Chapter 47

“And if I don’t say what you want to hear?” I whispered back.

He winked from an inch away. “There was cash in the filing cabinet, Barry. Rolled up, crumpled up, tip-looking cash, in all denominations, even twenties, fifties.”

I grinned. My heart went pitter-patter. “Do you want to be my boyfriend, Jeff? I mean, again?”

It was a weirdly disjointed conversation, made all the more weird by the fact that we were still in his car, still looking like death warmed over, me in a singed, sooty toga that could house several animal acts and a clown car, him with caked-on makeup that not even Tammy Faye Baker would’ve cared for.

“I thought you’d never ask.” Which made two of us. “And now that that’s straightened out, what do you think of all that money I found?”

I caught my reflection in the rearview mirror. I caught it and threw it back. Ugh. “I think I’d think better after a shower. Or possibly during, depending on the company, boyfriend.”

He exhaled. “I missed hearing that.”