“I miss you, too,” she whispers. “The storm will clear. Eventually.”
Hopefully without blowing the roof off my life.
“Come home. I’ll go do my thing at the club and meet you back here.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I need you beside me at night. You wouldn’t want me to go wanderin’ in my sleep looking for you, would you? Surprised I didn’t sleepwalk to your Gramps’ place. If Tony wasn’t here I might’ve.”
“Absolutely not, especially not when we live many feet up from the ground. I actually thought about that last night and wished I had the ability to spy on you.”
“I’ll hook you up with my spy app.”
“Good.”
I hear the smile in her voice.
“I’ll be there when you get home,” she says.
“Good, baby. See you later.”
“Love you, Kill.”
“Love you, Dimples.”
***
After the meeting at Genesis, I spend some time going through some numbers for the clubs and the online casino. But as I’m wrapping that up, I get a security notification that Craig tried to get into the building at Numbers. He couldn’t because we disabled his access. Right after I got the notification, he messaged me asking about it so I replied, asking him to wait for me there, said I’m on my way. I bring a gun with me.
When I get arrive, I notice Scottsdale and MacDonald have followed me. I ask them to wait while I deal with Craig.
“What’s up, man?” I greet casually.
“I’ve been tryin’ to get ahold of you. No idea what’s happening around here and I’m feelin’ a little worried about my job security after Alana’s email the other day about everything being shut down right now. No explanation even. And my badge is being wonky.” He examines his badge in his hand.
“Come up to my office,” I say, “We’ll chat.”
When we get up there, it all looks good. Like nothing happened. The window has been replaced and the office looks like it usually does.
I invite Craig to sit down. And then I tell him he’s fired.
I tell him there’s nearly four grand in cash shortages from the week before Christmas from the prize redemptions department (which is where Stephanie worked last week. A lie, an intentional one) and that he’s been leaving early and coming in late. And that I’ve had some mystery shoppers give me negative feedback that has me thinking it’s time for a reorganization. I tell him I get that his girlfriend had a death in the family, but I’ve got a business to run and the shit that’s been going wrong predates that.
He acts shocked, asks me to reconsider, to let him look at the books to try to figure out what happened. I tell him I’m having an audit done and will consider a temporary suspension instead while the auditing firm I hired looks at the books. I also warn him the cops may become involved, depending on what the audit turns up.
He reacts with what looks like genuine shock. I supervise as he cleans out his office and when he leaves, he doesn’t know this, but he’s being tailed by one of the Rossi brothers who I just texted, because I suspect he could a) lead us to where Stephanie Whitley’s hideout is and b) we might get an inkling of whether or not Craig is in on the heist and the doping.
Stephanie is on the schedule New Year’s Eve. Hasn’t been on the schedule since the day of Violet’s bridal shower. There’s no missing money, but if he’s in on it with her, if he’s given her access to shit she shouldn’t have access to, since I mentioned it was the department she worked in, I’m thinking he’ll be suspicious about the money and it could make shit unravel there. If he’s in on the plans for the heist, he’ll be distrustful because of the claim of the missing cash. And if anyone has seen any of the cops hanging around and he’s in on it, missing money might explain that. If he’s not part of the planned heist, I’ll figure that out soon enough. Either way, his eye has been off the ball and he won’t get his job back. Whether he has to answer for anything else – we’ll see.
***
These cops do not pull any punches. I’m not quite in the hot seat with them but not far off. And I do not fucking like it.
I don’t like the hints being dropped. The line of questioning related to Iadanza and Violet. Not at all. Not quite to where I feel like I need to lawyer up, but my teeth are definitely on edge.
When the meeting is done, I walk them to the door.
Ed Scottsdale’s phone starts ringing so he waves and walks off and I’m left there with Carlson MacDonald.
“Just to say, Killian,” Carlson says, “You’re a subject of interest in my department right now.”