Lisa Scottoline - Think Twice

“Yes, hi.”

“Jeez!” Caitlin glanced over her shoulder, slipped out the shop door, and hurried them both to the side, in front of a restaurant. “I thought you were dead!”

What?

“Where’ve you been? Why are you dressed like that?”

Tiffany interjected, “If she told you, she’d have to kill you.”

Caitlin ignored her. “Alice, wait here. I’ll tell Janey I got a call from Danny’s school.” She turned, ran back inside the shop, and closed the door behind her.

“See what I mean?” Tiffany frowned. “She has a thing against me. Use me, will you?”

“I’ll think about it,” Bennie said, though now that she’d met Caitlin, she could see why Tiffany didn’t fit into Alice’s business plan.

Caitlin reappeared, hoisting a Kate Spade purse to her shoulder and shooing Tiffany away like a roach. “Go, please. I’ll take Alice home.”

“Okay, okay.” Tiffany edged backwards. “See ya, Al.”

“Later,” Bennie said, like Alice.

Caitlin was already hailing a cab, which pulled over immediately, thanks to her cute face and skinny legs. Up close, her eyes were round, an unusual green-brown, and her pretty mouth glossy with pink lipstick. She even smelled expensive, like floral perfume. They climbed inside the cab, and it lurched into traffic as Caitlin gave the driver an address that Bennie remembered was Alice’s.

“So, Alice, where were you?” Caitlin turned to her, tense. “We had no pickup, and we sold out of what we had left. Q called me at the shop looking for you, and he’s furious. He cursed me out when I said I didn’t know where you were. I had to tell Janey he was my brother and I don’t even have a brother.”

Bennie didn’t remember Alice talking about someone named Q. She stayed quiet and absorbed the information.

“I didn’t sign up for that. I don’t want to deal with that. He scared me half to death. I have kids!”

Bennie was already revising what she’d thought earlier. If Alice had to get away from this guy, Q, then that must be why she’d tried to kill Bennie. So it didn’t start out being about the money, but it was ending up that way.

“Where were you? Kendra and I were worried.” Caitlin waited for an answer, and Bennie slipped into Alice’s mindset, which was surprisingly easy. She was already thinking of Caitlin and Kendra as a darker version of DiNunzio and Carrier.

She eyed Caitlin, coolly. “You weren’t worried about me. You were worried about your job.”

Caitlin blinked, one beat of her perfectly lined eyes. “Okay, right. What do you want me to say?”

“Try the truth.”

“I need the money, and I didn’t know what to do, with you gone. I didn’t know whether to take my cut, and you weren’t around to ask, so I did. I gave Kendra hers, too.” Caitlin’s tone turned lecturing. “We’re running a business here, at least you are, and we all need the extra money. But it’s not my life, and I don’t want it to cost me my life. Or jail, or anything like that.”

“Okay.”

“You’re the one who came to me, saying you were ahead of the curve, that you saw this market that wasn’t being served. You said it was like any other business, but it’s not. Not when I have to answer to a gangster like Q, or whatever his real name is.”

Bennie let her talk, and Caitlin wouldn’t be stopped anyway, having a meltdown.

“You said you were a professional. So you can’t disappear for a week or sleep around. You think I don’t hear you on the phone with Jimmy, whoever he is? If you keep fooling around with him, you could both end up dead!”

“You finished yet?”

“One last thing. You pissed off our supplier, so how do you expect us to stay in business?”

“Leave that to me.”

“I can’t deal with this level of stress. I get constant grief from my ex, always late with the payments, and then he gives the kids the check on Sunday, which he’s not supposed to do.” Caitlin rubbed her forehead with French-manicured fingers. “It’s back-to-school time, and I had to take my cut to make a Staples run. You know how much those JanSport backpacks cost? And Book Sox are five bucks a pop.”

“Book Sox?”

“They’re things that cover the kids’ textbooks.”

“We always used paper bags.” Bennie smiled, and so did Caitlin, finally calming down.

“So did we. Anyway, what happened to you last week?”

“I met somebody.”

Caitlin shook her head, disapproving. “Who?”

“Nobody you’d know, obviously.”

“What’d you do?”

Bennie shrugged, offhand. “We partied.”

“Well, did you have a scratch party? Your legs are a mess.”

“Don’t ask.”

“And your hand? It looks cut. Did he cut you or something?”

“Of course not.” Bennie glanced out the cab window, watching the skyscrapers pass, then the tall brick townhomes of Society Hill. “Bottom line, I drank too much, we played some games, and I had such a good time that I don’t remember where I left my wallet, keys, or phone.”

Caitlin snorted. “So how are we going to get into your apartment? The super?”

“Obviously.”

“So you don’t have your car keys, either?”

“No.” Bennie paused a minute. Everybody had an extra set of car keys. “I must have an another set somewhere.”

“You do, in your dresser. Remember, you lent them to me, that time my car was in the shop?”

“Oh, right.” Bennie held on to the handstrap as the cab steered out of town toward I-95, heading north.

“So where’s your car?”

“Hell if I know.”

Caitlin rolled her eyes.

“You gonna ground me, Mom?”

Caitlin smiled again, begrudgingly. “Anyway, we did so well that we were out of product by Sunday. Everybody’s crazy busy, with school starting. I’m not the only mom who’s stressed out. Look.” Caitlin slipped a hand into her purse and passed Bennie a stack of wrinkled bills wrapped with a pink scrunchie. “This is three thousand dollars, and we already took our cuts, like I said, and you have to trust me we didn’t take more, because you know we wouldn’t. We had a great weekend, one of the best ever.”

“Good.” Bennie tucked the money into the cheap brown purse she’d gotten from Tiffany.

“You need to get us a new supplier. This business is too good to let it go, and it’ll only get better come the holidays, with all the shopping and cooking. A visit from the in-laws will drive anybody to Xanax.” Caitlin laughed at her own joke. “Also, the Lexapro was gone by noon on Saturday, and I think we should increase the price on the Norco, the hundred-milligram, when we start up again. These women have money, and we can get $45 a pop.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Fine.” Caitlin pulled a cell phone from her purse, flipped it open and pressed a button. Into the phone, she said, “Kendra, I found Alice. Yes, she’s fine. Meet us in ten minutes at her place. Get the key from the super, would you? See you.” Caitlin hung up, looking over. “By the way, how did you end up at Tiffany’s?”

“What’s the difference?”

“You’re not going to take her on, are you?”

“No.” Bennie looked out the window as they sped in silence onto the highway, whizzing past immense warehouses blanketed with ads. They got off, took a left onto the main boulevard, and navigated a warren of well-kept apartment buildings. Finally they pulled up in front of Pembroke Arms, a new brick low-rise that was presumably Alice’s. Caitlin handed a twenty to the cabbie, and Bennie got out of the cab just as another attractive young woman walked toward them, her sleek ponytail swinging.

“Alice!” It was Kendra, but she could have passed for a fitness model, tall and lean in a black stretch top that read PERSONAL TRAINER, which she wore with bike shorts and bouncy Nikes. Her brown eyes were wide-set and animated, her nose small, and her smile dazzling. “I was so worried about you! What happened?”