Day Shift

“That sounds ideal,” Olivia said. In fact, it did, if she had an aunt who needed to be stowed somewhere until an assisted-living place had an empty apartment. “I hope that the hotel is a great success. Whoever thought of reopening such an old place? Was it your idea?”

Mrs. Whitefield looked surprised. “Oh, honey, I don’t have that kind of money,” she said, laughing. “No, some big corporation has lots of projects like this, and God bless ’em, they didn’t mind hiring someone like me who’s been out of a job for a year, and my husband longer than that.”

Desperate people whose loyalty can be bought and relied upon, Olivia thought. She came from a line of opportunists who specialized in sizing up employees that way. “That’s a blessing,” she said soberly.

“You bet. We get a place to live, we get to work for our living, no handouts.”

“Do you have kids who’ll be visiting?” Olivia said, while her face was turned away to look at the new thick curtains hanging at the window of the last room.

“We weren’t blessed with children,” the woman said. “But we’re plenty glad for each other.”

“Of course,” Olivia said, infusing understanding and sympathy into her voice. “Thanks for taking the time to show me the place. I’ll call my aunt’s kids and tell them all about it. It looks wonderful to me.”

As they went down the stairs, a heavy man in his fifties was coming in the front door with several bags weighing down his hands. Plastic grocery bags from the Kroger in Davy, Olivia noted.

“Harvey, I’m coming,” Lenore Whitefield said, and hurried ahead of Olivia down the stairs. “You should have called me.”

“No problem,” Harvey said, though he was breathing heavily as if it pretty much had been a problem. “I should have parked in back and gone through the kitchen.”

His wife looked as though she wanted to know why he hadn’t done just that, but she took several bags from him to even out his load. She said, “Sorry, Miss Charity, I’ve got to get back to work. Thanks for stopping by.”

Olivia said, “A pleasure to meet you, and thanks for taking me around.” She left out the double doors that led onto the sidewalk by the Davy highway. An ancient pickup truck was parked there; that must be Harvey Whitefield’s vehicle. Either he’d wanted his wife to see how hard he was working, or he’d wanted to get a look at Olivia, or he wasn’t bright at all. Maybe all of that.

She set out walking west briskly, as if she were going to Home Cookin. She glanced down the alley. There was a battered Ford Focus parked outside what had to be the doors to the kitchen, and there was also a beautiful shiny Escalade taking up the remaining room. Was Eva Culhane still there? If not, who owned the Escalade? It was way too deluxe for the long-unemployed Whitefields.

Olivia had no sense that she was being watched, but just in case, she kept on going. She crossed Witch Light Road to go back into the Antique Gallery and Nail Salon. Joe and Chuy looked up, surprised at her return. “I took the tour, and it’s really nice,” she said. “You should go see it. The couple running it is called Whitefield. Lenore and Harvey.”

Joe said, “Well, thanks for telling us.”

Chuy grinned. “The excitement just keeps on coming.”

She raised a hand in farewell. She strolled back to Midnight Pawn, going up a few steps to the door on the right of the building and entering there, turning right to go down to her apartment. She could have entered the pawnshop and spent some time talking to Bobo, but she wasn’t in the mood. She was fond of her landlord, but she found him a little boring. She still couldn’t believe he’d hidden those books that Lem had been looking for so hard and so long. Not that Bobo had done it maliciously; he hadn’t known the smelly old volumes were important to Lemuel.

But still.

In her silent apartment, she checked her special e-mail account, the one she used only for work. Her agent said, Everyone pleased.

That was his usual comment, and it meant the money had been transferred as they’d specified.

But he’d added another sentence. Other party collateral damage?

He meant Rachel Goldthorpe. She answered immediately, No. Coincidence. And natural?

Right after she hit “Send” she got up to turn on the television. But she heard the ping that indicated she had e-mail. Surprised, she returned to her desk. The response read, Sources tell me unnatural.

“Huh,” she said out loud. “But that’s a big complication.” Should she alert Manfred? On the whole, she thought not.

She was sorry two hours later when news crews rolled into Midnight.

Sorry she hadn’t left town.

6