“Fuck this. I’m done. I’m out. I don’t even want to know why someone would fly across the country to threaten you with a dead man’s digit. I’m calling Wu,” he said, starting for the door.
“Wait! Kelly!” Sesame ran after him and threw herself in front of the door. “Let me explain.”
“Explain what? That you never trusted me with the truth? That you never will?”
“I was trying to protect you,” she said, her lower lip trembling. Her gaze slid to Tommy. “And you. All I ever wanted to do was keep you both safe.”
“That’s not all you ever wanted. What you wanted was to be rich and famous. Now I’m suspended from my job, the only thing I have left to be proud of. And you led a murderer here, so now everyone under this roof is in jeopardy thanks to you and your lies,” Kellen snapped.
The truth of his words hit Sesame like a cartoon anvil.
“He’s right, kid,” Nick said quietly. “Whatever you’re up to, you brought it into my home and put Riley and me and our friends at risk. Now we’ve got cops watching our every move, and if they catch you and Tommy here, we’re all up shit creek. I hope it was worth it.”
Sesame’s eyes welled with tears, and she shook her head. “It’s not. I thought it would be, but I never meant for anyone to get hurt.”
And then she started to cry real tears.
36
5:14 p.m., Wednesday, October 30
Nick took no pleasure in watching Dolly Parton cry into her husband’s shoulder.
“It’s okay, Ses. We’ll be all right. We just need to figure out a way out of this mess,” Tommy said, stroking her back.
Everyone else—except for Kellen—was eating the pizza Wander had brought back to them. Kellen was too mad and probably still too hungover to eat.
Sesame straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath that challenged the zipper on her glittery Dolly Parton jumpsuit. “I’m ready now.”
“Start at the beginning,” Nick said. “You and Tommy left town after the warehouse fire so he wouldn’t be charged with arson.”
“Why would I be charged with arson?” Tommy asked.
Sesame took his hand in hers and squeezed. “That’s correct.”
“But you didn’t go work for his family’s small-town pharmacy, did you?” Nick continued.
“No, you’re right,” she admitted. “We did work for the family business, but it wasn’t a pharmacy.”
“My aunt and uncle were grifters. At the time, they mostly dabbled in identity theft,” Tommy explained.
“Christ,” Kellen muttered under his breath.
“That’s how we got our new identities. But Sesame didn’t like the work.”
“I thought it was too skeezy. I mean, who wants to be associated with people who insert skimming devices on ATMs and gas pumps. There’s no finesse to it,” she chimed in. “And the profit margins were too low.”
“When Sesame sees something that needs to change, she finds a way to change it,” Tommy said with a soft smile for his wife.
“I watched this news special on prescription drugs and how pharmaceutical companies were inflating the prices, forcing many patients to choose between medicine or other necessities. And I decided to stop it.”
“Okay. How?” Nick asked, shooting a glance at Kellen, who was pretending not to listen.
“I started importing prescription drugs from Mexico, Canada, and Europe and put Tommy’s family in charge of distribution.”
“It was really impressive,” Tommy said, squeezing his wife’s hand.
Sesame beamed. “Thanks, babe. Within a year, we had a network of distributors that covered eleven states selling direct to consumers. Within two years, we were up to twenty states that had significant elderly populations and had international pharmaceutical companies courting us to bring their products to market.”
