Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69063 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69063 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
I couldn’t resist.
“I’m sorry, but I just picked up the ice maker…the box…last night from the Amazon Lockers,” she admitted. “I…”
“Let me confer with my client.” Elianora held up her hand.
I nodded, and the three of them stepped farther away from us.
The lawyer and Shasha listened to everything that the woman—Nastya—had to say before the lawyer nodded and gestured to us.
She came back and said, “She can tell you what happened.”
My gaze flicked to Nastya, who looked a little bit green now.
“Okay, so the ice maker Amazon delivered to me—I’m an Amazon Reviewer, people send me free stuff to review—didn’t work. So I wanted to get this review out by the end of today because that’s how I get paid, you know? Anyway, so I ordered another ice maker and had it one-hour delivery shipped to me, but the only place they would deliver to was the Amazon Lockers. When the package said delivered, I decided to come by and get it before I met up with my sisters for a drink.” She looked away from me as she said that, as if she didn’t want to remind me about seeing her last night. “I usually carry this cart thing with me for big stuff like this. I buy a lot of stuff. I’m also a mystery shopper as well. So anyway…”
She tells us how she got the box in the car. About how she’d had to use everything she had to get the box into her vehicle and ended up with it lying face down in the back of her car.
“My sister came by just as I’d finished, and I closed the hatch and got into her car with her,” she finished.
“Did you make sure the gate was closed all the way on your vehicle?” I questioned.
She winced. “No. I just assumed it was.”
“She’s pretty bad about that,” Shasha admitted. “She’s left her car doors open and back hatch open since she started driving at sixteen.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and John said, “We’d like you to come down to the station so we can get this recorded. From there, we’d like to ask you a few more questions.”
“As long as my lawyer is present,” Shasha interjected.
“Yes, that’s no problem,” I confirmed.
The next few hours went exactly how I expected it to.
Last night, after watching the footage, all of Nastya’s recounting of the night lined up with what we’d seen on the tapes.
About halfway through the interview, we got word that the other camera angles from the other businesses also corroborated her story.
An obnoxious beep had John, the lawyer, and me looking over at the two Semyonov siblings.
Shasha looked at his sister and said, “Check it.”
“No phones.” John shook his head. “Once we’re done we…”
“She has no choice but to check it. Unless you want to be blocking her medical emergency from being taken care of,” Shasha barked.
John blinked. “What?”
“It’s fine,” Nastya lied.
That’s when I noticed the fine sheen of sweat on her face.
Was she nervous?
What was…
“It’s not fine. Fucking check it,” he barked.
Nastya sighed and reached for her purse.
“What…” John started to stand up but it was Shasha who said, “She’s diabetic. Terrible at managing it, diabetic. If she doesn’t check it, she could go into shock. Fuckin’ don’t say a word until she’s finished.”
All the while Nastya grumbled under her breath.
“What type?” I asked.
“One,” Nastya grumbled as she pulled out insulin, a syringe, and her phone. She immediately tucked the insulin and syringe back into the little pouch she’d pulled it out of after checking her phone.
She sighed, long and loud. “I don’t have any stupid food.”
“What do you need?” I asked, already standing up.
“Fast carbs. Juice first. Whatever you have after that is fine.” Shasha looked at his sister in concern. “Thought you had alerts set up so that you would know if you needed to deal with it before it got this low.”
“I might’ve turned them off.” She shrugged. “They’re loud and obnoxious.”
Shasha shook his head, murder in his eyes.
I headed out of the room to the vending machine and got an apple juice out of it before taking it back.
When I twisted the top off and handed it to her, she grimaced. “Hate apple juice.”
“Only juice in the vending machine,” I apologized before heading back out for the candy bar.
There was this vicious thing inside of my chest that was telling me that I needed to fix her, and fast. I didn’t like the idea of her sick in any way, and I was too up in my own feelings to diagnose why I felt that way.
After inserting five bucks, I got her a Snickers and a package of Muddie Buddies and came back to her.
Her eyes rounded and she reached for the Muddie Buddies, which were my favorite as well.
John groaned under his breath as he said, “You were hoping that she wouldn’t want those and you could eat them, weren’t you?”