by Mimi Grace
“Jason,” Jolene said.
Rowena stared at him for a long time. “I don’t know what you’re implying or why you’re interrogating me, but I don’t appreciate it.”
Jolene grabbed his forearm from across the table, stopping him from saying anything further. “Rowena, I’m sorry. We had three hours of sleep. He’s being ridiculous. Thank you so much for your help with everything. We’ll take our lunch to go if that’s possible.”
Rowena eyes stayed trained on Jason. “Sure.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Jolene hissed once Rowena left.
“I don’t trust her. You’re the only one who’s allowed to act on their suspicions?”
“No, but you also don’t insult the people who handle your hair, eyebrows, or food. You could’ve waited till our meals arrived before throwing accusations.”
“I didn’t accuse her of anything.”
“Yeah, your weird Sherlock Holmes deduction did that for you.”
He shrugged.
“Also, you’re being hypersensitive over slip-ups. The woman wished us luck and you threw it back in her face. You better tip her really well.”
He gave her a skeptical look.
“Your food.” Rowena came back with their lunch in plastic bags, practically slamming them onto the table.
“Thank you so much, Rowena, and again I apologize for Jason’s rudeness.”
“Whatever.” Old Rowena had officially returned. “You can pay at the front.”
Once they left the diner and were far enough from any wandering eyes, Jolene dumped the plastic bags in a trashcan.
“We’ll have to stop somewhere else for lunch,” he said.
She squinted and looked at him. “Ya think?”
Chapter 10
“Hi, Nicky, before you say anything, you’re on speaker. Jason is with me.”
“Hi, Nicole,” Jason said.
“Hey, you guys. Is the van good now? This is what happens when I use sketchy rental services. I’m sorry for all the hassle this has caused you two.”
“Yes. Nicky about that…” Jolene glanced at Jason. His eyes were focused on the road in front of them. They had picked up their belongings at the motel and checked out. And were now making their way to a supermarket to get some food for the road. They wouldn’t stop for the rest of the six-and-a-half-hour journey.
“The truck did break down, but the mechanics repaired it the first day it arrived.” She took a breath. She hated the sick feeling in her gut that erupted. Over the years her family, especially her sister, had been a support system that she’d relied on to get through the tough times, and it crushed Jolene to know she’d failed her sister.
“Someone stole a lot of the furniture from the truck while it was parked overnight on the side of the road,” Jason finished for her.
No one said anything for a moment.
Jolene’s stomach rolled again. “Nicky. I’m so sorry. Okay? I’ll replace the stuff that’s missing.”
“We’ll replace them,” Jason said.
“What do you mean by a lot?”
Jason pulled up to a supermarket and turned off the van once he found an appropriate parking space.
“The mattress, the rug, the vanity, the lamps, the side tables, and the television,” Jolene said, reading from their copy of the police report. “But we’re going to replace them all.”
Her sister let out a disbelieving laugh. “Someone beat you to the rug.”
“I’m sorry,” Jolene said again, then she rambled on about her connections to a good independent furniture store in the city.
Earlier that morning, she and Jason had gone through the store’s online catalogue. Jolene would call Tessa, the store owner, once she got back home.
“Jojo, calm down,” her sister said, interrupting her rapid speech. “Everything is replaceable, and you guys had no choice but to leave the truck out there. Ty and I should have done a more thorough inspection of the van and the company.”
“Regardless, I’m sorry.”
“Yes, I’m sorry as well, Nicole,” Jason said. “We’ll make it right.”
“We have warranties on some of the things, so before you guys start going overboard, let’s talk about it when you arrive.”
Jason silently signaled to Jolene and left the van without further comment.
“Jojo, I’m serious. Please don’t beat yourself up for this.”
“Girl, don’t spare my feelings.”
“Don’t worry about that. You’re your own worst critic.”
Her sister spoke truthfully, but she wasn’t about to dive into those complexities.
They were silent for a time before Nicky asked, “Is Jason still in the van with you?”
“No,” she replied tentatively.
“Sooo?” her sister asked.
“So what?”
“How have you two been getting along?”
Jolene looked in the van’s side mirror to the front of the supermarket. A steady stream of people walked in and out of the store.
“Jojo, tell me you guys haven’t been arguing this entire trip.”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well.” Jolene tried to find a tactful way of telling her sister that she let her husband’s best friend, a man she could not stand just two short days ago, go down on her. But each possible explanation ended with her sister asking questions that Jolene didn’t know she could answer right now.
She looked out at the side mirror again. “He’s not as annoying and uptight as I thought.”
“That’s good.”
She knew her sister expected her to expand on what exactly had made her come to that conclusion, but Jolene refused to say anything.
“Jolene Tiffany Baxter.”
Shit.
“What?”
“You slept with him!”
“No.”
“Yes, you did. You’re always forthcoming with details. Especially about how you feel about Jason.”
“No,” she said, unable to stop the grin that crept onto her face, “he just went down on me.”
“Oh my God. Wait. How did this happen? When did this happen? Was it good?”
