Roxy came out of the bathroom. She wore a short shepherdess dress and a schoolgirl tie. “Jeez, you look terrible.”
“That’s the general consensus.”
She glanced at Ma. “She got another visit from BJ last night.”
“He broke in again?” Ma asked. “Oh my God, honey, did he hurt you?”
“No, he just wanted to talk.”
“Talk about what, for God’s sake?” Ma asked, hands on her hips. “And why did he have to break in to do that? Hasn’t he ever heard of a goddamn telephone?”
“Wait until you hear this,” Roxy said between chomps.
My cheeks felt hot. “He didn’t break in.” My voice got quieter as I went on. “I…let him in.”
Ma’s eyes widened. “You let him in? Did you offer him a beer, too?”
“No, I didn’t offer him a beer. I just thought maybe I could get some information out of him.”
“And did you?” she asked.
I took a deep breath. “No.” I walked around the counter and began rolling silverware into paper napkins.
“Oh no you don’t.” Ma wrangled the fork out of my hand. “Finish the story, Rose. Why did he come to your apartment in the first place?”
“He still thinks I have his property.” They waited for me to continue. “And he told me to mind my own business. That’s all, I swear.”
Roxy looked skeptical. “Did he say what would happen if you don’t mind your business? Did he threaten you?”
Totally. “Not really,” I lied. I hated keeping things from them, but the last thing I wanted to do was freak them out any more than they already were.
“Oh, if I could get my hands on that man — I’d have socked him in the mouth, too,” Ma said.
By then we had a few early customers, so we quit talking and got down to business. Ma manned the counter while Roxy and I did our thing. I tried to concentrate on my job, rather than my problems.
When we hit our midmorning slow down, I checked my phone. Still no Axton. But I had texts from Eric, Sheila Graystone, Dane, and two from Kevin.
I used the diner phone and called Eric. He answered on the first ring. “I’ve got something. When can you get here?”
“What? Did you decrypt the hard drive?” I twisted the old, curly tan phone cord around my finger.
“Yeah, I decrypted it, but I still don’t know what it is.”
I wanted to leave work immediately, but I needed the money. Badly. “I’ll be there a little after one.” Ma and Roxy wouldn’t mind if I skipped clean up for a good cause.
I read Sheila’s text next. She wanted to meet at Starbucks. Maybe she heard from Axton or thought of something that might help me. I texted her back and then called Dane. I figured he’d be in court and was surprised when he answered.
“Have you heard from Axton?”
“No,” I said. “He’s still missing. But I checked out some bars from your list and filed a missing person report.”
“I heard through the country club grapevine the police interviewed Packard.”
Maybe that’s why Sheila wanted to talk. Was she upset the police questioned Pack?
“…get together?”
My eyes watered as I stifled a yawn. “What was that?”
He laughed. “I said do you want to get together this weekend?”
“How about tonight? I was going to check out a few more places on that list after I babysit my nephew.”
We discussed the details and I got back to work.
When one o’clock rolled around, I told Ma about Eric’s phone call.
“Of course, toots. Roxy and I can handle clean up.”
I thanked her and gathered my stuff together. Roxy followed me outside. When we reached my car, she stared out at the traffic squinting her blue eyes against sun. “Rose, I’m worried about you. This guy who keeps showing up at your apartment, he could be dangerous.”
“I know.”
“I think you should stay with me. At least until you find Axton.” Roxy valued her space and her privacy almost more than anything else. Growing up in foster care, she never had a real home of her own. Her apartment wasn’t much, but it was hers, and the fact she offered to share it with me touched me deeply.
“Thanks,” I said as I opened the car door, “but I’ll be all right. Honest.” I held up three fingers.
She snorted. “Like you were ever a Girl Scout. I’ll meet you at Jacks’ house at six?”
“Yeah, and Dane’s going with us to the cigar bar.”
She shook her head, her shiny blue hair gliding over her shoulders. “No cigar bar for me. I have plans later.”
“What kind of plans?”
She shrugged and walked back into the diner.
Because I was so excited to see what Eric had found on that hard drive, I blew through two red lights and sped across Apple Tree Boulevard. I snagged a spot in the campus parking lot and practically ran to Blake Hall.
When I burst through the door of the IT office, Eric was alone. He glanced up from the laptop and blinked like an owl.
“What have you got?”
He waved me over. “Pull up a chair.”
I sat next to him and he shifted the laptop toward me so I could see it better. “What am I looking at?”
“A spreadsheet. Although the information was encrypted, first I had—”
I completely tuned him out as I stared at a spreadsheet of one hundred twenty-seven names in alphabetical order. There were numbers and dates next to each. “Oh my God, Eric, do you know what this is?”
He frowned. “I told you. It’s a spreadsheet. Don’t you want to know how I broke the encryption?”
“No.” I looked at him, my eyes wide. “This is a list of some of the most prominent people in Huntingford. The mayor, the chief of police… Holy freaking cow.”
Chapter 13
Eric leaned over and stared at the screen. “Oh.”
“What do we think the numbers mean? Forty-five thousand, eighty-three thousand. Packard Graystone’s name is on this list and his numbers add up to one hundred ninety-six thousand.”
“I have no idea.”
“How does this tie in with Axton?” I asked, staring at the computer.
“I really don’t know.”
I rubbed my hands over my eyes. How did NorthStar Inc. come into play? Or did it? And where did BJ fit in?
Eric reached out and patted my back. “Hey, you okay?”
I shook my head. From the corner of my eye, I saw the door open. Steve popped his head into the office, his gaze darted from Eric to me.
“Hey, Rose, what are you doing here? Is everything all right?”
“I finally broke the code,” Eric said.
“That’s great. So what was it?” He pulled a chair over to Eric’s desk and sat next to me.
“It’s a list of prominent Huntingford citizens with numbers and dates next to their names,” I said.
He looked at the screen. “Hmm. Money?”
I shrugged. “Could be. These are wealthy people. Could be donations for all we know.”
