Charlie flinched at Salt’s name.
Not a lot rattled her, after everything she’d seen and done. But the thought of him always did.
“Shut up and get out.” Balthazar pointed toward the exit.
“What’s going on?” Doreen asked. Charlie shook her head, watching Joey Aspirins shove the tweedy guy toward the doors. Odette got up to talk with Balthazar, their voices too soft for her to overhear.
Balthazar turned, catching Charlie’s eye as he was walking back to the shadow parlor. He winked. She ought to have raised her eyebrow or rolled her eyes, but the mention of Lionel Salt had turned her stiff and wooden. Balthazar was gone before she’d managed to react.
Last call came soon after. Charlie wiped down the counter. Filled a dishwasher with dirty shakers and glasses. She counted out her drawer, peeling the money for Doreen’s drink off her tips and slipping it in with the rest of the bills. Rapture might exult in its strangeness, might have its walls and ceiling coated in Black 3.0, paint so dark it stole light from a room, and might have air thick with incense. Might be the kind of place locals came to glimpse magic, or kink, or if they got tired of sports bars with kombucha on tap. But the rituals of closing were the same.
Most of the rest of the staff had already left by the time Charlie got her coat and purse out of Odette’s office. The wind had kicked up, chilling the sweat on her body as she walked out to her car, reminding Charlie that it was already late autumn, barreling toward winter, and that she needed to start bringing something warmer to work than a thin leather coat.
“Well?” Doreen asked. “I’m freezing out here. Will you find him? Suzie Lambton says you helped her out, and you barely even know her.”
The job probably wouldn’t be too hard, and then she’d have Doreen off her back. If Adam was blissed out somewhere, she could always steal his wallet. That would send him back home fast. Take his car keys too, just to show she could. “Your brother works at the university, right? Office of the bursar.”
Doreen narrowed her eyes. “He’s a customer service representative. He answers phones.”
“But he has access to the computers. So can he fix it so my sister has another month to pay her bill? Not asking him to cancel the debt, just delay it.” Orientation fees, student technology fees, and processing fees were all due before the loan money showed up. That wasn’t even counting the junker Posey would need to get back and forth to campus. Or books.
“I don’t want to get him into trouble,” Doreen said primly, as though she wasn’t trying to persuade a criminal to find her criminal boyfriend.
Charlie folded her arms across her chest and waited.
Finally, Doreen nodded slowly. “I guess I could ask.”
Which could mean a lot of things. Charlie opened the trunk of her janky Toyota Corolla. Her collection of burner phones rested beside a tangle of jumper cables, an old bag of burglary supplies, and a bottle of Grey Goose she’d bought wholesale off the bar.
Charlie took out one of the phones and punched in the code to activate it. “Okay, let me try something and see if Adam bites. Tell me his number.”
If he answered, she told herself, she’d do it. If he didn’t, she’d walk away.
She knew she was just looking for an excuse to get into trouble. Wading into quicksand to see if she’d sink. She texted him anyway: I’ve got a job and I heard you were the best.
If he was worried about not being good enough, then the flattery would be motivating. That was the nature of con artistry, playing on weakness. It was also a bad way to train your brain to think about people.
“Let’s see if he responds and—” Charlie started to say when her phone pinged.
Who is this?
Amber, Charlie texted back. She had several identities that she’d built for con and never used. Of them, Amber was the only gloamist. Sorry to bother you so late, but I really need your help.
Amber, with the long brown hair?
Charlie stared at her phone for a long moment, trying to decide if this was a trick.
You really are as good as they say. She added a winking emoji and hoped ambiguity would allow her to sidestep any of his questions.
“I can’t believe he’s texting you. What is he saying?”
“Take a look,” Charlie told Doreen, handing over the phone. “See? He’s alive. He’s fine.”
Doreen bit her fingernail as she read through the messages. “You didn’t say you were going to flirt with him.”
Charlie rolled her eyes.
On the other side of the parking lot, Odette, swathed in an enormous cocoon coat, made her way to her purple Mini Cooper.