This suddenly reminds me of Lucille. How she sneered at me last weekend. How she wondered aloud how we got the owner of the building to rent to us all these years.
And the truth is, my gramps made that deal decades ago. So everyone knows it was dirty.
The rent isn’t cheap though. It’s kept pace with the property values in downtown and they are through the roof. So we pay nearly ten thousand dollars a month for our little shop on College Avenue.
Gramps pats me on the shoulder as I pass him by and hit the stairs. But he doesn’t say anything. Just lets me go.
He knows what it’s like to be the bad guy.
And he’s not a bad guy. He was never a bad guy.
He was just poor. And talented. And street-smart. And lucky.
This town has never forgiven him for that luck.
When I get up in my bedroom I plug in my phone. Battery was dead when they gave it back because those assholes in booking didn’t turn it off the way they’re supposed to.
Then I go into my bathroom, start the shower, and take off my clothes. I didn’t even have a shirt or boots when they arrested me on Monday. Spencer had to bring these things to me so I didn’t have to walk out of jail half naked.
I want to believe Veronica. I really do. I want Ford’s lawyer to work his magic and make everything cool.
But deep down I know.
I am just another trashy Vaughn boy.
And I don’t deserve Daisy and Vivi.
That’s the lesson this town is trying to teach me.
I don’t deserve the happy ending.
I stay in that shower for almost half an hour. Tankless water heater upgrade two years ago is suddenly the best idea ever. And when I get out and check my phone, there’s a message from Bobby.
I press play and listen as I pull on some fresh clothes.
“I heard about the arrest. It’s total bullshit. It’s all gonna work out. In the meantime, we’ve got a job to take your mind off things. Meet me at the campsite at six. And bring the guns.”
I sit down on the bed and run my fingers through my wet hair. Then, for the first time today, I actually smile.
We’ve got another job.
Maybe things will be OK?
This little side business Bobby and I do up in the mountains, it’s not reliable money. But when the money comes, it’s a windfall.
I go outside to the garage and open up the back of a van I keep just for this occasion. Then I open the room-sized gun safe and start loading up.
Fuck this town.
I’m not the bad guy.
But if they want me to be the bad guy, I can certainly play the part.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - DAISY
I have spent the last two days making Vivian retell her story.
Kids. They are not little liars. Not exactly. But their memories are not always the most reliable. And they put importance on things that sometimes don’t matter.
Like, for instance, the jackalope story.
This has nothing to do with anything. But the way Vivi tells it, it’s the key to the treasure.
So I let her tell the story five or six times, concentrating on the donkeys and the jackalope. I agree with her. “So interesting,” I say. But once it’s out of her system, she can think clearly again.
So it’s Wednesday night when she finally gets back around to the lady at the art building. Her and the man named Jeeves, which just sounds made up. But Vivi insists that’s his name.
“OK, Viv. Tell me about the art building lady again.” This feels important. I’m not sure why, but something about this encounter is bugging me. “Start from the coffee shop.” So she tells me about her walk through campus. How they stopped to throw away her coffee and grab a juice from the student center. Then they went inside the art building and she was left on a bench while Vic went to the bathroom.
“She came up to me.”
“Why did she come up to you?”
“She said”—Vivi stops to think for a moment—“She said, ‘Are you Daisy’s girl?’”
“What?”
“Mmmhm. That’s what she asked me. So I said, ‘Yep.’”
“Then what?”
“Then she saaaaaaaaaaid…” She stops to think again. “She asked me if Vic was my daddy.”
“What?” This time it comes out shrill and a little bit shrieky. “Why would she ask you that?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did you say?”
“I said no. At first. But then I thought about it for a minute and changed my mind.”
“Why?”
“Because I had your sketchbook. And that man in there looked like Vicious. And there are all those drawings you did.”
“What drawings? What are you talking about?”
“In the sketchbook.”
I pause. Because I know this is the clue I was looking for. “Where did you get this sketchbook?”
She makes a face I recognize. It’s the one she makes right before she lies.