WHEN CASSIDY HAD SORTED through the pile of bills for the third time, she sank back on her heels, shaking her head. “It’s gone,” she said, glancing around the room with a perplexed expression on her face. “The fifty dollars is gone.”
“You counted your money already?” Sawyer asked. “I haven’t added mine up yet.”
“No, I didn’t count it. But the money I got from the guy in the TransAm was all brand-new. Three brand-new bills, one ten and two twenties. I could almost smell fresh ink on them.” Cassidy glanced down at the pile of bills on the floor. “Not only are there no twenties in this pile now, there isn’t a single new bill.” She flicked at the pile with a finger. “These are all old.”
Sawyer laughed. “Cassidy, that money might not be new, but it’s still good.”
“I know it’s good, Sawyer,” she cried, exasperated, “but you’re not getting the point! There were three brand-new bills in my fanny pack when I left the parking lot. Fifty dollars worth! And now they’re gone.”
“Why would someone give you a twenty for a five-dollar car wash, and then not wait for his change?” Sophie asked. “Twice! That adds up to a lot of money, if you ask me.”
Cassidy nodded. “I know. But the weirdest part was, I scrubbed that car spotless…and fifteen minutes later, there it was, back again, and dirty again.”
“Must have been three different cars,” Sawyer suggested matter-of-factly. “They just looked alike, that’s all.”
Cassidy explained about the tinted window glass and the dangling hearts on the door. “It was the same car each time,” she said flatly. “That much I’m sure of. Anyone know who has a car like that?”
No one did.
“But you did see me washing it, right?’ she persisted. “At least one of those times, you must have noticed it.”
No one had.
“I didn’t get there until the car wash was almost over,” Talia reminded Cassidy. “And Ann said she and Sophie had just arrived, too.”
“Sawyer, you were there,” Cassidy said, a note of anxiety creeping into her voice. “You must have noticed it. It wasn’t just an ordinary car.”
But Sawyer shook his head. “I had my hands full. Wasn’t really paying that much attention to other people’s cars. Or maybe I’d taken a break.”
“Never mind the car,” Ann said. “What I want to know is, what happened to the money? If he really did give you fifty dollars, Cassidy, and you kept all the money you made in your fanny pack, it has to be there, right? Check the pile again.”
Cassidy’s head came up. Her eyes narrowed. “If he gave me the money? What’s that supposed to mean, Ann?”
Ann ran a hand through still-damp, wavy hair. “Well, where is the fifty dollars?”
“Ann Ataska, what are you saying? You think that I made up the whole thing? Invented it? Imagined it?”
“Don’t get upset, Cassidy,” Sophie cautioned. “Ann didn’t mean anything. But you sounded so positive that the bills were brand-new, and they’re just not there, right?”
Sawyer added, “It was really wild down there, Cassidy. I had to stop a couple of times myself and check the bills I’d been handed.”
“Oh, that’s so patronizing,” Cassidy cried. “You make it sound like I don’t know my left hand from my right.” She glanced at the faces in the room. And her heart sank as she realized what was happening.
No one in the room was convinced that she had ever had fifty dollars in brand-new bills in her possession.
Maybe they weren’t even sure that the TransAm with tinted windows and red dangling hearts existed.
If this discussion continued much longer, she would no longer be sure of anything.
“Forget it,” she said brusquely, jumping to her feet. She stooped to snatch up the bills and her pack. “Are we going to the movies or not?”
“Tell you the truth,” Sawyer said, “I was kind of hoping we could take in a movie right here, downstairs.” He glanced toward the wide window, sheeted with water. “It’s pouring outside. I don’t want to go back out in it for awhile. And it probably wouldn’t be a good idea for you to get soaked again.”
Cassidy’s teeth clenched. “Right! I might get sick and start hallucinating that someone was stuffing brand-new twenty dollar bills into my hands. Which is pretty much what you all think happened this afternoon, right?” She couldn’t believe it. Since when did Cassidy Kathleen Kirk imagine things?
There was an awkward silence.
To end it, Cassidy said lightly, “I’ll just go brush my hair. Don’t leave without me, okay?”
The sound of whispering outside the bathroom door as she brushed her hair made her furious. They were discussing her? Like a group of doctors consulting each other about a patient?
Well, there was nothing wrong with her!
She could remember the feel of those crisp bills in her hand, could hear the crackling when she slipped them into her pack.
She couldn’t have imagined it.
But her hand shook slightly as she put down the hairbrush. It still shook as she handed the money over to be kept in the Quad safe downstairs on the way to the movie.
The movie hadn’t started yet when they entered the basement rec center. A huge, square, wood-panelled room, it was packed with people. Except during midterms and finals, studying was not a popular Saturday night activity. Having fun, winding down after a week packed with classes, tests, papers and labs was the number one priority for most. On this Saturday night, the bad weather had limited off-campus activities, swelling attendance at the weekly movie.
As Cassidy and Sawyer took their seats, people began hurrying over to Cassidy to congratulate her on the success of the car wash.
“We must have hauled in a load of cash!” a girl named Tina said excitedly. The boy at her side, whose T-shirt read, “IF YOU CAN’T READ THIS, YOU’RE NOT CLOSE ENOUGH,” added, “Leave it to Kirk here. If you want something to be a success, just get old Cassidy to run it!”
But Cassidy was having a hard time accepting their praise. True, the car wash had been a success. True, although the money hadn’t been counted yet, she knew they had pulled in a load of cash! They’d be able to throw one great dance.
But they should have had fifty dollars more.
Had she lost the money? They’d been so busy. She might have thought she’d slipped the bills inside her pack, but with her eyes on the vanishing TransAm, maybe her fingers had missed the mark and the bills had fallen to the ground.
No. Not three times. And even once, she would have noticed. Or someone else would have.
Cassidy concentrated. Had she removed the leather pack at any time after she’d been given the new bills?
Yes. Once during the car wash, to make change for a girl named Rita Nevins. And she hadn’t put the pack back on right away, she remembered now. She’d dropped it onto the hood of a red pickup truck parked beside her, just long enough to brush her hair and sweep it up into a ponytail.
While she was bending over, brushing her hair, someone could have reached inside the pack and stolen a handful of bills.
Then, too, during the latter half of the day, the pack at her waist had become so wet, she’d slid it around so that it was at her back, in an effort to keep it drier. A really expert thief could have come up behind her…
A really expert thief? At a car wash? What was wrong with her?
Just before the lights dimmed, Cassidy saw Ann and her date arrive and make their way to a pair of seats up front. Ann’s date was tall, with unruly dark hair. Travis. Ann Ataska’s date was Travis McVey, who until very recently, had dated only Cassidy Kirk.
Talia, sitting on Cassidy’s left, nudged her with an elbow, saying, “Well! When did that happen? How come she didn’t tell us?”
“She said she had a date,” Cassidy answered, sliding down in her seat.
“Yeah, but she didn’t say it was Travis. Don’t you think that’s kind of weird?”
Then the lights dimmed, music began, and the screen lit up. Sawyer reached over and took Cassidy’s hand. His hand felt warm and strong. Her own felt icy. She thought about Talia’s question. Did she think that Ann’s keeping silent about dating Travis was weird?
No. Ann probably hadn’t been sure how Cassidy would react. Understandable.
What was much weirder was a black TransAm with darkened windows and dangling red hearts on the driver’s door going through a car wash repeatedly. What was weirder was the disappearance from her fanny pack of three bills…the three crisp, brand-new ones given her by the unseen driver of the creepy car.
That’s what Cassidy thought was weird.