Yolanda says something. The man responds. Then he spins around and heads toward us. Lucie and I duck.
“I’ll pay back the money I owe your boss! I promise!” Yolanda calls after the bouncer dude. “I just need more time!”
“One week and not a day more!” he shouts back.
When his footsteps grow quieter, we sit up again.
“She’s in dire need of money.” Lucie wiggles her eyebrows. “Good news for you!”
I open the door. “Do you mind sitting this one out? I’m not sure your presence will facilitate the negotiations.”
“It won’t,” she agrees. “I’ll wait here.”
Yolanda opens on my first knock. “Listen, there’s no need to…” She closes her mouth, realizing the man in front of her isn’t the scary debt collector.
I introduce myself as Martin Dupond, one of my aliases when I’m not in Evor, and explain that I’m an art dealer, who heard from someone who heard from her ex-boyfriend Paul Laborde that he’d given her an antique key.
Hiding my shaking hands behind my back, I ask, “Do you still have it, Madame?”
“I think I do.” She furrows her brow. “Never thought that thing had any real value but hate throwing things out.”
Her eyes widen with a realization.
Even without my mother’s supernatural powers, I can read her mind now with perfect clarity.This man is a godsend. He’ll pay for that old key. I’ll pay back my debt. I’m saved!
She bats her eyelashes. “How much are you offering for it?”
“May I see it first?”
“Wait here, please.” She closes the door on me.
I can hear her run across the entryway.
Ten minutes later, the door reopens, and a beaming Yolanda shows me a key.The key. Everything corresponds to the descriptions and sketches I have, down to the tiniest detail.
I bottle up my breaths, nearly quivering as I try to calm down. “Ten grand.”
I’m obviously prepared to pay a hundred—a thousand—times more, but I don’t want to spook her by making an offer that’s too extravagant.
She steps backward, visibly shaken, takes another look at the key and then at me. “Is it gold? Doesn’t look like gold…”
“It isn’t gold, Madame, or any other precious metal,” I say, adopting my best professorial tone. “The value of that object comes from its original design and its history.”
Her eyes dart left and right, like she’s itching to try something so crazy it scares her.
I wait.
“Twenty,” she blurts out, hugging herself. “I want twenty grand for this key.”
Immersed in my role-play, I pull my phone out and do a few sums on the calculator app, keeping my brows drawn together.
“OK,” I say at length. “I can pay twenty.”
“This week… and in cash!” she adds before covering her mouth with her hand and eyeing me nervously.
“Of course,” I say. “We can conclude the transaction right now if you wish. Or I can come back tomorrow…”
Tomorrow?My immersion is getting out of hand!
