“This is his.” When Julian nodded, Jack said, “Could I get two pour-overs, please? Medium, and two scones? Whatever you’ve got.”
“Certainly, sir.” Julian took the credit card Jack handed him. “Can I toast those for you?”
“Yes, please,” Jack said, using his best manners. He put the credit card back in Morgan’s wallet once Julian had run it, then looked to see where he might wait for the coffees.
Julian shook his head. “Go sit down. I’ll bring them. I need to make rounds, anyway.”
“Thanks,” Jack said. He wove among the tables to where Morgan was sitting with his back to the wall and held out the wallet. “I bought a crate of diamonds, some gold bullion, and a Rolls-Royce.”
“What about the meth?” Morgan asked without skipping a beat. “Why do youalwaysforget the meth?”
Jack laughed under his breath, and Morgan scowled as he shifted his hip to put the wallet in his pocket. Making it seem like he wanted to be irritated but simply could not be.
When Jack sat down in one of the metal chairs with the heart-shaped backs, Morgan looked at him, his eyes asking where the coffee was.
“He’ll bring it,” Jack said. Then, to distract himself from Morgan’s closeness, the soft sigh he made as he relaxed in his chair, Jack asked, “What do you think about that ledger, huh?”
Morgan laid the ledger on the table and opened it. The table was big enough so there was plenty of room.
“Let me call Gus,” he said, pulling out his phone, though Jack hoped he wasn’t going to have a phone conversation in a crowded coffee shop. Gus didn’t answer, thankfully, and Morgan ended the call without leaving a message.
“There’s all these names,” Morgan said, pointing at a page, his finger underlining the cursive writing. “But except for Gus, I don’t know any of these people.”
He flipped through the pages, reading the top of each one.
“Isaac McGinlay, Sun.Leroy Svenson, Pot. Felix Steinberg, Bar. Herbert Winfield, Ho. What does that mean? And these amounts. In one column, that’s money out. Some kind of credit extended. The other column is money in, to record what people paid against what they borrowed, but all the spaces are blank. And I don’t have any way of contacting these people. Unless I start asking around town, demanding payment like an October version of Ebenezer Scrooge.”
“You’re not that,” Jack said, a great deal more gently than he should have.
He should be detached, driving Morgan all over town in a businesslike fashion while he got mentally ready for the final blow. He should not be behaving like this. Not talking softly, like he cared. Because he couldn’t care. Shouldn’t. But he did, and it would hurt so bad when he left.
“I guess not,” Morgan said. He pushed the ledger to the side when he saw Julian coming their way, carrying a tray laden with tall white mugs of coffee, packets of sugar, plastic tubs of cream, and, best of all, sugar-speckled scones on white china plates.
If Morgan wondered why he was getting such top-tier service, being waited on at a table while everyone else in the place had to stand in line, he didn’t ask.
“Thank you,” Jack said, dumping two sugar packets and two tubs of cream into his mug. “We appreciate it.”
They drank their coffee and munched on the scones in relative silence. The coffee was sweet and smooth, and Jack sighed as the warmth and the caffeine and the sugar hit his belly.
All the while, customers cycled through, stomping their feet as they came in from the cold, bundling up as though for a trekthrough the Arctic as they went out into it. Jack and Morgan were seated at the back, so they weren’t in any line of traffic.
“Mabel!” Morgan said suddenly, gesturing with a chunk of scone.
“What?” Jack asked, startled. “What about her? She wasn't in the ledger.”
Morgan nodded to himself as he bit into the scone, sending crumbs everywhere. Dipping his chin, he brushed his coat clean, then looked at Jack.
“She might know why Aunt Oralee paid fifty bucks a year for a safe-deposit box, simply to keep a ledger in there that she could just as easily have kept at home,” Morgan said. “And shewouldknow who those people are. Even if she doesn’t know what the ledger is for, surely she knows whoIsaac McGinlay, Sunis, and all the rest of them.”
“We should go see her,” Jack said. “Except she’s mad at you.” And then wished he’d kept his mouth shut both times. This wasn’t his town, these weren’t his friends, and this wasn’t his conversation.
Mabel was angry with Morgan, yes, and once Jack left, Morgan could take care of that situation. Or not. It had nothing to do with Jack. Right?
“She is.” Morgan finished his coffee and made an attempt at wiping the crumbs off the table into the palm of his hand, but the crumbs went where they wanted to go. Then he went still, dusting his hands as he let out a long, slow breath. “And with good reason.”
“Good reason?” Jack asked, wondering why they weren’t getting up to go back to the feed and grain so Jack could start packing what little he intended to take with him.
“I haven’t done right by you,” Morgan said. His eyes looked dull, like he’d been carrying around a lot more than Jack had been aware of.
