Chapter 7: Half Off

On Friday evening I was eating a turkey club in a corner booth at a diner.

A woman slid into the seat across from me.

She was middle-aged and tidy, with a cloth bag over one shoulder.

"Honey, you look worn out," she said, and set a small brown bottle on the table.

The label was in a language I didn't know.

"These are imported herbs. Your back, your head, everything."

"I'm trying to hit my number for the day, so I'll give you half off."

I had not told her about my back.

I told myself I had been wincing.

I had worked late five nights in a row, and my migraines were back.

Two nights ago I had cried in the shower from pain I couldn't name.

Nobody had called me honey in a week.

"How much?" I said.

"Forty dollars. For you, twenty."

She turned her phone around and set it on the table next to my plate.

On it was a QR code.

I took out my phone.

I was tired, and she was kind, and I wanted somebody to just fix it.

My thumb went to the screen.

A hand came down flat over the code.

It was a long hand with a plain watch on the wrist.

Wylie was standing beside the booth with a coffee in the other hand, looking at the woman without any expression at all.

"Don't," he said to me.

"Wylie, I swear to God."

"Ma'am," he said to the woman, pleasantly. "That code goes to a personal payment account, not a business."

"Your bottle has no lot number and no ingredient list in English."

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