Her heart lurches into her throat, and she falls back and spins. She fumbles with the keys and, finding the right one, jams it into the lock. It sticks, and she wrenches it free with too much force, and the ring flies from her hands and sails over her head to land impossibly loudly on the ground somewhere behind her.
9
HADLEY
There’s a noise. In the hallway. The sound of metal clanging. Hadley stands stock still, a box of paper towels in her hands. Perhaps the building has a security system and she’s triggered the alarm. Though, if that’s the case, the response time is horribly slow. She’s been here nearly an hour and has been through every room in the building twice.
Her ears strain, listening for more. After several seconds, she sighs and slides the box back onto the shelf.
She leans against the rack and closes her eyes. She is not made for this—deceit and deception, plotting and lies. She was so sure she had this part figured out. She knows Frank hides money, and she was certain this is where he stashes it. He paid for his truck with cash, and he paid the contractors who worked on the yard under the table. Before he bought the truck, he stopped at the office. On the days he paid the contractors, he came straight from work. He has mentioned a safe, so she knows there is one, but she’s combed every inch of this place and can’t find it. All her search has yielded is a petty cash drawer in Frank’s desk with less than a hundred dollars in it.
Something moves in the hall, and she opens her eyes, the sound very slight, more like a shifting than a noise, but Hadley’s hearing has always been exceptional.
She listens closer, then pushes off the rack, nudges open the door, and pokes her head out. She looks left toward the back door, then right. At the end of the corridor, a shadow crouches, petite, with a wild head of hair.
“Grace?” she says, squinting into the darkness, confirming that she is, in fact, looking at Frank’s assistant.
The figure bolts upright. “Mrs. Torelli?” Grace says.
Both look at each other curiously. Hadley last saw Grace this morning when she was dropping Frank off so she could use his truck. Grace was heading into the office wearing the same outfit she has on now, a plain white blouse and baggy gray slacks, loose on her thin frame.
“What are you doing here?” they say in unison, both their voices pitched high.
Hadley holds Grace’s stare. After all, she is Frank’s wife, and that gives her the right to be here. There are a dozen reasons she might have needed to stop by the office. Frank left something he needs. She’s taking some of the commercial cleaner for her driveway. Frank asked her to stop by and pick up traffic cones for one of the lots.
Meanwhile, she can’t think of a single reason why Frank’s assistant would be skulking around the office on a Friday night in the dark.
She looks at the light switch to Grace’s right, easily within reach, then thinks of the gap in time between the first sound and the second.
“Why are you here?” she repeats.
“I wanted to check on the uniforms,” Grace says. “I think the order might have been shorted.”
Hadley looks at her watch. “At ten o’clock on a Friday?”
Grace shifts her weight, and that’s when Hadley notices the bag over her shoulder, a large striped thing, deflated and frayed.
She cocks her head; then a smile spreads across her face. “You’re here to steal from Frank.”
10
GRACE
Frank’s wife is smiling and accusing Grace of being a thief.
The two options of how to respond tick quickly through her brain: Deny it and make up a more viable lie, or Make a break for it.
The first is impossible. Mrs. Torelli is not going to believe anything Grace says. She can think of absolutely no plausible explanation for why she’s here. The second is equally impossible. The keys are still lost somewhere on the floor, and Miles is locked in the car. All this processes lightning fast as Mrs. Torelli continues to look at her with that bizarre grin.
Finally, after a long minute with no revelation, Grace surprises herself by blurting out the truth: “I came to get what Frank owes me.”
Mrs. Torelli tilts her head.
Grace has only met Mrs. Torelli a couple of times. She’s not the kind of woman to get involved in her husband’s business. Tall, elegant, and impossibly beautiful, she’s the kind of woman who spends her days getting her nails manicured and ordering the help around, not meddling in the inner workings of parking garages and asphalt. Even now, at ten o’clock on a Friday, in the dingy hallway of an industrial building, she looks like a million bucks—her makeup freshly applied, her hair twisted in an elegant knot like a queen’s, and her outfit probably worth more than Grace earns in a month—tailored slacks, a black silk shirt, and beige stiletto heels with pointy toes.
“He owes you?” she says.
Grace explains what happened with Jerry, embarrassed to confess what a fool she was in believing Frank would actually honor his word and give her a commission.
“Sounds like Frank,” Mrs. Torelli says when she finishes. “It also explains why he was going to fire you.”
Grace flinches. Though she suspected that was the case, having it confirmed still strikes like a blow. For three months, she has worked her butt off for Frank Torelli, going above and beyond because she felt she owed it to Mary for calling in the favor to get her the job.
“So you know where the safe is?” Mrs. Torelli says.
The question catches Grace off guard, and she looks at Mrs. Torelli curiously, taking in the clothes, the makeup, and the intensity with which she is looking at Grace. “That’s why you’re here?” she says as she realizes it. “You’re here for the money?”
“Ironic, isn’t it?”
An icy shudder tingles Grace’s spine. She has never been a big believer in coincidence. Her grandmother used to say moments like this were straight up God messing with mortals, which is exactly how it feels.
And Grace wants nothing to do with it.
“Yeah, well, good luck with that.” She squats down to resume looking for the keys.
She finds them a few feet away and snatches them up as Mrs. Torelli steps in front of her, the tips of her shoes directly beneath Grace’s nose. “You know where it is?” she repeats.
Grace stands slowly as the new choices of how to answer spin: Deny it and leave with nothing, or Admit it and possibly get what Frank owes me, but end up with my fate tied to Mrs. Torelli’s. The third option is out of her mouth before she has fully considered it. “I might,” she says, her blood growing warm with the brilliance of it.
“You might?” Mrs. Torelli says.
“I might,” Grace repeats brightly. “And for a finder’s fee, I might be able to show you where it is.”
“A finder’s fee?”
“Yeah,” Grace says. “Like a commission.”
It’s a complete stroke of genius. Without breaking the law or the vow she made to the judge who showed her leniency when she was nineteen, she can walk away from this with enough money to give her and Miles a fresh start.
“How much does Frank owe you?” Mrs. Torelli says.
“That’s not really relevant,” Grace answers, her insides lit up.