Chapter 9: After Hours

By nine that night my shop was open again, and nobody had told Hallam Properties.

The neighbors had put every bucket back where it belonged.

Winnie had gone home with a bottle of wine and a promise to sleep in.

I was alone in the back with the cooler humming, trimming the stems for Wednesday's funeral, when the bell over the front door rang.

I knew his step before I turned.

"We're closed," I said.

"The door was open."

"The lock was cut. I'm waiting on a locksmith."

Alistair stood in the doorway in his coat, holding a paper bag from a Thai place on Lawrence.

"Pad see ew," he said. "And a lot of apologies in advance."

"For what?"

"I don't know yet. I thought I'd bring them early."

I laughed in spite of myself and wiped my hands on my apron.

We ate on upturned buckets by the work table, with the light of the cooler humming blue behind us.

He ate neatly and fast.

"Gwen said to ask you what you were doing in July," I said.

He stopped with the fork in the air.

"I was reading Hallam's books," he said.

"His Lakeview project had a hole in it. I've been buying pieces of his debt through a bank for four months, quietly."

"You've been buying Reuben's debt."

"Yes."

"And you didn't tell me."

"I didn't know you yet." He set the fork down. "And then I knew you, and I didn't know how."

I wanted to be furious.

I was only tired, and the answer sounded like the truth.

It also sounded like a door he'd stopped halfway through opening.

"Is that all of July?" I asked.

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