Her sister essentially screamed into the receiver, and at first it concerned Jolene because her sister wasn’t the squealing type. She also thought for sure the entire parking lot could hear her. She quickly took the phone off speaker and pressed the cell phone to her ear.
“It’s a long story—”
“Is that a euphemism? Wait. Don’t tell me that. There’s probably some rule out there that says you can’t ask for details about your husband’s best friend’s penis.”
“Nicky, I can’t do this right now,” Jolene said through a laugh.
“Oh no, we’re doing this right now. Because you won’t pick up your phone and you won’t text me until God knows when.”
“I’m seeing you in a few hours. I’ll fill you in then. But you can’t tell Ty.”
A too-long pause followed. “Nicky.”
“Okay, okay.”
Jolene took one more look in the side mirror, expecting to see a familiar scene at the entrance of the supermarket, instead she saw a usually composed and stoic Jason flailing his arms. He shouted something and ran toward their vehicle.
“Do you guys like each other now? Is that a thing?” her sister asked.
But the odd image of a frantic Jason distracted Jolene. Half a dozen thoughts ran simultaneously through her head. Had the store run out of her favorite brand of potato chips? Had the moving van become a getaway vehicle? She wasn’t about that Bonnie and Clyde life. God, was the van about to explode? She panicked a bit and pushed the passenger door open to catch what Jason shouted.
“The red truck! The red truck!”
Her mind tried to decipher what that meant, failing to do it in the process. Had they come up with a secret code she just couldn’t remember?
“What?” she anxiously shouted back, halfway
out of the van now.
He pointed to a place behind her. She turned and saw a red truck leaving the supermarket they currently were in front of. It had a large eggshell white vanity tied down with harsh yellow rope.
Her sister’s vanity table.
“Oh my God.”
“Jolene, what’s happening?” her sister’s voice escaped the cell phone.
“Nicky, I’m going to have to call you back. Love you.” She hung up before she could hear her sister’s reply. Jason slid into the driver’s seat, dumped the things he had purchased in between them. She had only a few moments to resituate herself on her own seat and close the door before Jason backed the van up.
“It turned left at the intersection,” she said.
Jason maneuvered out the parking lot and followed the truck down the street. The heavy traffic made the intersection they needed to turn left on impassable, and under her breath, Jolene chanted, “Turn. Turn. Turn.”
“Hey, Jolene, we won’t catch up to them if we get T-boned,” he said in a conversational tone, but she detected a hint of panic.
They had a lead, a lead that came in the nick of time. She needed to at least get that damn vanity table. He eventually had room to turn. At this point the truck bobbed in and out of sight with several cars blocking it.
“I can barely see it,” she said, propping up on her knees on the seat. Jason looked at her quickly.
“Put on your seat belt.”
“We won’t be able—”
“Put on your seat belt.”
She begrudgingly sat down and fastened her seat belt. Once seated, Jason jerked the wheel hard to the right and whizzed through the traffic, honking the horn to clear the lane.
“Watch out!” she said, grabbing the roof handle as Jason swerved out of the way of a vehicle just to overtake another.
Though she had lost at least five minutes off her life, they were two cars behind their target vehicle. If she weren’t so anxious about catching their thief, she might have been slightly turned on.
They followed the truck for several miles, each silent and brooding as if they were on some high-stakes mission in an espionage movie. The red truck pulled into a neighborhood that appeared ordinary. It wasn’t touristy or even lively like the hub they had quarantined themselves in for the last two days. They pulled up to identical town houses lined up one after the other.
Jolene jumped out of the van before Jason could turn off the engine and ran toward the truck that held one of her sister and brother-in-law’s furniture.
“Excuse me. Excuse me!” Jolene screeched across the expanse of the driveway at the middle-age couple that exited the truck.
The two men turned around, both looking bewildered that some woman they’d never seen in their lives ran at full speed toward them.
Jolene arrived in front of them trying to perform elegance she didn’t feel. “Sorry to interrupt you both on this”—she took a big intake of air, and made a general motion toward the unremarkable sky—“lovely Monday, but that vanity in the back of your truck. Where did you get it?” She took pride in sounding calm and not keeling over. Slowly, she moved her hands from her knees to her hips.
One of the men, an Asian man with a beard and a bald head, hooked his arm around his partner’s waist, and smiled. “We got it at that big secondhand store in Barnaby Plaza.”
Jason had shown up by this time, also doing his best casual-inquiry stance.
“Really good selection of home décor and furniture right now,” the other man added.
Jason and Jolene looked at one another.
“We ask because two days ago our moving van broke down,” Jason began.
Chapter 11
“It was probably a random person who’d driven past the truck and saw an opportunity. It also explains why they didn’t take every single thing,” Jolene said.
Jolene and Jason sat in Constable Derrick’s office, the officer who’d written up their initial complaint. They faced her desk in two mismatched chairs. The clock mounted in front of them ticked loudly and lent the room an unnerving quality. But the ambience complemented the metaphorical tin-foil hats fixed on both of their heads.
