First Girl Gone(88)

Silence stretched out over the line. Charlie crossed her fingers.

“Bring me proof. Figure out who’s sending you the emails, and I’ll take it to the sheriff.”

As Charlie ended the call, Marlowe strode over and wound around her ankle. She stooped to scratch the top of the cat’s head.

Figure out who was sending the emails, Charlie thought to herself. Easier said than done, considering the police had already tried and failed on that front.

“What would Frank do in my shoes?” she asked the cat as she stroked the velveteen fur just behind his ears.

Marlowe didn’t answer, but Frank did. Charlie stood. He’d told her what he’d do with the emails, back when she’d gotten the first one with the clue about following the White Rabbit.

“The technology stuff is all over my head, but I got a computer guy you could talk to,” he’d said. “Ask for Mason, and tell him Frank sent you.”

Charlie swiped her keys from where she’d dropped them on the counter and dashed for the door.





Chapter Seventy-Two





Charlie stood for a moment in front of the huge industrial building, staring up at the sign out front. She’d assumed the dispensary was merely inside the former warehouse, perhaps one of many small shops. Now that she was here, it appeared—at least from the outside—that the dispensary occupied the entire space. The name of the place stretched from one side of the industrial facade to the other in bold white letters: Dank of America.

The front doors swooshed aside and Charlie found herself in a small anteroom. Behind a thick wall of glass—bulletproof, most likely—a man sat behind a desk.

“Good afternoon, ma’am. Have you visited us before?”

“No.”

“OK. If you could just slide your ID through the slot there.”

Charlie removed her driver’s license and passed it through the small notch in the glass.

The man put her ID through a scanner, tapped a few buttons on his computer screen, and handed it back.

There was a subtle hiss as the inner doors of the dispensary swept open, and Charlie couldn’t help but feel impressed by the level of professionalism. A dedicated security guard? Bulletproof glass? She’d been expecting something rinky-dink, a dim place lit with black lights that reeked of patchouli. Velvet posters on the wall and novelty bongs on the shelves. This seemed like a serious operation.

“You’re all set.”

“Thanks,” Charlie said.

Stepping through the next set of doors, her wonder only increased. The interior brick walls had been painted white, giving the place a sleek, modern look. There was a row of what looked like old card catalogue cabinets from a library behind one counter. The other end of the space was set up like a small café, with the edibles displayed in glass bakery cases and apothecary candy jars. It was entirely more high-end than what she would have expected from a marijuana dispensary, especially one located on Salem Island.

Charlie approached the counter, where a woman with bright pink hair and a name tag that read, “Janice!” greeted her.

“What can I help you with today?”

“I’m looking for Mason?” Still stunned at the slickness of the place, it came out as half-question.

“One second,” the woman said.

She slid a phone from a black apron at her waist and tapped at the screen.

“He should be right out.”

A moment later, a man with black-framed glasses and dark hair stepped out from a door set in the back wall.

“Charlie Winters,” he said. “I’d heard you were back in town.”

“Hello, Mason.”

Mason Resnik had been in the same class as Charlie and Allie all the way from second grade through graduation. He was so good with computers, even back then, that the school district had hired him to do tech support while he was still a sophomore. She remembered him getting called out of English lit more than once to troubleshoot for the principal.

He leaned his elbows on the counter.

“What’s brought you to my humble establishment today? Business or pleasure?”

“Business, actually.”

“Working for Frank, I hear.”

“Yeah. I have a computer-related mystery I could use some help with.”

“Why don’t you come back to my office?” he said, gesturing that she should follow him.

He came around the counter and led her down a hallway. They passed a bank of windows on one side that looked out on a warehouse area. The huge space had been converted into a massive grow room—literally a forest of marijuana. At least half a dozen employees worked among the plants, all of them wearing lab coats, masks, and hair nets.

“Holy shit,” Charlie said.

Mason turned and flashed a smile.

“What do you think of my empire?”

“You’ve come a long way from carving a bong out of a block of Cheddar cheese.”

“I forgot about that,” he said, chuckling.

His office was up a flight of open stairs that led to a second-floor loft space with exposed concrete walls and black steel beams. The entire back wall was glass. Through the paned window in Mason’s office, Charlie watched a barge float past, being pushed upriver by a tugboat.

“Let’s see what you’ve got,” Mason said, pointing to an open spot on his desk.