Total pages in book: 156
Estimated words: 158829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 794(@200wpm)___ 635(@250wpm)___ 529(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 158829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 794(@200wpm)___ 635(@250wpm)___ 529(@300wpm)
Her logic seems silly but I can’t find any fault.
So we all pile back in the car and I pull around to the van in the back. I’m not about to let my little sister go around that corner by herself, just in case this goes disastrously wrong.
Sure enough, there’s a tall, lanky kid with dark hair and a sleeve tattoo leaning against a red van with a cigarette stuffed in his mouth. The doors on the back are open like he’s been cleaning it.
Maisy gets out of the car casually. I roll the windows down so I can hear what they’re saying.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey.” The boy looks up and smiles, clearly enjoying what he sees.
“So, um, the guy in the shop said you help people move big stuff sometimes?”
“Aw, shit. My dad needs to quit telling people that. I was helping people move furniture for a while, but I’m off that backbreaking stuff. Mostly.” He looks her up and down. “I mean, I can make an exception. I like the odd jobs these days—flowers, packages, food. They’re more likely to pay better and be an easier job than humping a piano up three flights of stairs.”
Maisy laughs. “Cool, yeah! So you’ve been working with food, huh? I bet that’s pretty intense. Those orders must get huge.”
“Yeah.” He lifts the cigarette away and blows a puff of smoke. “So, were you looking for help moving or what? If you’ve got furniture, I can help you out just this once.”
“Well, maybe.” Maisy cocks her head and dips her shoulder. She leans in closer to the van. “Oh, woof! Smells like fish guts. Have you been hauling around manure or something?”
The kid tenses and glares at her.
“Just the usual stuff. Big seafood haul. I’ve been cleaning it out today to get the stink off.” He tosses the cigarette on the concrete and then climbs in the van, grabbing a garden hose. “Tell you what. I’ll let you come back later when it’s all cleaned up. Then you can decide if you want to book the job.”
Maisy steps on the cigarette, looking back at us like she’s unsure.
Enough games.
I spring out of the car and sprint for the van. “Wait. Don’t leave yet, please?”
The kid glares at me from inside and jumps down. Then he whirls past, heading for the driver’s door.
I lunge forward, grabbing his shoulder.
“What the hell? Get off me, you psycho!”
“Sorry.” I let go of the kid, squaring my shoulders. “Look, I’m not after you, Zack. I just need to know what happened with that seafood.”
“Like I should tell your crazy ass anything?” He jerks his head sharply at Maisy. “She already lied about needing help moving when you just wanted to grill me. Fuck off.”
“No one’s grilling you, guy. She just noticed your van smells fishy and asked if you made a seafood delivery.”
“But you want to interrogate me, right? I’m not stupid and I didn’t do anything wrong. Unless you want to come back with the cops and a warrant, I’m done.”
“I believe you,” I say, just as he’s walking away.
He stops and looks back over his shoulder. “Then why the hell do you want to talk to me so bad?”
“Because a lot of people got violently sick. Millions of dollars in damages, and I might know who caused it. I just need more information. You’re not in trouble, I promise. No one is after you.”
He gives me a long, wary glance. “You sure? Shit, I hate that people were puking their guts out. I did the best I could.”
I nod. “I’m sure. I work for the man who’ll have to pay for all the damage even though it wasn’t his fault. If anything, he’ll be thrilled you told the truth. If you want to stay anonymous, I understand. I just want to know what happened.”
He leans back against the van with a sigh and pulls out another cigarette.
“Okay, screw it. So I’ve been doing local deliveries for a while, but nothing that big or that special. When this freight company said they needed an extra truck for a big seafood order, I thought yeah, whatever. Turns out, the order was so big I had to call my friends to help load it by the docks and it still took almost a solid hour.”
Which means he would have only had roughly an hour to get it delivered properly.
“I would have been on time—barely—but then this dude from the catering place called and told me to go to some cheese shop across town. I warned them I’d be pushing it to make the delivery on time. They said if the oysters were on ice, it’d be fine. But the cheese shop was closed, so they sent me to three more stores. All because they needed this specialty crap and the only place that sells it is the shop that was closed. It was this—well, I can’t remember the name, but it’s this weird purple wine-cheese. They have some at the grocery store, but the caterer said that’s a knockoff and if his purple cheese wasn’t made from buffalo milk, it would fuck up his recipe. But they added all of these special requests after I picked up the oysters. When I got to the hotel—”