had offered me my escape on a silver platter. It was too easy by far.
“He’s testing me. Or he knows something I don’t.” I groaned and thumped back against the headrest.
An entire morning spent researching my two afternoon prelim visits while I knocked back glass after glass of water had lessened my headache, but my eyes felt scratchy and my body weak. The hope that fuelled me after hearing about the car had siphoned away.
I really had to eat. A visit to Sister Sushi was in order. I had fifty-five dollars to burn. And—I straightened in the deep, plush seat.
“I get paid today!” Today was Thursday. I should have been paid yesterday. Angelica had kept herself scarce since our last encounter.
I’d have to hunt her down to get every cent owed.
Except that would require going back.
Which I wasn’t doing.
Or had Kyros known I’d be back for the money? The guy was a games master for a living. Why should I assume this ploy was anything less than another game? Was giving me a car actually a test—or had he just banked on me thinking it was a test?
“Oh man, that’s getting too crazy,” I spoke to the car again.
Thumping my head against the black leather headrest once more, I grabbed the file for 77 Bard Boulevard and swung the door open. Tucking the small remote that I guessed passed for a key these days in my bra, I walked up the steep driveway.
The car beeped at my back and I spun.
No idea what that meant. Had it self-locked? I winced at the long scratches down the curb-side tyres and body.
The small scrapes weren’t so small. “Oops.”
I grinned at the thought of the damaged car sitting in the garage of the tower until someone told Kyros.
“I told you people, I’m not interested in selling!”
Yelping, I gripped the base of my throat, spinning to the house.
A curtain twitched behind the front bay windows.
“Get off my property before I call the police.”
I ducked my head, catching a glimpse of smeared bright-red lipstick and beady blue eyes behind the curtain.
“I mean it!”
From the woman’s attitude, I could assume this wasn’t really a prelim visit. Not like the first approach visits I’d been on with Katerina. This woman made it sound like Live Right bothered her constantly. They’d sent me to someone who hated them.
Fine for me. I hated them too.
“Okey-dokey, Mrs Gaughton. I’m leaving right now,” I sang out in the direction of the window—cracked open a sliver.
The curtain twitched again. “Good. Stay away or I’ll get an order.”
An order, huh? If she was going to bluff, she should research the terms for five minutes. “Sure thing. I’ll make a note on your file that you’re not to be bothered again.”
Could I do that?
I set off for the car again. Maybe I could pull over in a quiet street and take a nap. As I picked my way down the steep driveway, I spotted a wilting lavender bush in her tiered garden. The whole garden looked sad if truth be told, but I always noticed lavender wherever I went because it was Grandmother’s favourite.
She hung lavender dry beads in her wardrobe and her clothes carried the scent. When she took her green tea in the afternoons, it was always in the lavender terraces. That was the only estate garden my grandmother tended to—the singular hobby she pursued around managing the estate’s finances.
I glanced back at the curtain. It rippled. Mrs Gaughton was watching to make sure I left.
I hesitated, then called, “You’re overwatering your lavender, did you know? My grandmother said you should only water them when the soil is dry up to your first finger knuckle.”
There was no reply.
“Okay, good luck with it,” I said.
Naptime.
I could swing by my old apartment and see what the state of things were. At this point, my stuff seemed a lost cause and not worth my time, but my second appointment was at three. I had time to kill.
“Wait!”
I peered back up the driveway. The tiny old woman had left her window station to squeeze her head through a crack in the front door.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“I can’t get that lavender bush to take off. Do you have any other tips?”
Ugh, apart from lavender being drought resistant and hard to kill? I actually did know a few things. My grandmother was most relaxed in the west gardens, so I gravitated there to be in her company at 4:00 p.m. most days. “I know that you shouldn’t have pruned