Charlie had known a local girl who’d sold her shadow. She’d been a pole dancer, over at what locals unkindly referred to as the Whately Ballet. She finished her shift around the same time as Charlie, so they ran into each other sometimes at the few eateries open all night.
“He paid me five grand,” Linda had confided in a whisper, her expression hard to read. “And it’s not like I was using it.”
“Who paid?” Charlie had asked, taking a bite of very oily fried eggs.
“I’d never seen the guy before. Bought a lap dance, and that’s when he made the offer. At first I laughed, but he was serious. Said there was someone who wanted a shadow just like mine.”
The diner had been dimly lit and Linda was sitting. From that angle, it hadn’t been obvious anything was missing.
“Do you notice that it’s gone?” Charlie had asked, frowning at the blurred edges of her own shadow.
Linda had taken a slug of her coffee. “You know when there’s a word and you feel like it’s on the tip of your tongue? It’s like that. There was something inside me that isn’t anymore, but I don’t know what. I’m not sure I miss it, but I feel like I should.”
Every time she thought of the conversation, it made her wonder if it was how Vince felt too. But when she’d asked him about it, he’d told her he couldn’t remember what it had been like before. And when she’d asked him if he wanted a new shadow, he said he didn’t need one.
Charlie picked up her burner phone and scrolled through the local news, looking for some mention of a body found in Easthampton. Nothing, even though the local crime beat at the paper was so sleepy that shoplifting and drunk students got reported. Who was the dead guy? And had he really stolen a book from Lionel Salt?
That rich bastard’s name stood at the top of lists of donors to museums and charities and hot chocolate runs. Kids swapped stories of seeing Salt’s car creeping along different roads—a matte black and silver Rolls-Royce Phantom Mansory Conquistador—a car whose name guys in high school had delighted in saying in its entirety so often that it lodged in the head like an earwormed song.
But most people hadn’t been inside Salt’s horror show of a house or watched him poison someone in the hopes of stealing a quickened shadow. If there were a different set of rules for the rich, Lionel Salt operated without rules at all. Just thinking about him made Charlie nervous.
She turned her mind back to the dead guy. He’d ordered bourbon and paid with a card. Which meant there’d be a receipt in Odette’s office with his name on it. If she knew who he was, she’d be able to ask around. Find out more about what he thought he’d been doing.
Her phone buzzed, and it took her a moment to realize it was her burner. Adam. We haven’t talked payment.
This was why Adam needed Balthazar as a go-between, not just for anonymity, but because Balthazar would have nailed down the cash immediately.
Since she wasn’t planning on paying him anyway, she could have promised any amount. But she figured she’d take the opportunity to find out just how much bliss he’d been rolling. Can we work something out? she texted.
The reply came quickly. What kind of connections do you have?
Charlie frowned. She’d expected him to bring up bliss, not whatever this was about. I know people, she wrote.
He took a moment to respond, and when he did it was a long message: I have something that I need to move Somehting big but I don’t want anyone to know it’s me making the deal. Act like its you and ill get your thing for free.
A job like the one she was offering could have gotten him a grand, easy. Twice that, if the client was desperate. What could Adam have that he needed to hide? He was, by all accounts, not a particularly skilled thief. And he had Balthazar to move things for him.
Sure, she wrote. Who are you making the deal with?
He typed his message back fast. All you’ll have to do is talk on the hotel phone. I’ll tell you what to say.
Charlie noticed Vince watching her and shoved her phone guiltily into her pocket. “How did you learn about cars?”
“I told you my grandfather was strict, right?” Vince said, his attention returning to the guts of the Corolla. “He taught me lots of stuff. He believed in the improving power of work, no matter how old you were. He didn’t believe in excuses. And he had a limo that broke down sometimes.”
“So he was a livery driver?” Charlie asked. “He let you ride in the back sometimes?”
He shrugged. “Dropped me off the first day of high school. Everyone stared at me like I was somebody.”