At a few minutes after five, I logged off of my computer, gathered my things, and turned off the light in my office. Josh, Eddie, and William came up the hall, their briefcases in hand, heading out for the day, smiles on their faces. Lucky them. Their workweek was over. I still had a matter to take care of.
That matter was Flo Cash.
I stepped to Nick’s doorway. I’d asked him to accompany me tonight. I was a little uncomfortable going into Flo’s house alone. For all I knew she’d try to push me down the stairs and claim I’d tripped. It couldn’t hurt to bring a witness. Also backup in case I needed to arrest Flo and she put up a fight. I’d learned never to make assumptions about taxpayers. Some were all bark and no bite, and some were no bark but big bite. “Ready to go?” I asked.
Nick looked up from his computer. “Give me two seconds.” He entered a few keystrokes before announcing his work “done.” He shut down his computer, grabbed his briefcase, and followed me out to the parking lot.
“Let’s take my ride.” He angled his head to indicate his government-issued car, which was much newer than mine and retained all of its stereo knobs and a complete set of floor mats. Luxury.
I hopped into the passenger side, while he stowed his briefcase in the back and slid into the driver’s seat.
“Which way, boss?” he asked.
“Lakewood Heights,” I said.
Nick aimed his car for the neighborhood, which sat northeast of downtown. We crept along on the freeway, boxed in by commuters heading home from work. Many were talking or texting on their cell phones. At least at these slow speeds the worst thing that could happen would be a fender bender.
Nick cut a questioning glance my way. “How are Alicia’s wedding plans coming along?”
“All done,” I told him. “The last thing she had to do was buy a garter and we took care of that the other night.”
“What’s it look like?” Nick asked.
“Pale blue with a white satin ruffle.”
“Sexy,” he said. “Maybe I should buy you a couple of garters and some thigh-high stockings.”
“Sure,” I said. “They’d go great with my cowgirl boots.”
A smile played across his lips. “Careful now or you’ll turn me on.”
He exited and turned into Flo’s neighborhood. Shortly thereafter, we turned onto Flo’s street and pulled up to the curb in front of her house. The termite van with its disco eyeballs on the roof sat in the driveway, the back doors hanging open as the two exterminators wrangled the large blue tent into the back bay.
With the tent removed, I could now see what Flo’s house looked like. It was a beautiful two-story country French–style home, with a rounded tower on one end, hipped roofs, and multiple dormer windows. The façade was composed of a combination of brick and stone, with corner quoins in a lighter, contrasting color. A narrow balcony with an iron railing extended from the upper floor, shading the front walkway, which was flanked with fragrant gardenia bushes.
“Not too shabby,” Nick said.
He and I climbed out of his car and made our way up the stone walkway to the front door. I rang the bell and waited. When there was no response after twenty seconds or so, I tried a second time, using my knuckle to jab the button twice in rapid succession. Ding-ding-dong! When that got me nowhere, I lifted the heavy iron knocker and sounded it three times. Clack! Clack! Clack!
The men had finished loading the tent back into their van and walked around to climb in.
“Hold up a second!” Nick called, raising a hand and stepping toward them. “Have y’all seen Ms. Cash around? We have an appointment with her.”
“The only time we saw her,” said the driver, “was the first day we came out here.”
“So her car’s not in the garage?” I asked, walking over to stand next to Nick.
“Not if she’s driven it in the last three days,” the man said. “We just uncovered the garage a half hour ago. Nobody’s taken a car in or out.”
Nick and I exchanged glances before both of us checked our cell phones for the time. It was straight up 6:00 now. The time Flo had agreed to meet me here.
“Have a good weekend,” I told the men as they climbed into the van. As they backed out, I turned to Nick, “You think we’ve been stood up? Or do you think she’s just running late?”
“Hard to say,” he said. “Dallas traffic can be a nightmare.”
That was true. With so many freeways crisscrossing one another it seemed like there was always an accident somewhere causing residual slowdowns throughout the entire system. Residents knew to pad their commute times to account for the unpredictability.
We stood out front for fifteen minutes before I grew bored and plucked a gardenia bloom from the nearby bush. I plucked the petals, dropping them on the ground. “He loves me,” I said, tossing the first petal aside. “He loves me not.” The second petal hit the Bermuda grass. “He loves me”—pluck, toss—“he loves me not. He loves me.…” I continued on, a pile of petals forming around me, until I reached the last petal. “Damn.” I dropped the petal. “He loves me not.”
“Don’t you worry your pretty head about it,” Nick said, kicking the last petal aside and sliding me a soft smile. “I know for a fact that he loves you. A lot.”
“We’re talking about Chris Hemsworth, right?” I teased.
“Bite your tongue, woman.”
