Page 30 of Heidi Lucy Loses Her Mind
It would be nice if I could get a chocolate factory out of this whole ordeal.
But no golden ticket peeks out at me; no invitation with my name flutters down from the sky. When I open that envelope, all I see is a wad of cold, hard cash.
Somuch cash.
Crap.
My eyes widen as I thumb through the stack; a precursory look tells me they’re all twenties. I slow down and then start over, and even though I’m no mathematician, it only takes me a couple seconds to realize this has to be many hundreds of dollars, if not more.
I glance around nervously at the empty shop; somehow I feel like the IRS is going to pop out from behind the bookshelves at any second. They’ll know that I was in the same vicinity as this much cash, and I’ll get in massive trouble for just existing here.
Crap. Crap, crap, crap. What do I do?
I’m pulling up his contact before I’m even fully aware of it, pressing thecallbutton despite all the logic telling me not to.
Somehow it feels like he’s part of this with me. Maybe it’s because he’s the one I called the other night, even though I don’t remember it. Or maybe it’s because there’s something about him I trust—an air of competence and calm that ground me.
He answers after six rings.
“Soren!” I whisper, clutching the phone with one still-shaking hand. “Soren!”
There’s a muffled sort of grunting sound on the other end, then a second of silence, and then a groggy voice.
“Mmm? Hello?” he says. It could not be clearer that I am waking him out of a dead sleep.
“Soren!” I whisper again, looking down at the envelope in my hand. “I just found—”
“Heidi?” he says, cutting me off, his voice still bleary.
Hearing his voice saying my name triggers a memory, and it takes me a second to realize what I’m thinking of.
“Oh,” I say, more to myself than to him as I recall the feeling of his hands on my shoulders, propelling me gently through the bookshop. “You didn’t call mehoneytoday at all.You just called me Heidi. Heidi, honey. Heidi, honey.” They sound relatively similar, especially when you’re speaking quietly. That makes sense.
I swallow down my strange stab of disappointment.
“Heidi?” Soren says again. “Is that you? Hang on—what time is it?”
“Yes, it’s me. And it’s…late,” I say with a wince. “Sorry.”
“Why are you whispering?” he says. “Are you okay?”
“I’m—oh,” I say, looking around. He’s right; why am I whispering? I don’t need to be. It’s just me here. “Sorry,” I say, clearing my throat. “Yes. It’s me. And I’m fine. But I found something super sketchy, Soren, and I think Carmina might have been blackmailing someone.”
“What? Hang on,” Soren mutters. “Just—hang on. Give me a second.”
“Yeah,” I say breathlessly. “That’s fine.”
I listen to the sound of rustling, and in the background I hear a faintclick; turning a lamp on, maybe. Then he returns.
“Okay,” he says. “Start from the beginning, please.”
“Right,” I say, and I begin to pace. “So. I came downstairs to feed Jojo, and then I wanted to clean everything, so I started sweeping, and then—”
“In the middle of the night?” he says, his voice flat. “You wanted to sweep the floor right this very second?”
“I needed toclean, Soren,” I snap as some of that panic bubbles up like a fizzy drink in the back of my throat. “I watched someone die today. Please let me entertain the illusion that cleaning the shop will give me a measure of control over my life.”
“Fine,” he says, though it’s more of a grunt. “Fine. Go on.”
