadof me.’?”
It’s a husky purr, the way Maeve saysbad, and it, too, speeds me back to Clive, his mouth damp against my ear:Shh, just relax. I shudder beneath the ghost of his fingers.
“That’s disgusting,” I say. Julia nods, eyes big and solemn as she stares at the phone.
“Yeah, well, I told you he’s inappropriate.”
“But that’s textbook sexual harassment. Did you report it?”
Maeve laughs. “Gavin owns the company. There’s no one to report itto. But it did light a fire under me to get things going with my store so I wouldn’t have to work for him anymore.”
“But what about that night?” I ask. “How did you react?”
I riffle through my mental Rolodex, all the things I thought to do to Clive at that party only after I was already safe: knee him in the balls, rake my nails across his face, scream until I ruptured his eardrum.
“I left,” Maeve says. “The dream thing was clearly a diversion,so whatever he was doing, with the cash and the gutter machine, I figured it was best not to know about it.”
“But Jason knew?” Julia asks. Her hands are clasped together on the table, knuckles almost white. She looks like a patient waiting for bad news from the doctor. I catch her gaze and beam out questions with mine:What’s going on? Why are you so nervous?She shakes her head in answer, then clarifies for Maeve: “You asked before if Jason told us what you saw. So he knew about it?”
“Yeah, I told him the next day. I wanted to know if he had any idea what Gavin was up to in the warehouse, but he said he didn’t. He was much more concerned about the harassment.”
“That sounds like Jason,” I say.
“Right,” Maeve replies after a moment, her voice dim with distraction as a key fob chirps in the background. “I’ll admit, Iamcurious what Gavin was up to. I was kind of hoping Jason would check it out at some point, but if he did, he never shared it with me.”
Music blares through the phone, sudden and loud, but Maeve is quick to silence it. “Sorry, that was the radio in my car. I’m on my way to work now. I should probably—”
“Wait,” I say, an idea sprouting. “Do you think the police will be back today, at Integrity Plus? I know they were there yesterday, interviewing everybody about—”
My throat clamps shut, keeping me from revealing another thing I only know from Wyatt. I slide my gaze to Julia. If she noticed, she isn’t showing it, her eyes glazed and opaque, like she’s deep inside a memory.
“Not that I know of,” Maeve says. “Why?”
“Well, I’m just thinking: say that, hypothetically speaking, a couple people were to go to the warehouse, to check out Gavin’s little gutter machine themselves. Would there be any way for those people to get in undetected?”
Now Julia looks at me, eyes piercing.
“You want to investigate it yourselves?” Maeve asks. There’s a clash of notes in her voice: dubious and intrigued.
“It feels like we have to.” I meet Julia’s stare. “The cops came with a warrant for Jason’s financial records. Our lawyer said they’re fishing for motive. So if they think the killer might’ve had financial ties to Gavin, maybe there’s something there, in whatever sketchy thing he was hiding in the warehouse, that could point their attention to someone else.”
As Julia shakes her head, she doesn’t blink. Her gaze stays fastened to mine, and I know what I’m proposing—sneaking around, searching for Gavin’s secrets—will not be an easy sell.
