I protest. “And there’s still a few pieces in the storage unit that he was going to move for us. The Gio Ponti armchairs—he said he’d get at least fifteen grand each for them.”
He prods at his dry lips with the tip of his tongue. “Yeah, well, that’s the least of our problems. The police were at your house. Maybe Efram gave us up in a plea deal, or maybe your name was just in his contact files and they’re fishing for information. But, either way, we should get out of town for a while and let the dust settle. And if we hear through the grapevine that they’ve issued a warrant for our arrest, we’ll know we have to run for real, but at least we’ll have a head start.”
“We have to run?” My head spins. “But that’s not possible. I’ve got to take care of Lily.”
“Yeah, well, your mom was right about that, too. You’re not going to be able to take care of her if you’re in jail.” He starts cracking his knuckles, gently tugging at each finger until it yields with a sickening pop. “Look, let’s just take a breather and do a job somewhere else. There’s clearly too much heat in L.A., so we’re not going to be able to work here for a while anyway. It can’t hurt to go find new hunting grounds, for a few months at least.” He snaps his pinkie, and I wince.
“A few months?” I think of the cancer once again spreading its creeping tentacles through my mother’s body. I imagine her lying alone in a hospital bed, an IV snaking into her veins, the steady bleat of the machines. I want to say something like, This is more than I signed up for, but it’s not true. It is what I signed up for, it’s just that I believed that Lachlan knew what he was doing and we would never get caught. We were being careful. We never took too much, even when we could. The rules—they were supposed to be our safeguard against this.
He looks at me coolly. “Or we can go our separate ways. It’s up to you. But I’m leaving town.”
I’m dumbstruck by the icy calculation in his words. Am I just a business proposition, so easily discarded when I start to be inconvenient? I can’t finish my drink. “I thought…” I don’t know how to finish the sentence. What did I think? That we would be together forever? Go straight together, get a house in the suburbs and have a kid or two? No, that was never in the cards. So why does this sting so much? Because I have no one else, I realize.
“Oh, c’mon Nina, love. Don’t look like that.” He reaches across the table and laces his fingers between mine. “It will all be fine. Look, come with me. I promise we’ll figure this out. We’ll go someplace close enough that you can still come back and check on your mom periodically. Someplace within driving distance, like Northern California, or Nevada. But it needs to be a little off the beaten path, so we can lay low. A resort destination, maybe. Like Monterey, or Napa.” He squeezes my hand. “Or, hey— What about Lake Tahoe? That’s where all the Silicon Valley billionaires spend their weekends, right? Have you been tracking anyone up there?”
But I’m thinking about what will have to happen if I leave town: the home care I’ll have to bring in to take care of my mother when she’s weak from the treatment, the help I’ll have to hire to get her to and from her appointments, the staggering bills that will need to be opened and paid. Assuming I even have the money to pay them. My mother’s life is on the line: As long as our bank account remains depleted, there will be no experimental radioimmunotherapy treatment. I don’t really have a choice.
We need a job that is fast, with a big payoff; and my thoughts catch on something that Lachlan just said. Tahoe.
There’s a ruckus at the bar and I look over in time to see one of the football fans vomiting all over the floor. His friends are laughing as if this is hilarious. The bartender, a blond girl with tattoo