Part 41
Now, before we start, you need to know that I was sworn to never share this with you,” he took another deep breath. “Things have…changed…it would seem. New developments.” he shook his head. “That’s not really the point though. The bottom line is, you aren’t going to like what I have to say. You might even hate me for it, but I don’t see a way around it anymore.
“Do you remember when I met you six years ago? At the bookstore you worked at?” he asked.
“Of course I do, Second Reading, it was my favorite,” she answered.
“Well, what if I told you I had been sent there to meet you. That I hadn’t actually been looking for that first edition, that I didn’t even know who that author was until ten minutes before I walked into that shop?”
Part 42
Lola couldn’t process this. She stared ahead of her at the garage door, specifically the chipped green paint in the top right corner.
Mark waited for a response, then continued.
“It was June, I remember because it was so hot already and Kyle and I had been in the van for three hours already that evening waiting for the moment we were supposed to go inside. But we couldn’t run the air because we were almost out of gas. Kyle had spent the gas money on cigarettes, and he was lucky I was in a decent mood that day.”
Hearing Kyle’s name had brought the moment into perspective. She remembered that day, the day they had walked into the shop. She had been wearing her favorite summer dress. It was purple with delicate straps that flowed down past her waist to her knees.
“The moment finally came when you flipped around the closed sign. Our job was to go inside and meet you, find out if you knew anything.”
She smiled slightly at the memory of them running up, so afraid they had missed their opportunity to buy that first edition. Then how disappointed they were when they found out they didn’t even carry first editions. It was only a small town used bookstore she had tried to explain to them.
That’s when Mark had asked for her phone number, it was the least she could do he had said with a grin. Kyle had stood back smiling at his friend’s lame attempts. It hadn’t worked either.
“Well, even if you had it, we were too broke to buy it, so it really worked out. But we were still surveying the store. So, we came back later that night to watch who came out. We knew your boss was hosting meetings that he had no business being apart of.”
Lola nodded, she also remembered the strange meetings, the owner Tim had called poker night. She had accidentally walked in one evening when the his wife had called the shop looking for him. Tim had jumped up knocking the poker table over, shooing her out with a red face full of panic. She had never understood why no one had been holding cards and the table had been empty.
“We got the photos we needed, but we were still so far away from any real evidence. That’s when we knew we really had to get to know you.”
Lola had a sharp intake of breath.
“So, naturally we came back for a follow up visit. We came, drank bad coffee, looked at books and pretended to know what we were talking about. I think it was pretty lucky you were still so young. We were terrible at our job,” he snickered.
Lola turned to glare at him.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized immediately then began again before she could interrupt. “After days of coming in, you finally agreed to have dinner with me. I was on cloud nine. I took you to that little pizza place, remember when I split the garlic sauce all over you? You said you were going to have to take a long bath to get that smell off. ” he smiled to himself. “Despite what I was there for, you were the most beautiful girl I had ever had the pleasure of taking out.”
Lola rolled her eyes.
“It’s the truth,” he shrugged. “Well, I found out pretty quickly you didn’t actually know anything. The people above me were convinced as well, and you were dropped as a potential witness. But I wasn’t done seeing you yet. So, I decided to let it play out a little more. It worked out pretty well for awhile, until you got an eye for Kyle.”
📃A special note to the readers📃
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41
"You have to make the prompts work for you." ~@borrowedearth*
