Chapter 30

CHAPTER 30

W e ate dinner together that night—I made lasagna in an attempt to achieve normality—and Max went up to take another look in Ozzie's back room. I asked Poppy about Darius, and she shook her head and went upstairs to do homework. I had this horrible feeling that I really didn't know my kid anymore. But when I went up to check on her a couple of hours later, she was in bed, out cold, her headphones still on and William curled up beside her, just like usual, so I set her head free and kissed her forehead and patted William, and then went down into the kitchen to make another cup of tea and think about . . . everything.

No matter what Betty said, Poppy was my first priority, but she seemed better. I think working the shop was helping her a lot. Whatever was happening with Darius was not helping. She relaxed around Max, leaned on him, and he was careful with her, all of which could be a problem: She was going to start thinking she needed him to survive. So, we were going to have to talk about that, Poppy and me, and Max and me, but not tonight .

Then there was whoever had killed Melissa and Sid and possibly tried to drown Max. I could see why somebody would want to drown Max; he was dangerous and would definitely be in the way of a serial killer, not to mention anybody wanting to marry me. Sid had been shifty as all hell and up to something worse than selling pot out of the pharmacy. And Melissa . . . Melissa's past had evidently come for her, based on what Betty had said. Those were three different motives unless there was something underneath it all that tied them together. But that would just mean we had three killers walking our streets. Yeah, there's a thought to have right before bedtime, Rose.

I decided to do something active and positive for me— See, Betty? I can be selfish —and look for more Ozzie cash.

I did not believe he'd stashed millions. For one thing, that much bulk paper would be noticeable. But then I googled what a million bucks in hundred-dollar bills would look like, and stacked up, it would be forty-three inches of bills. And Ozzie was evidently stashing them in fifty-thousand-dollar chunks. Ten thousand in one-hundreds was half an inch, so fifty would be two and a half inches . . .

In a secondhand shop full of hiding places.

There really could be a million in this place. It seemed impossible, but the impossible was showing up on a regular basis lately, so I had learned not to discount it.

So far, Ozzie had used a go bag, but that was just practical in case we had to go on the run. And then he'd hidden more in a tin box that looked like a book. That was like him, he loved tricks and puzzles. There wouldn't be another fake book, I'd bet. Ozzie wouldn't repeat himself. Plus, Poppy told me she'd gone through all of the books this afternoon. She said a lot of them were worthless, she'd brought the ones she thought she could sell to me to be cleaned, and she was planning on going through and googling all the titles to make sure Ozzie hadn't accidentally scored something rare, but she thought most of them could be trashed. I told her not to throw them out, that maybe I could do something with them, and she'd seemed pleased about that. She'd said, "Good. You should make things." I assumed that meant she was looking for stock for the shop, so I could make more book boxes. That was practical.

Now back to the cash.

What else had Ozzie had that seemed odd for him to have, something that wasn't quite real?

Hell, the whole shop was full of odd stuff. That was another problem: I was going to have to find a way to get more stuff, and I was not the drive-around-in-an-old-truck-looking-for-stuff kind of woman. So tomorrow, I'd just have to open everything in the shop that had a lid, or could be disguised as something that didn't have a lid but really did, in hopes of finding more Ozzie stash.

My mind was going in circles at this point, so I got up and put my teacup in the sink and then put the box of tea bags back in the cupboard, taking a moment to look at what was in it. I'd have to go through all of the cupboards in the kitchen and the pantry, looking for old stuff, stuff I wouldn't open on a regular basis, maybe stuff I wouldn't open at all, although I was the one who stocked . . .

There on the high top shelf above the tea bags were the three cans of chickpeas I'd been trying to throw out for years because they were so old, but Ozzie had stopped me every time because, he said, chickpeas were good luck. I hadn't given a damn about chickpeas, and I'd thought the real reason he wouldn't get rid of them was that he'd kept his shotgun ammo hidden behind them, knowing that nobody would ever touch those dusty, expired cans. But now . . .

I took one of the cans down and looked at it. It seemed a little light for chickpeas. It took me some fairly intense examination, but finally I saw that he'd taken the lid off with one of those no-sharp-edges can openers, the kind that make a lid you can put back on. When I started to pry the lid off, I saw he'd stuck it back on with museum wax so it wouldn't fall off, but after a minute, I had the lid loose. So I opened it.

No chickpeas.

Just a lot of lettuce.