At 8:00 a.m. sharp, a skeletal man with a slick comb-over and a bad case of scoliosis opened the door to Quick Money Pawn & Gun. I gave him ten minutes to get settled, then followed him inside, tote bag hanging from my right shoulder. The place was a junkyard with a roof over its head. You couldn’t take a step without tripping over an appliance or a box of comic books. Rifles and guitars hung side by side on every wall. Bicycles dangled from the ceiling. Power tools filled a metal shelving unit stuck precariously in the center of the store. Boxes of cheap cigars stood ten deep at the far end of the counter.
The owner was smoking one now, eyeing me from behind a glass display case cluttered with knives and watches and the kind of costume jewelry Anna Costello wouldn’t be caught dead wearing. I walked over to him, set the bag on the counter, kept the straps drawn tight.
“My first of the day,” he said, turning his head to blow out a ring of very rank-smelling smoke. “What can I do you for?”
I had to wonder how many sad and desperate women had been here before, standing where I now stood, hoping this greasy stick figure of a man would pay enough for their baubles to get them out of town.
“I’ve got something—some things—I’d like to sell,” I said.
I stopped there. I had a whole sales pitch planned, but my voice was quaking, and I knew the more I talked the more I’d give myself away. Instead, I just opened the bag.
He took a long look inside, and while he looked it dawned on me that he might very well have ties to the Costello family. Pawnshops need protection. More protection than most businesses. On top of which they’re an invaluable source of intel. A handgun just came in? Who sold it, and who got clipped the night before? Someone pawned a sixty-four-inch TV and a set of silver steak knives? Who got robbed, and how much would they pay to get their stuff back? I cursed myself for the risk I was taking, but it was too late now. Besides, I didn’t exactly have an abundance of options.
“Interesting,” the man said. “Very interesting.”
Interesting? It had to be the biggest haul his little shop had ever seen.
“You are looking to sell all of this?” he asked.
I nodded.
He started sifting through the bag, cautiously at first, but then two pieces in particular caught his attention: Anna’s antique silver locket, and a high-clarity blue sapphire pendant that Anthony had given her quite publicly at a banquet celebrating their tenth anniversary. The broker set them on his palm, held them up to the light.
“I need to look at these under the glass,” he said. “Please wait here—I’ll just be a moment.”
I started to protest, but before I could get out a word he’d turned his back to me and slipped into a side room. I thought about sacrificing those two pieces and running off with the rest. What if he was on the phone to the police? To Vincent? Maybe he’d recognized the sapphire. Maybe he’d been at that banquet.
Not yet, Sarah, I told myself. Hold your ground.
After what felt like a dozen lifetimes, he came back, grinning from ear to ear. I guessed this was his salesman persona.
“Sixty thousand,” he said. Just like that.
“For the two pieces?”
“For all of it.”
I studied his expression. He wasn’t joking. It was enough to snap me out of flight mode.
“Sixty thousand?” I said. “They’re worth ten times that.”
“Yes,” he said, “but how much is discretion worth?”
I took a step back, stumbled over a crate of naked Barbie dolls.
“Discretion?” I said.
“I’ve been at this a long while,” he said. “You and I both know those jewels don’t belong to you. We both know how you came by them, and we both know that whoever you took them from has far more resources than you do.”
I reached for the bag, grabbed the closest strap. He grabbed the other.
“How do you know this isn’t a sting?” I bluffed.
He sniggered.
“Like I said, I’ve been at this awhile. I can tell the difference between a setup and a getaway. There’s a window in my office. I took down your license plate. I’ll know who you are five minutes after you walk out that door. Is sixty thousand starting to sound fair?”
I nodded, felt my face turning colors.
“I should think so”—he smiled—“given what you paid for them.”
The stacks of bills fit neatly inside Anna’s tote bag.
Chapter 20
“YOU PAWNED Anna Costello’s half-million-dollar collection for sixty K?” Haagen said. “Now that’s priceless. I can’t wait to see the look on her face.”
She laughed herself silly, then put on the brakes and fixed me with her most damning stare.
“You realize you just copped to a felony?” she said, glancing up at the camera.
“But I didn’t take the jewels—I just found them.”
“That’s what every burglar says.”
“I didn’t know what else to do. I was just trying to survive.”
“Yeah, they say that, too.”
I started biting my nails. She reached across the table, pulled my hand away.
“We’ll get to that charge later,” she said. “Let’s keep our focus on the timeline. I’m guessing you’re on your way to Texas?”
“Sort of,” I said.
I hadn’t planned on holing up in Texas. I didn’t have any plan at all except to get as far from Tampa as possible—far from Vincent and Sean and anyone who would care that Anthony was dead.
I got on the interstate headed west and told myself I wouldn’t slow down until the sun had set and risen again. I drove out of Florida, through Alabama, and into Mississippi. I drove through Mississippi and into Louisiana. I didn’t see the time or the states go
