Chapter 11: The Search

On Saturday morning my phone told me I had been paid fifteen hundred dollars.

I read the notification twice on Lindy's couch.

Deposit received. Private payer. No reference.

"Don't touch it," Lindy said from the kitchen, with her mouth full of toast. "It's a scam."

"It's money going in, not out."

"That's the scam. They send you too much, you send some back, then the first payment bounces."

"They didn't ask me for anything."

"They will."

I opened my banking app and ran the three checks.

Who sent it? No name.

Where does the money go? To me.

Why is it in a hurry? It wasn't.

It failed none of the tests, and it was the strangest thing that had ever happened to my account.

I took it to the branch that afternoon and asked the teller to trace it.

She said it came through a payment service that kept the sender private.

I asked her to send it back.

She said that wasn't possible either.

"Then I'm not spending it," I told Lindy. "It sits there."

"That's nuts."

"I know. But I don't know who it's from."

What I didn't say was that I had one idea about who, and I didn't want to be right.

That Sunday, Cal texted me a photo of a pan.

Better garlic. Dinner tonight? You can be rude again.

I wanted to.

I wanted it so badly my hands shook a little over the keys.

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