Chapter Two
"This isn't half bad," Leah said between bites of pizza. We were in the kitchen, sitting on the bar stools at the counter, open pizza boxes on the counter. The intensity from earlier had faded and Leah looked well-put-together again. Her wedges scattered on the floor and her bare feet were the only signs anything had happened between us. I'm sure I looked like a mess.
"Sabatino's is the best in town," I answered and lifted another slice from the box.
At some point in my life I realized that eating somehow became intertwined with big life events. Cake at birthday parties, family members bringing food over to relatives who just had a child, catered food at weddings, the list goes on. Life doesn't ever go back to what it was before, but food helps remind us that it does go on. Leah was on her second slice of pepperoni when she asked, "So how does this work?"
"Which part?"
"The part where we had sex and you agreed to keep me and my sister out of jail," she said like she was explaining a simple concept to an annoying child.
Right. That. "If I remember correctly, you made an offer, and I accepted," I answered carefully, taking a bite of pizza.
Leah blushed and looked away. "I guess we'll figure that out as we go. What do we do about my sister? She will be out of the hospital soon, do you have a plan for what happens to her next?"
"I'll be right back," I answered and left the room, returning with my laptop. "Yesterday I set up a wire transfer to the county for Brooke's bail," I explained as I logged into the banking portal. "It'll come from a nail salon that she just became a part-owner in." In movies and cautionary tales from cyber-security experts trying to make a sale, they always make it sound like thieves and scammers can steal your life savings right out from under you if they have your bank account number. In reality, that information, along with your bank's routing number, is printed right on the face of every check you've ever written. It's standard practice for businesses to just give that information out for free so your customers can make electronic payments. They need to know where to send the money to, and you want to make it as easy as possible to get paid. The real security is in setting up safeguards so money can't
leave
your account without your express approval.
The phone rang. "Hello. This is he. Yes I did. Yes one million one hundred thousand dollars and zero cents. Can you repeat the receiving bank account info? Ok, yes, that's correct, it's good to go, thank you." I hung up the phone. "Her bail's paid. When she gets out she's a free woman, for now."
Leah stopped eating and asked, "What is it you do exactly?"
"Like I said. I'm an accountant."
"Mmhmm. An accountant that has a million dollars sitting around in case someone needs to get out of jail." That was closer to the truth than she knew.
"Having access to liquid funds is important to my employers."
"And your employers are... who exactly?"
"It's a long story."
Leah rolled her eyes. "Matt. We're trying to keep my sister and me out of jail. You just spent more than a million dollars and didn't blink an eye. We had sex less than an hour ago and I don't know anything about you. Can we put our cards on the table? At least a little?"
"Cards on the table? Ok, how about we start with why a famous actress was on the run with enough blow to knock out an elephant. That seems like a good place to start."
"Fine. I'll answer your questions if you answer mine."
I thought about it. I had never told anyone what I really did for a living. Nothing good could come from it. My family and friends thought I was a vanilla CPA doing taxes for rich trust fund babies. Between the odd hours, frequent impromptu business trips, and the safety aspect of it all, it was just easier to keep them in the dark. Over the years I had drifted away from my old life. But Leah was in this deep already, what was the harm in filling in a few blanks for her?
"Okay. What's your first question?"
Leah leaned forward, which put her alluring cleavage on display, and squinted at me. She made a show of thinking hard while I tried to keep my eyes on hers. "Hmmm. Alright. Have you ever been married?"
"What? That's what you want to know?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Is that your first question for me?" she asked. When I didn't answer she smirked and said, "I have my reasons." When I still didn't answer she became annoyed. "Jesus. We'll get to the heavy stuff." Then her expression softened. "We're going to be spending a lot of time together Matt, some of it intimately. It's important to me to know at least a little about you, personally."
I held up my hands in surrender. "Fair enough. No I've never been married. I came close, once, but I broke it off. This job doesn't leave a lot of room for anything else. Okay, my turn. You said earlier that the night of the accident you had just done a pick-up before you were chased off the highway, so I suspect this isn't your first time."
