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It’s a little dig because Nick here wanted to meet at the Dunkin’ across the street. He wasn’t the least bit subtle about it, either. “If you don’t mind, I’d really rather meet at the Dunkin’,” he said, not once, but enough times that the old me almost caved, even though Ididmind. Because what I called Nick here to discuss has to be done in a McDonald’s. The universe demands it. Symmetry demands it.
“This place has special memories for me,” I tell him now, not so much an apology as an explanation, an olive branch for the Chernobyl coffee. “Not good memories, but memories nonetheless. Let’s just say it’s karma that we do this here.”
Nick shrugs, letting it go. “Karma’s a bitch. Best not to piss her off, I always say.” He takes a sip of his coffee, then puts it down with a grimace. Clasps his hands on the Formica table. Waits.
“I understand you travel extensively for business.”
Nick came highly recommended to me exactly because of this qualification—must travel extensively for business. The other qualifications,must be dependable and discreet, were something I mentally checked off as soon as I clocked him walking through the door, on time and in clothing that might as well make him invisible.
“I’m on the road more often than not, yes.”
“Long trips?”
“It varies. Sometimes I need to stay put for a day or two, but even then, I’m never sleeping in the same bed two nights in a row. I like to move around just in case.”
He leaves it at that,just in case, and I don’t ask. Whatever he means by it, I honestly don’t care to know. For the job I called him here to do, it makes zero difference.
“But sure,” he continues, shrugging again, “in a typical month, I’ll log three to four thousand miles so I guess that qualifies as long trips.”
“Do you have a home base?”
“Multiple home bases. But like I said, I’m hardly ever there.”
“Perfect.”
He grins. “Tell that to the missus.”
I’m pretty sure he’s joking, or maybe he’s saying it to try to throw me off his tail. Men like Nick aren’t the marrying type—or if they do marry it’s more for convenience or cover than for love. Never for love.
“That’s funny,” I say, twisting the cap on my water. “I always liked it when my husband traveled for work.”
As soon as I say the words, I want to swallow them back down. The skin around Nick’s eyes tightens, just for an instant, but long enough I catch it. Unlike his joke, harmless words about a wife that doesn’t exist, mine revealed too much—that the husband is real, that life was better when he was gone. Nick is not my friend. He’s not someone I should be joking with over a cup of crappy coffee. This is a business meeting, and the less he knows about me, the better.
I slide a shiny Wells Fargo card from the side pocket of my bag and push it across the table. “I want you to spend my money.”
He doesn’t say anything, but he picks up the card, running a thumb over the shiny gold letters across the front—my real name, definitely notBeth. When he looks back up, his expression is unreadable.
“For the record, I don’t mean spend it as in booking a first-class ticket to Vegas and going nuts at the roulette wheel, but spend it as in ten dollars here, twenty there. I want you to move around alot. Never the same ATM, or even the same city, twice. The farther away the withdrawals are from each other, the more varied the locations, the better. Think of me as your ATM fairy godmother.”
“You want me to lay a trail.”
I tip my head, a silent confirmation. “Assuming you don’t withdraw more than a hundred dollars a week, which you can’t because I’ve set up the card with a weekly limit, you’ll get five weeks of money off that card.”
“And my fee?”
His fee is five hundred dollars, an amount he made very clear on the phone is nonnegotiable. Whatever it is I’m hiring him to do comes on top of that, which means this is a job that comes with a hefty cash bonus, one that’s double his fee. Probably the easiest money he’s ever made.
“Your fee is on there, too. You can withdraw that today. The weekly limits kick in as soon as you do.”
He hikes up on a hip and slips the card into the front pocket of his pants. “You want me to go east or west?”
I know why he’s asking, because he assumes I’d want him to head in the opposite direction. Or at least, Ithinkthat’s why he’s asking. But I’m still stinging from my slip-up, and thanks to the card in his pocket, Nick now knows my real name. No way I’m telling him—a criminal, a stranger—where I’m planning to land. Not that I think he’d come after me, but still. If there’s one thing I’ve learned these past ten years, it’s to trust no one, not even the people you’re supposed to trust the most.
“East, west, north, south. I don’t care, as long as your withdrawals are erratic and your stops unpredictable. I’ll be watching the transactions online, and if I don’t like what I see, I’ll put the brakes on the account.”
“You do know there are cameras at every ATM, right?”
I roll my eyes. Of course I know. I didn’t spend the past ten months planning this thing to have not thought about something as basic as security cameras. But it’ll be days, maybe even weeks before you find the withdrawals, longer before you see Nick’s face on the tapes instead of mine. I’m not worried about the stupid cameras.