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“What do you intend to do about it?” I said, which I’m sure sounded like a challenge to Berniece even though it wasn’t. I was intensely curious--not to mention frightened--of her next move.
“I intend to get rich,” she said. “I’ll stay silent and look the other way if you and your family pay up.”
I stayed completely still, stunned. “How much?”
“Fifty thousand dollars should be enough,” she said before tacking on a threat I was certain she’d carry out. “For now. You have until tomorrow night to think it over.”
Immediately, I began to panic.
Tomorrow.
That wasn’t much time. Not nearly enough to plan our escape. But escape was the only option. Of that, I had no doubt.
I burst from the kitchen, running outside to the terrace, where Ricky waited in the shadows. I hushed him before he could say a word, worried that Berniece had followed me out.
“Not here,” I whispered before whisking him away to the first floor of the garage, where the gleaming Packards my father owned but never drove were kept. We climbed into the back seat of one of them, hiding from the rest of the world.
“Will you tell me what’s going on?” Ricky said.
“She knows,” I blurted out. “Berniece knows. And she wants money or she’s going to tell my father. But telling my father is the only way to get the money.”
“How much does she want?” Ricky said, his voice more curious than angry.
“Fifty thousand dollars.” I wanted to sob. The situation was so dire that I had no idea what to do. No matter what we chose, the decision would irrevocably change my life. “What are we going to do?”
Ricky had the only answer.
“Run away,” he said. “Tomorrow night.”
THIRTY-FOUR
I’ll give whoever named Ocean View Retirement Home credit where it’s due. The place does have what its name promises. From a distance. And only if you look between the buildings on the other side of the street, the backs of which really do have an ocean view.
Inside is a large, tasteful lobby that makes the place look more like a hotel than a nursing home. There are potted palms, plush chairs, and paintings of seashells in pastel shades on the walls. A registration desk stretches along one end of the lobby, behind which sits a woman who appears old enough to be a resident. Gray hair. Mint green pantsuit. Lit cigarette jammed between her lips. She squints through the smoke, watching my approach.
“Welcome to Ocean View,” she says. “How may I be of assistance?”
I look to the doors on either side of the desk. One is closed and marked as being for employees only. The other is propped open, revealing a glimpse of a man pushing a walker down a hallway lined with burgundy carpet. The way into Ocean View.
“I’m here to see Bernice Mayhew,” I say.
The receptionist looks me up and down, assessing my uniform. “You’re not one of our nurses.”
“No. I’m with the insurance company.” I lift the medical bag I brought with me as part of the ruse. “They ordered me to check her vitals.”
“Why?”
“They didn’t tell me. You know how insurance companies can be.”
The receptionist nods, silently acknowledging that yes, insurance companies are terrible and yes, the two of us are just cogs in a vast healthcare industrial complex that puts profits over people every damn time. Still, she hesitates. “We have our own medical staff that evaluates the patients.”
“I’m just doing what I was told,” I say.
“I understand that. But them sending you here at this hour is very unusual.”
“I totally agree,” I say. “You can call the main office, if you want. But you’ll be on hold for an hour and what I need to do only takes five minutes. Check blood pressure, heart rate, temperature. Then I’m gone.”
I take a breath, proud of myself—not to mention a little alarmed—for being able to lie so effortlessly. The receptionist exhales a line of smoke and eyes the phone by her elbow, no doubt debating how much time she wants to waste on this. Not a lot, apparently, because she says, “Five minutes? That’s it?”