Good People

“I’m not sure where you’re going with this.” Tom sounded steady, even the tiniest bit offended. It gave her strength, her partner in crime covering when she slipped. “Are you suggesting we took something?”

Halden just hit them with the gaze again, steady, knowing; he was seeing inside her, knew what they’d done. He was smarter than she’d guessed, smarter and more in tune, and he’d known while they sat at the table and chatted, had maybe known from the very begi

After a long moment, the detective shrugged, said, “Tell you what. If you remember anything else useful, give me a call, would you? Sooner would be better.” He reached for the door handle. “Thanks for the coffee.” Then he stepped out, letting the door fall behind.

8

“ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?”

“Yes.” A

“You still want to keep it.”

“Yes.”

Tom stared with that expression he got when he couldn’t decide whether to be baffled or angry. It wasn’t his most attractive look to begin with, and over the years she’d come to associate it with their fights. He blew a breath, shook his head, took another hit off the bourbon. “We should never have taken it in the first place.” Something in his tone accusatory. A hint that maybe she was to blame, that he’d been talked into it. She thought about setting him straight, didn’t see the point. Instead she shrugged, said, “We’re past that now.”

“If I had known the truth-”

“If either of us had, we would have left it alone and called the cops. But how could we know? I mean, really? Bill was a bit of an asshole, okay, but who looks at their neighbor and thinks, Gee, I bet he’s a violent criminal?” She shook her head. “Like you said, he was a hermit. It made more sense to imagine him saving his pe

“Clerk?” Tom shook his head. “Don’t be naïve. This didn’t come from a register. I don’t think you can get four hundred grand from a bank. This was stolen from a person. Maybe the one who took a shit in our bathroom this afternoon. You think of that?”

“Of course.”

“And you still want to keep it.”

“Tell you what, honey. I won’t be naïve if you won’t be dense.” She leaned against the cabinets. “It’s not as simple as giving it back and saying we’re sorry.”

He shook his head, threw back the rest of his drink in a swallow, then opened the Maker’s and splashed in two inches, forgoing the water completely this time. He capped the bottle but left the drink on the counter, put a palm up to rub his forehead. When he spoke, it was from behind his hand. “Maybe we can get that money back.”

“How?”

“Maybe the transactions can be canceled. Or, wait,” he said, “it went to credit cards. We can just pull it out against them.”

“Twenty-five thousand went to the clinic. We can’t pull that back. And the rest, do you really want to take a fifty-thousand-dollar cash advance? We were close to broke, to having to sell the house. We’d be worse off than before.”

“Okay, so we keep what we’ve spent and return the rest. The cops don’t know how much was there to begin with.”

She stared at him, her brow wrinkled. “And all it takes is one smart detective to pull our bills. Detective Halden seems pretty smart.”

“Yeah, but he was warning us. Trying to help.”

“Trying to help? He wasn’t trying to help, he was fishing. Hoping we’d screw up, tell him something. He’s a cop. You think if we hand over the money, he’s going to tell us all is forgiven?”

“I can’t see us going to jail over something like that.”

“Maybe not. But how much do you think the lawyer will cost?” A

He glared at her. “Someone broke into our house today. I couldn’t give a shit about our debt. Get your head straight.” Accusation in his eyes.

She met the glare, bounced it back. “How’s this for having my head straight? Someone broke in, searched the place, and they didn’t find it. Now they know it’s not here. There’s nothing co

“You think they’re just going to back off?”

“You think giving it to the cops will back them off? Not like we can post a sign, ‘We gave the money back, please leave us alone.’ Anyway” – she shrugged – “think. Why would they assume his landlords have his stolen money? Whoever they are, they probably think he stashed it. They checked his apartment to be sure, and now they’ll start looking elsewhere.”

That shut him up. He leaned over the counter from the other side, his elbows on it, the drink between them. She knew the posture – God, after years, what posture, what gesture, what expression couldn’t she read like a billboard – knew that it meant he was thinking about it, that the hotter emotions were draining away.

“Look.” She uncurled her legs, pins and needles, then slid off her perch and stood across the counter from him. “I know it’s scary, but we have to ride it out.”

He sighed. Looking at his drink, he said, “I just don’t want anything bad to happen to…” He trailed off, leaving the you unspoken. Trying to protect her. It was sweet in a way, but irritating too. She didn’t need a knight in business casual right now; she needed a partner, someone on the ball and working the problem.

“I know, babe. I know.” She took his hand. “But nothing is going to. We’ll be careful. We won’t spend any more. Forget we have it, live like normal. We won’t give any hints that we took the money, give anyone a reason to suspect us. And if things get worse, we can always give it back then.”

He played with the whiskey glass, spi

“Are you okay?”

He shrugged. “I hate this. I don’t even care about the money. Not really.”

She snorted.

“You don’t believe me?”

A

“What has it been about, then?”

His question shook her. She’d thought they were in it together, that there had been one simple reason to take it, the simplest reason in the world, the one that was only complicated for them. For a moment, she stared at him, then she stepped around the counter so that they faced each other. She reached for his hand, the fingers larger than hers and rougher, and with her other hand she pulled up her shirt and pressed his palm against her belly, let him feel the heat of it. She stared at him and didn’t say a word.

Finally he nodded, a slow, reluctant gesture. “Okay.”

SHE WAS STILL AWAKE.

Tom was on his back, one arm thrown off the bed, the sheet bunched around his hips. A

The hardwood floor was cool underfoot. She stepped lightly, dodging the squeaky spot. Closed the bathroom door and peed in the dark, then flushed the toilet and turned the light on. Stared at herself in the mirror, naked except for a pair of cotton panties and a white T-shirt, her hair tangled, skin red from the pillow. Stared and stared, and then when she was tired of thinking about it, she pulled her robe from the bathroom door, killed the light, and crept out.