"Is there a question coming?"
"Who were you working for?"
Leah took a bite of pizza and thought about how to answer. "When I was sixteen I had a crush on this boy, Oliver. He was a few years older, cute, and wore nice clothes. All the girls liked him, but he asked me out." She walked to the sink and washed her hands. "We went on a few dates to some fancy restaurants, and one night he asked me to do him a favor. He wanted me to drive to St. Catharines and pick up a bag of clothes and other personal items he left at a friend's house. He said he couldn't do it himself because he was taking care of his grandmother that night. I agreed, but I had to bring Brooke with me so she wouldn't tell our parents." She looked around for a towel, which I pulled out of a drawer and handed to her. "On our way back, after we crossed the border, Brooke looked in the bag and saw a package of white powder. I was freaked out. Driving over the border with drugs, and my little sister, in the car was terrifying. By the time we made it back to Oliver I was pissed and yelled at him, but he handed me a folded up stack of hundred dollar bills and said it was my cut, and that they never stop cute girls." She handed the towel back to me. "That was the most money I had ever seen in one place. It felt like a movie. This type of thing didn't happen in rural New York. Anyway, that's much more than you told me, it's my turn. Why did you break up with her?"
"My work started to get messy. It came to a point where I had to choose between her and the job. I chose the job. What can you tell me about the people you worked with? Do you have names, addresses, anything like that?"
Leah rolled her eyes at me. "You're going to have to give me more than that." I kept eating and she huffed, "Fine. We picked up from two guys, Thomas and Charles, in St. Catharines and delivered to Oliver in Buffalo for a few more years, but we never dated again. Then he moved away and we started delivering to a man named Felix." Leah moved around the counter, gathering up trash. "When I got my first job in a commercial I moved to L.A., but Brooke stayed here and kept driving. I came home for her birthday. She just turned twenty-one. When we left the bar she said she had to make a trip. I should have said no, I have so much more to lose now, and there was a chance I would be recognized at the border. But she's my little sister."
"Felix? Felix Morin? Is this him?" I asked and showed her a picture on my laptop.
"Yes that's him, do you know him?"
"Only by reputation, but we have a new problem on our hands now. Felix is part of a drug cartel that has a solid foothold across eastern Canada, and he's pretty high up in the organization. They're not people you mess with, and a lot of them will now be missing a payday. Not to mention the fact that they'll be wondering why your sister isn't going to jail and trying to find out who she's been talking to. I'd say you two should get out of town, but Brooke can't leave the area on the terms of her bail."
"You think they will try to hurt us?" she asked.
"The cops are holding a lot of their product, which represents both missing cash for a lot of folks, and a serious risk to their operation if it can be traced back to them. People will be mad. And you two are the easiest to throw under the bus." I spoke as I worked through how this would play out in my mind.
She looked at me with wide eyes, paper plates forgotten in her hands.
By now it was likely that the Sanabria cartel knew Brooke and Leah were together the night of the accident since they did the pick-up together. It was possible they knew she had visited me. But I was an unknown to them. Since I was good at my job they wouldn't know who I was, and I had a large isolated property set back in the woods. Thanks to the high security fences around the perimeter the only way in or out was through the main gate, which had armed guards. If Leah or Brooke were on their own they would be easy targets, but here it would take a serious effort to get to them.
"I think you should both stay here for a little while. It's the safest option right now. In fact, I want to send some guys to stay with Brooke until she's out of the hospital. Can you write a message so she'll trust them?"
"I'm supposed to be back in L.A. in a few days. We're shooting the pilot of a new show."
"You should probably tell them you won't make it. First of all, it's dangerous to be out alone. But your sister will also need your help through this."
She paused before she said, "That could get... awkward when she arrives," and looked at me meaningfully.
"Awkward is better than dead," I responded.