We stood there another ten minutes before my stomach growled. “She better get her butt home soon. I’m hungry. Another ten minutes and I’m going to start eating her lawn.”
Nick pulled out his cell phone. “Let’s order some takeout. We can have them deliver it here.”
“Good idea.”
“What sounds good? Chinese?”
“We had Chinese for lunch earlier in the week, remember?” The fortune cookie strip was still sitting on my desk at work. The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.
“Oh, right. How about Italian?”
“Nah,” I said. “Benedetta’s Bistro is the best, but we’re outside of her delivery range.” Damn shame, too. I’d worked undercover in the restaurant and they made the best chocolate cannoli on earth. I could’ve really gone for one of the delicious desserts right now.
“Thai?” Nick suggested. “Sushi? Barbecue? Greek?”
I raised a finger. “We have a winner. I haven’t done Greek in a while.”
“Greek it is.” He used his phone to find a Greek place in the area. Fortunately, they offered delivery service. We placed an order for grape leaves and falafel, along with drinks.
“What should we do while we wait?” I asked. Patience might be a virtue, but it wasn’t one of my virtues.
Nick gestured toward his car. “We could get in the backseat and make out.”
I scoffed. “Real professional.”
“Says the woman who tossed flower petals all over the yard.”
“Touché.” I reached out and touched Nick’s shoulder. “Tag. You’re it!”
I took off running across the grass, but he caught up with me in three short strides. Rats!
“That was easy,” he said.
“You have a distinct advantage,” I said, gesturing to his long legs. “How about hide and seek?”
He chuckled. “I haven’t played that since I was twelve.”
I sighed. “I hardly remember what it was like to be twelve.”
“I remember,” Nick said. “One of my friends came across a girlie magazine his father had hidden in the garage. He brought it over to my parents’ house and we invited all of our friends over to the barn to take a gander. We stashed it in the hayloft, but my mother must have found it, because the next time we went to the barn to peek at it all the naughty bits had been covered with black marker.”
“Serves you right.”
We stepped over the curb and took seats on it to wait for our food. As we waited, a couple of Flo’s neighbors drove by, eyeing us suspiciously, clearly wondering what was going on. If our presence started a rumor Flo would have no one to blame but herself. If she’d been here at six like she’d agreed, this matter could have already been resolved.
I pulled out my cell phone and tried the phone number for KCSH. All I got was an automated system telling me that their business hours were 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Monday through Friday and that I could either call back during business hours or leave a message at the beep. The message was followed by the foretold beep.
“Hello, Miss Cash,” I said into my phone. “You agreed to meet me at your house at six o’clock. I’ve been waiting here since. Give me a call as soon as possible so I’ll know when to expect you. Otherwise I’ll have to take more serious measures.” With that I hung up.
“More serious measures?” Nick said. “What’s your plan?”
“If I can’t get what I need from Flo,” I told him, “I’ll have to keep hammering away at her advertisers until one of them breaks.” It wasn’t an efficient process, but she was leaving me with no choice. One way or another, I had to get some evidence against her.
A car came slowly up the street, the driver craning his head to search for addresses.
“That’s gotta be our food,” Nick said, stepping into the street and waving his arms over his head to get the driver’s attention.
When the man noticed Nick he sped up, coming to a stop behind Nick’s car. He climbed out, retrieved a bag of food from a box in the backseat, and handed it to me. “Twenty-two fifty,” he said.
Nick pulled out some cash and handed it to the man. “Keep the change.”
“Thanks.”
Nick and I climbed back into his car to eat, rolling down the windows to enjoy the evening air, which was beginning to cool down. We ate our food while listening to KCSH on the radio. The morning’s Cash Flow Show was being repeated, Flo suggesting that listeners would be wise to invest their funds in hotel companies that offered resort-style accommodations in the United States. “Thanks to all the terrorism and unrest, people with disposable income are staying closer to home these days,” she said. “While they once might have toured Europe, they’re choosing to visit Jackson Hole or Savannah or Bar Harbor. We’re already seeing an uptick in reported profits for these businesses, and I think this trend will continue for the next few years. Remember, make your money make money for you, folks.”
When we tired of listening to KCSH, we watched some recent episodes of television on my phone’s Hulu app. The night continued to grow darker around us, the crickets chirping, the moisture in the air increasing as the temperature dropped, my hair absorbing the moisture and expanding like a sponge.
When ten o’clock arrived, but Flo still hadn’t, I jotted: Call me immediately! on the back of one of my business cards, lifted her door knocker, and slid the corner of the card under it where the knocker would hold it in place. Though the card wasn’t big, it would be hard to miss.
“You better call me, Flo,” I muttered to her door, giving it a solid kick. “Or I’m going to cash you out.”