Dear Wife(68)

“Die of boredom, mostly.”

“Why does the Reverend want you up here? What made him ask you?”

“I don’t know. The bookshelves, I guess. And you know how the Reverend is. He likes to take care of people.” I think of my sudden tears that first day, the way he told me I was safe here. In the days since, he’s certainly made good on that promise.

“He’s never taken care of me like that.”

A question lingers in the air between us, but I don’t touch it. Martina wants to know what makes me special, and to answer is to acknowledge she’s right. The Reverend has singled me out, and for reasons I don’t understand and would rather not think about. Why me? Why not her?

She pushes off the wall, stalking straight at me. Automatically, my hands move to the belt at my waist. My palms spread out, my fingers curling around the edges.

“Tell me you didn’t take the money, Beth. Look me in the eye and tell me it wasn’t you.”

“I can’t believe you’re even asking me that.”

“Say it.”

Panic flutters like a swarm of bats in my chest, but I park my expression in neutral. “I’ll tell you, if you tell me who Rosa and Stefan are.”

The names—the ones written in complicated, curly script on the silver discs hanging from her neck. Her face pales at the accidental bull’s-eye. My heart kicks, then stops completely, as does my breathing. If she looks me in the eyes and answers me honestly—if she trusts me enough to tell me this truth—then I will do the same with her. I will sit her down and tell her mine, the whole sad, sordid story.

She leans in so close that her features go out of focus. “Put it back, Beth. You’re not the only one who’s going to pay if you don’t. Put the money back.”



MARCUS

There are a few dozen authorized cell phone retailers in Pine Bluff proper, wireless franchises like AT&T and Sprint, along with a couple of big-box stores like Walmart. Places lawful people go when they’re shopping for a cell phone, the kind that have customer service departments and surveillance cameras.

And then there are the unauthorized outlets, repair shops and minimarts where cell phones are bought and sold on the sly. I start there, on the north side of town and work my way south.

And every time, it goes a little something like this:

Me, flashing badge: Detective Marcus Durand, Pine Bluff PD. I’m looking for a female, early thirties, brown hair and eyes, five-eight, slim build.

Store manager: I’d love to help you, Detective, but that’s half the women who come in this place.

Me, holding up a photograph: I’m thinking you’d remember this one.

Manager, whistling: She’s pretty, all right.

Me: She would have purchased multiple prepaid cell phones, and she would have paid in cash. The transaction would have been in the past month or so.

Manager: Sorry, Detective, we have dozens/fifty/hundreds of transactions a day. It’s impossible for me to remember every one.

Me, slapping down a fifty: How about you check your computer? If her transaction is in there, it won’t take you that long to find it. It would have been bigger than usual, and all cash.

Him, pocketing the fifty and slinking off to the back.

Sometimes it takes him a couple of minutes to search, sometimes longer. But every time, when he returns from whatever back office he disappeared into, he’s shaking his head, and every time, I leave the store empty-handed.

Except for this time.

This time, the manager walks out, grinning like a fool. “May 24 at 10:24 a.m. She bought four. Two new LG K8s, and two refurbished Motorolas. Total, including tax and minutes, was $407.73.”

I breathe through the white-hot rage, waiting for the flames to cool, but the anger doesn’t subside. Four hundred dollars is a lot of money to have spent in a place like this one, a total dump. The kind of store that has a gun under the register and bars on the windows to tamp down on the drive-bys. The kind that trades stolen goods for stolen cash.

“I’m going to need the numbers,” I say through clenched lips. My jaw is like a boulder, bearing down on my molars hard enough to crack them in two.

The manager frowns, his face scrunching into a heinous mess. “I just gave you the numbers.” He looks at the paper in his hand, where he’d scribbled the basics in messy blue pen. “Here—$407.73.”

“The phone numbers.” My hands curl into fists, my muscles vibrating with the force of holding them still. I want to punch this idiot in his ugly face for fucking with me.

Especially when he drops his hands in his pockets and leans back on his heels, squinting in a way that doesn’t look the least bit thoughtful. “I’d love to help you, Detective. Really I would. But I can’t be handing out a private citizen’s telephone number to just anybody.”

“How about to an officer of the law? Can you hand it out to him?”

He shrugs. “With proper motivation, I can.”

In other words, another fifty.

“You really want to go down this route? Because I can arrest you for soliciting a bribe, or I can go get a warrant not for just one transaction, but for all of them. Which one would you prefer?”

His smug expression disappears. “I’ll be right back with those numbers.”

“That’s what I thought.”