Folk Around and Find Out (Good Folk: Modern Folktales #2)(47)

Clearly, this was not what he’d expected me to say. Some of his frigid aloofness melted into confusion. “What are you—”

“I never wanted to strip here or anywhere else,” I plowed ahead, seeing no reason to gentle the information or employ a softer approach, given how impatient he seemed to be. Heck, he’d probably be overjoyed by the news of my departure. “I never wanted to be a dancer, I never needed the money. I lied to you. I came here because my cousin has been missing for over a year, and her parents—my aunt and uncle—got a tip that she was stripping in Green Valley. I volunteered to pose as a dancer for a few weeks to gain the trust of the ladies so I could find my cousin, who, it turns out, is one of your dancers. Well, she was one of your dancers. So, there you go.”

He gaped at me and I mentally shrugged off the bewilderment behind his expression. He could think whatever he wanted. He clearly couldn’t stand me. So be it.

I soldiered on, matter-of-fact. “I thought you should know the truth. This is me giving you my two weeks’ notice. I’ll train whoever you want me to train. And, well, that’s it. Bye.”

Turning on my heel, I marched back down the hall the way I came, feeling like crying for the second time today. I breathed in, I breathed out, and must’ve been so focused on not crying, I didn’t hear Hank’s steps follow.

“Wait,” he said, entering the room after me and shutting the door quickly. “Wait a minute.” He’d lifted a hand, his eyes searching.

I raised my chin and let him look while not allowing myself to study his features too intently. Maybe this news made him only mildly happy, maybe he was ecstatic. Whatever. I didn’t want to know. He wanted me gone, I would be gone. I was certain there would be much rejoicing. The end.

Finally, after a long moment of staring at me, he shifted his weight to his back foot, cleared his throat, and said, “Why don’t you start at the beginning. Please.”

“Fine,” I said evenly and turned. Walking to the far side of the space, I claimed the spot by the window Hannah had occupied earlier. “I have a cousin. She’s almost twenty. She went missing a year ago. My aunt and uncle were worried. They got a tip she was dancing at a club on the outskirts of Green Valley.”

While I told him about my aunt and uncle being scared out of their minds for their daughter, about how they’d wanted to borrow money from me and my mother to hire a PI, about how I’d offered to pose as a dancer instead, I carefully distanced myself from whatever reaction my revelations elicited, a survival skill I’d mastered while married to Kevin.

I did not tell him that Heather was using drugs while working at The Pony or that she was an addict prior to running off, but I did tell him how I’d approached Hannah first, and how she’d made me realize that to find Heather, I would have to lie. I’d have to go undercover at one of the strip clubs.

“You never needed the money?” Hank interrupted, sounding curious rather than ranting about betrayal. Ranting about betrayal had been the response I’d expected.

“Correct,” I said, bracing for him to scream at me any minute.

Any minute.

Any minute now . . .

“And Hannah knew what you were up to?” he asked, his confusion plain, like he found this particular part suspect.

I tensed. “Don’t blame Hannah. She came to me with an ultimatum and told me to tell you the truth. The circumstances with my cousin . . . her issues are complicated, and Hannah is trying to do the right thing. I’m the one who put Hannah in an impossible situation, and I guess I still am. But that’s neither here nor there. Point is, Hannah cares about you. You can trust her.”

“And that’s why you’re telling me now?” Again, he sounded like he sincerely wished to understand but wasn’t angry—yet. “Hannah forced your hand and you want to keep looking for this cousin?”

“No. I know how to reach my cousin now, and I could’ve quit without telling you everything. I’m telling you the truth now because I wanted you to know that you did nothing wrong. This is my fault. No matter what job I’d been hired for, the plan was always for me to stay two weeks to find Heather and then quit.”

His eyes flickered, a quick series of emotions arresting his features, an enigmatic parade of thoughts and feelings. “Only two weeks?” he asked, his voice scratchy. “That’s—”

“Yes. Almost up. But I’m changing the plan. I want to give you a full two weeks’ notice, longer if you need me. I’m invested in seeing the transition to FastFinance through to the end and helping train the new person.”

Despite telling myself to block out his reaction, some compulsion had me attempting to interpret it. Hank looked off-kilter and torn and mighty confused. He did not look angry, though. His mouth opened, then closed, then he frowned at the floor, and then his eyes drifted shut.

“Charlotte—”

I stepped away from the window. “Listen, I’ve worked really hard to modernize your bookkeeping.” The same compulsion that had demanded I attempt to decipher his reactions urged me to explain myself.

Meanwhile, all my other instincts told me to let it go. He didn’t want me here; he’d never wanted me here.

Why I kept on talking, I had no idea. “You do not need a full-time person. You don’t even really need a person at all if you let me train you. It will take you an hour once every two weeks to run payroll, three or so hours a month to reconcile your charges, and a few hours a year to generate your 1099s, W-2s, and pull together your profit and loss statements for the IRS.”