Kiss Of Evil

38

Forty-eight thousand three hundred and fifteen dollars is not an easy thing to hide. Not if it is in small bills. And the biggest bill she has is a twenty. Plus, she has at least twelve thousand dollars in singles. Every time you think you have found a perfect place to hide it in your house or apartment-a place you are certain no burglar in the world would think of-you realize that it is the absolute first place any burglar with five functioning brain cells would think of.

So you move it.

Again. And again. And again.

She takes the cash from the plastic trash bag, stuffs it into a WVIZ tote bag, and covers it with a bath towel. She has decided to break down and finally rent a safe-deposit box somewhere with one of her myriad sets of ID. Tonight she will sleep with the bag’s canvas handle wrapped around her wrist; a butcher knife on the nightstand.

She knows she has to end this. And that the best defense is a good offense. And that there are two things she must do if she has any chance of surviving.

One. She has to get the photographs and negatives of her running from the Dream-A-Dream Motel.

Two. She has to find a way to get Isabella back before the police kick her door in.

A pair of seemingly impossible tasks she knows she cannot accomplish alone. A pair of dangerous endeavors that will probably require the mind of a master thief, the hands of a magician. She knows of only one person with that reputation.

She stashes the tote bag back in the hatbox, puts the hatbox in her closet for the time being. She then picks up the phone and dials Jesse Ray Carpenter’s number.

It is time to meet in person.