"Come in," he called.
He was at his desk, surrounded by papers.
"I'm taking off."
He looked up, as if startled, and checked his watch.
"I wasn't scheduled to work today," I said. "If you need me to do something, I'm happy to stay another hour or so, but otherwise I wouldn't mind getting home and grabbing a nap before my diner shift."
"Yes, of course."
I turned to leave.
"Olivia?"
When I looked back, he waved me in. I closed the door and he said, "Have you given any more thought to quitting the diner?"
"I didn't know I was supposed to be considering it."
"I'd like you to. Yes, you don't want to depend on me for your income, but your trust fund comes due in a few months. Your expenses are low. I suspect that, in a crunch, you would be fine until then." When I didn't answer, he said, "You also mentioned applying for your private investigator license."
I made a face. "I was just talking. I'll get it if this works out, but I'm not in any rush. The real issue is those few months until my trust fund. I'd rather keep my job at the diner. It's not interfering, is it?"
He hesitated.
"You don't want me working at the diner," I said. "Why?"
"Because it puts you at their mercy and under their watch."
"The elders, you mean."
"Yes. I know they don't pay your wages, but I've seen the way Larry treats them. If they wished you gone, he'd do it. Of course, that would leave you no worse off than if you quit, but . . . The balance of power makes me uneasy."
I wasn't eager to quit the diner. It felt like saying two months as a server was as much "real-person life" as this former socialite could bear.
"I'll think about it," I said. "Do you want me to check in later--?"
His phone rang, Lydia patching in a call. He glanced at it.
>
"Take that," I said. "Just call me later if--"
"Hold on."
He answered. It was a short call. His end was just "Yes" and "No" and "Are you certain?" and "Please send the results to my office."
"That was the laboratory," he said.
"With the results already?"
"I put a rush on them."
Which would have cost extra. Another time, I'd have joked about him docking it from my wages, but now that seemed uncharitable.
"Your theory was correct," he said. "Macy and Ciara were, indeed, switched at birth."
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE