Vero choked. She snatched it off the table and opened it, her eyes narrowing as they skimmed the statement. “Twelve deposits, all on the first of the month, for the same amount. You think he was embezzling from his clients?”
I nodded. “It gets worse. Turn the page.” Vero flipped to the balance sheet, her mouth forming an oh around the big fat zero at the bottom. “The note said Patricia had twenty-four hours to return what she’d taken.”
“You think these men were the ones who killed Harris?”
“They definitely had a motive. They want their money back. And we have fifty thousand of it.”
Vero hugged my phone as she paced the kitchen. “Patricia paid us in cash. If these men did follow you home from the bar, they could just assume you were on a date and he’d had too much to drink. They’d have no way of knowing Patricia hired you. With a half million dollars, she could run anywhere. If they don’t find Patricia, they won’t find out about us, right?”
“Right.”
Zach fussed in his high chair. I wiped pasta sauce from his face, plucked him from his seat, and set him down to toddle after his sister.
Vero fell into her chair. She pushed her plate to the middle of the table, looking at it as if she might be sick. “What if the police find Patricia before we do?”
“The only thing she knows about me is my number. She doesn’t know my name or where I live. I doubt she could even identify me in a lineup.” I’d been wearing a wig and high heels and plenty of makeup. Hopefully it was enough. “Besides, I have you for an alibi,” I said, dropping into the chair beside her.
“I thought I was an accomplice.”
“Not if they can’t prove it. As far as anyone else is concerned, I was here at home with you the night Harris Mickler went missing. I called my sister from the house phone in the kitchen. And Georgia saw us together when we picked up the kids. All we have to do is get rid of any evidence that could lead the police back to us.”
Vero looked down at my phone. She dropped it on the table in front of me as if it were crawling with lice.
“Relax. It’s a prepaid cell. Verizon shut off my account last month when I was late on my bill. I bought this one at the pharmacy.”
“Can’t the police find a record of the payment?”
“My credit cards were all maxed out. I paid in cash.” I rested my elbows on the table, digging the heels of my hands into my eyes. “There’s nothing tying the phone to me.”
“Don’t you watch Law and Order? They can trace those things!”
“Only to the nearest tower it pings.”
“How close is that?”
“I don’t know … a few miles maybe?”
“Too close for me.” Vero rose from her seat. My head snapped up as she threw my phone down on the cutting board. She grabbed a meat tenderizer from the utensil drawer and raised the metal mallet behind her head.
“Wait!” I snatched my phone before she could smash it. Turning my back on her, I thumbed through my contacts. Vero stood on her tiptoes, peeking over my shoulder as I copied Julian’s number onto a sticky pad.
“Just a friend, huh?”
“He’s a lawyer,” I said, tucking the sticky note in my pocket. “His number might come in handy.”
“He’s too young to be a lawyer.”
“He’s a public defender,” I quipped. “Or at least, he will be. Someday. When he graduates.”
“Nu-uh.” Vero nixed that idea with big exaggerated sweeps of her head. “If we get caught, we’re not hiring some Abercrombie underwear model to keep us out of prison. I want an old white dude with cuff links and a Rolex. Like your ex’s attorney.”
“My ex’s attorney is not old. He’s only three years older than me. And he charges two hundred dollars per hour.”
“If we kill Andrei Borovkov, we could afford that.”
I gave her a withering look.
“Where’d you meet him anyway?”
“Borovkov?”
“No,” she said, yanking away my phone. “Julian Baker.”
She drummed her nails against the counter, waiting for an answer.
“He was bartending,” I confessed, “the night I kidnapped Harris from The Lush.”
“He’s the bartender? The one from your story? Have you lost your mind!” she hissed, gesticulating wildly. “You can’t keep his phone number. What if he turns you in?”
“He doesn’t even know who I am! I was wearing a blond wig and I gave him a fake name . He thinks I’m a real estate agent named Theresa.”