Page 22 of The Allure of Ruins

Lattimer took hold of my arm, but when I caught my breath, he let go quickly. “I promise you, you are not a dead man, Paxton Walsh.”

“Thanks,” I said and stood up.

“What about the diamonds?” Erast snarled, charging over to me, but he was once again stopped by the agents. “What happened to those?”

“What diamonds?”

“There was three million dollars in cut diamonds in that safe, all about two carats each.”

“I already told you what was in the safe. There was nothing else there.”

“That’s fine. We’ll all see. Gen has every room in that mansion under surveillance.”

“Which makes sense,” Lattimer chimed in. “What I don’t understand is, why no guards?”

“The house was normally filled with men,” I clarified for Lattimer. “But today, Gen sent everyone out on a job as you probably know from Erast here.”

“Yes,” Lattimer concurred. “I just thought, there had to be more than those that we swept up in our raid.”

“He locked all the others in their rooms but me, and once he was out cold, I released them. And about the camera system,” I said, glaring at Erast, “yes, it works perfectly as long as no one disabled the cloud backup.”

“You fuckin’ little faggot,” he barked at me.

“Sticks and stones, man,” I said with a shrug, and enjoyed the FBI agents walking him out of the terminal. He had no more power over me. Neither did Gen.

It all started with cleaning out the safe. Once I opened it and stopped supporting Gen, allowing him to drop like a rock to the floor, I had run to his office, powered off every camera, turned off the link to the cloud, and then unplugged the computer. I then disconnected the hard drive, took it to the kitchen, and tenderized it with the heavy-duty meat mallet. Once that was done, I swept it all off the counter into a soup pot and carried it to the deep end of the pool. I then emptied the broken bits, made certain that most of them were settled well at the bottom—some were floating—and then replaced the pot in the drawer where it went. All my life I’d been thorough. I never left anything to chance. That was the easiest way to get hurt.

On our way out the door, I had everyone put their phones into the microwave and set it on high for twenty minutes. There was no way it would take half that long. Everyone thought that was inspired idea. My only regret was that I wouldn’t get to see the outcome.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Colton directed, and it took me a moment to focus on him and remember where I was, and more importantly, when. All that had happened nine, going on ten, years ago now. It seemed like another lifetime. “Go back.”

“To what?”

“So you just got on a plane from LA to Chicago?”

“Yeah.”

“Why Chicago?”

“Originally, I wanted to go to New York because it was the farthest away, but the guy who drove us to the airport was super nice, calmed us all down because we were scared and a bit manic, and even drove us through In-N-Out on the way. He told us all about Chicago and how great it was and how much he missed it. So I thought, yeah, Illinois instead.”

“Wouldn’t Maine have technically been farther away?” he muttered.

I shook my head. “Not enough people in Maine. My plan was to blend in.”

“Of course.”

“Why do you sound mad?”

“Because it basically came down to a coin toss that I have you in my life at all!”

He yelled the last bit, and that quickly I was crying.

“Why’re you doing that now?” He could not have sounded any more exasperated if he tried. And I loved that.

Anyone else, listening to the story I had just imparted, would have been gentle and careful, but not him. He was supportive, ready to stand between me and the world, but still annoyed when there were tears out of nowhere.

It was that, as well as a million little things, like ordering food he knew he’d never finish so I could take the rest home. Walking slowly on purpose so we could talk, and always putting his hand on the corners of his desk when I was on the floor getting something. He was exceedingly vigilant, and I counted on him for that.