It was her shop. Her stuff. Her life. And she shouldn’t have left it! Lurching to her feet, she limped out, got into her car, and hit the gas. She made it halfway back to the shop before she caught the blue and red lights flashing in her mirror. “Oh, this is just perfect.”
She steamed through the thirty minutes it took the officer to write her up. “I’m having a really bad day,” she told him, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel.
“Uh-huh. That’s what they all say.” He kept writing. “I had a flat tire already today. You don’t see me whining.”
“Is your boyfriend boinking your friend?”
His pen stopped moving. “Okay, you win.”
“Gee, thanks.” She sighed and put her head down on her steering wheel. By the time she was free to go and got back to her shop, the pain and anger were choking her.
The Jag was gone. So was the black truck, and the man in it. There was, however, a different man outside her shop. Mr. Tyrone, her landlord. When he saw her coming, he gave her a long look as he lifted a . . . padlock? “What’s going on?” she asked him.
“As if you don’t know.” The short, chunky, balding man was out of breath as he placed the padlock on the door and jangled it to be sure it held tight. He shot her a look of remorse. “I liked you, Ms. Barrett. I liked you, a lot.”
Clearly she’d entered an alternate universe. “Mr. Tyrone—”
“Your bookkeeper called me, said she wanted to warn me.”
“Jody?”
“She was looking out for me, she said. She said that you hadn’t authorized her to pay the rent for two months, that you were going under fast.”
“What?” Jade had thought she’d already experienced the worst she could experience in one short morning.
“I’m locking you out.” Mr. Tyrone hitched up the pants that were always sinking south on him because his waist was twice as wide as it should have been, and he had no hips. “I’m sorry, Jade. I have to protect myself.”
“No, wait. I—”
“When you come up with the back rent, you know where my office is.” With one last tug on his waistband, he walked away, his pants already slipping down.
“But I have the rent money!” she called after him. “You should have been paid! Mr. Tyrone— You have to let me in there. My checkbook’s in there!” Stunned, Jade watched him go, then pressed her face to the window, looking in at her entire life, trying to figure out what she wanted to do. Smash something, yes. Cry, most definitely. Instead she pressed harder against the glass, where her eyes caught on her cash register.
Open. Empty.
And beside it? Her checkbook, also open. “Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no . . .” She whipped out her cell phone and called Jody. No answer. She tried Tomas next and got another nasty shock, a recording saying the cell number was no longer in service. She didn’t have his work number; she’d always reached him via his cell.
Oh God. They were going to wipe her out, if they hadn’t already. She ran for her car, fumbling through her purse as she went. In the two months she’d been with Tomas, she’d never been to his place, which should have occurred to her as strange, but it hadn’t. He’d said he traveled so much, that his place was too small, and she’d never pushed.
“Idiot,” she told herself yet again, and raced straight for her bank, knowing she’d be too late. Tomas had gotten her and good, and he was gone, with Jody’s help.
That part really bit. Her own personal trust meter had failed her.