“Think about it, though,” Jason said. “The latch wasn’t broken or damaged. Someone knew how to disengage it without wrecking the truck. The road wasn’t busy. What are the chances that one of the few people who did pass it, knew how to open the latch without actually destroying the van?”
“I don’t know.”
Jason reached over to grab a handful of potato chips from the bag on Jolene’s lap.
“Someone”—he shoved some chips into his mouth—“like a mechanic, for example, would know how to open it.”
Jolene dusted the residue left on her fingers from the chips and looked at Jason. “You’re not seriously thinking that Joey the mechanic stole our stuff?”
“Not just him. Who became super accommodating once she found out we had valuables in the van and then suggested we specifically see Joey?”
“No,” Jolene said, but it came out sounding more like a question. “No,” she repeated more emphatically.
Jason raised his eyebrows.
Jolene went silent for a few seconds. “Shit.”
The door to the office opened. Jolene and Jason straightened in their seats.
“Sorry for the wait,” Constable Derrick said. She took a seat at her desk and studied the papers she’d brought with her. “All right. So, we’ve been able to locate the majority of the items on the list you provided. And fortunately, there won’t be a return delay. You can pick up the items immediately once we’re done here.”
Jolene let herself relax, loosening her grip on the chip bag. Everything would be okay.
“We have two suspects,” Constable Derrick said as she turned the paper on her desk to read the back. “An Olivia Pratt—”
The name didn’t ring a bell, so Jason’s little theory didn’t seem likely.
“And a Simon McCarthy,” the constable continued.
Jason turned to face Jolene. “Simon. The clerk at the mechanic shop, his name’s Simon.”
Jolene’s heart sank. She shook her head. “How do you remember that?”
“Yes, Mr. McCarthy is a front desk clerk at the mechanic shop that you visited. His girlfriend is a waitress at the Hive Diner. What probably happened was one of them overheard you were traveling with big-ticket items. We think that the actual robbery happened while the van was waiting to be processed at the shop. It was a crime of opportunity.”
Jolene’s face grew hot, and her stomach churned uncomfortably. She didn’t dare look at Jason. She suspected he focused on the constable’s words too closely to have a smug expression, but he had to be feeling vindicated in his assessment of her talkativeness. The silver lining, the only thing that prevented Jolene from wallowing in guilt, was that a lot of the items had been found.
“Sorry your stay in Gregory Lake wasn’t totally pleasant. Don’t let that stop you from visiting again, though,” Constable Derrick said.
The constable dealt with the final paperwork, and Jolene and Jason were left to repack the moving van with the returned items. The only things missing were the pair of lampshades and the rug Jolene had coveted. Once they completed that task, she got into the driver’s seat and they began the last six hours of their journey.
“I appreciate you not making me feel worse than I already do about accusing Rowena and Joey,” Jason said after some time.
Jolene briefly turned to look at him. “And I appreciate that you haven’t brought up the fact that this was my fault.”
“Oh, I will.” He laughed. “But you’re driving, and I’m trying to actually make it to our destination this time.”
She jerked the steering wheel a little bit, and she grinned when he gripped the chair.
Ty and Nicole greeted them at their new home with drinks and baked goods that Ty, thankfully, didn’t make. After a quick tour of the house, Jason found Jolene standing on her sister�
�s new porch looking into the untidy and weed-ridden backyard. She acknowledged his presence with a smile, and they watched in silence as the sun dipped behind the houses. The last leg of their trip had been blessedly uneventful, but an odd sense of accomplishment mingled with their exhaustion as they drew closer and closer to their destination. Jason experienced something eerily close to disappointment, like a kid leaving a sleepover too early.
Jason felt silly, but he knew the feelings were temporary, and he’d return to his routine where Jolene was but a person he tangentially knew. It was for the best, anyway. He was busy, she was busy, and though they survived being in each other’s presence for a few days, they weren’t well-suited for long-term friendship.
“The takeout is here,” Nicole shouted from her new kitchen.
The four of them congregated around the island to eat.
“We need details,” Nicole said.
Jolene shrugged. “We messed up, we fixed it, and now we’re here.”
“Riveting,” Ty said.
Jolene laughed and relented, giving more information about their detour. She obviously didn’t talk about them being intimate, but Jason didn’t expect to feel pleased when she also didn’t divulge other details like their karaoke night or free cinnamon buns. He liked the idea of having little and trivial things that only they knew about.
They all went to bed soon after dinner. Sleeping on an air mattress didn’t give Jason the most sound of sleeps, but he and Jolene were up early the next morning at the airport to catch their separate flights.
“I didn’t hate this trip as much as I thought I would, so thank you,” he said as they diverged to their separate gates.
She laughed and playfully slapped his arm. “See you around.”
Chapter 12
“Jojo, the meeting is starting in ten minutes.” Yvonne, an account manager and her best friend, poked her head into her office.
Jolene started at the sudden intrusion and slammed her phone facedown into her desk.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt your lunch break,” Yvonne said, eyeing Jolene’s phone as she came into the office. A pair of glasses sat on her head as her signature ponytail swung like a switch behind her. “I just assumed you’d be working through it like you usually do.”
