We Were Never Here(45)

“And come to think of it, this clue was foolproof too.” I handed him the blue strip. “If I didn’t catch the doorman bit and took the cupcake one literally, I’d still end up here. Kristen thought of everything.”

“What, does she think you’re not as smart as her?” The joke hung in the air for a moment. The scavenger hunt did feel a little like a tacit declaration: Nobody knows your brain like I do. But no, it was a labor of love, nothing more. Not a reminder that she would always outwit me, always have the upper hand.

Aaron held out a small, neatly wrapped rectangle. “For you!”

“This is so sweet! I thought dinner was the gift.” Aaron had offered to cook for me that evening—candlelight, cloth napkins, the whole nine yards.

    A shadow flashed across his eyes, and then he shrugged. “I couldn’t wait!”

A white box, creamy and smooth. I lifted the lid, then peeled back a fold of gossamery paper.

The room fell silent. All I could hear was my heart beating in my ears.

Because what was inside was impossible. It had been stolen from my bag that awful night in Quiteria, Chile.

Inside the box was the green leather wallet.





CHAPTER 19


My fingers sprang open and the box clattered to the floor, tissue paper crinkling. I gasped and lunged for it; Aaron did the same, and our heads bonked near our knees.

“Sorry! I’m such a klutz.” I set the box on my lap and held the wallet. On closer inspection, it wasn’t exactly the same. The zipper was different, the card slots vertical instead of horizontal. Still: freakishly similar.

“It’s so my style,” I said, which was true, and forced a smile. “Thank you so much, Aaron.”

“Kristen helped me pick it out!” he said. “She said you got pickpocketed in Chile. That sucks—you didn’t tell me that.”

A rush of cold, like a tap turned on in my chest. What else had she told him? “I was embarrassed—I left my purse open in a bar like a dummy. But this is so thoughtful and perfect. Thank you.”

“I’m glad you like it!” I could tell he didn’t totally believe me. I leaned in for a kiss.

“Did you look inside?”

“Oh God, are we not at the end yet?” I unzipped the wallet and nosed my fingers into each compartment. There it was: a crisp dollar bill with Kristen’s tiny cursive across the front. I read it aloud:

    Before we conclude this, I just have to ask:

Who handles the handler’s masterful task?

Who debeards the barber and cooks for a cook?

Who buries a digger and steals from a crook?

     Who makes up a barrister’s ultimate will?

Now seek out the person who just fits the bill.



My breath caught in my throat and I was momentarily speechless. Buried bodies. Stolen wallets. Wills for the dearly departed. Friends and families and next of kin spangled across South Africa and Spain, begging for clues to the young men’s whereabouts.

But Aaron mistook my horror for puzzlement. “Sorry, can’t help you—I can’t even do a sudoku. An easy one.”

I chewed on my lip. “It’s kind of morbid, right? Burying and stealing and writing wills?” My heart thumped in my wrists and neck.

Aaron plucked the bill from my hand. “It’s sorta like, ‘Don’t bullshit a bullshitter.’ It asks who does the thing for whoever does it professionally.” He pointed. “Cooking for a cook, making up a lawyer’s will. Wouldn’t that just be, like, another cook? And another lawyer?”

I felt it snap into place. “Let me see that again.” Aaron watched, grinning in anticipation. “Oh right, duh. ‘Who debeards the barber.’ It’s a famous logical paradox: If a barber…that’s it, if a barber exclusively shaves every townsman who doesn’t shave himself, who shaves the barber?”

He furrowed his brow. “Not the barber?”

“He can’t, because he only shaves men who don’t shave themselves. So there’s no solution—a paradox. It’s a thought exercise. Kristen and I learned about it in this philosophy class we took. I forget what it’s called.”

But Aaron had his phone out. “Is it Russell’s paradox?”

“That’s it!” I met his high-five. And then the final realization clunked. “Oh my God. Russell. My boss, Russell. Do you think I’m supposed to talk to him?”

Aaron’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. “Well, would Kristen have the balls to call him up? Tell him what to do?”

“She would.” The box with its pretty green ghost inside slipped off my lap again, and I caught it before it hit the ground. “She absolutely would.”



* * *



—

    Back at my desk, I hesitated. Aaron had procured a wallet and along with it, some intel on Chile, compliments of Kristen—the story of the pickpocket, something I’d kept from him. What would crop up in this conversation with my boss?

I lingered in the doorway of Russell’s glass-fronted office, then gave the frame a timid knock. He started, then broke into a grin.

“Word on the street is it’s your birthday!”

“The rumors are true.”