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The man sitting across from me no longer looked so intelligent, crafty, or smart. Or smug either, for that matter.
Telengard scrolled. His mouth dropped open even further.
“What is this?” he demanded.
“It’s a series of photos of the front of your house,” said Adrian. “The driveway, the street, the—”
“I know what it is!” he shouted. “But what… what are they—”
“You’re having an impromptu garage sale!” Adrian said with an excited grin. “It’s marked as an estate sale, actually. Everything must go.”
Telengard leapt to his feet so fast his chair nearly tipped over. “B—But that’s my stuff!”
“Maybe,” Adrian shrugged. “By now though, maybe not. Everything’s been marked at a deep discount, with five and ten-dollar price tags. And these photos are at least a few minutes old.”
Terror crossed the face of the man standing at the other end of the table. I almost felt bad for him.
Almost.
“That’s my couch, my furniture, my stuff!” he screamed.
Telengard was utterly frantic now. I grabbed the phone and pulled it to my side of the table.
“Look,” I smiled, pointing. “Your bed too!”
I passed the phone to Jax, who could barely control his laughter. He scrolled quickly through a few of the pics.
“I think that’s just the headboard,” Jax said, squinting. “The mattress is gone already. It’s hard to tell, what with all the people milling around.” He slid the phone back in Adrian’s direction. “I mean, just look at the size of the crowd.”
“I know, right?” Adrian piled on. “And they didn’t even advertise. Just the signs in the driveway—”
“Well if I know Preston, he probably tweeted the sale on multiple websites,” I cut in. “Garage sale people are tech-savvy these days. And with prices like these—”
The phone chimed again. Adrian read the newest message and looked up.
“You’d better hurry home,” he advised, holding up another photo. “Half the stuff in those other pics is already gone.”
Telengard was trembling now, all over. He backed away slowly, his coat dangling from one limp arm.
“And look,” Adrian pointed. “The street’s backed all the way up to the end of the block with a whole line of cars and trucks and—”
He took off, flying straight through the front door. It happened so fast, he almost knocked over the waitress who’d been waiting to approach our table.
“Well shit,” Adrian quipped, holding up a set of car keys. “You’d think he might need these.”
~ 46 ~
HARPER
We found him exactly where we expected to, in the back end of the parking lot. Telengard — at least the person I knew him as — was dead. Bennett M. Papas was still very much alive, though, and sitting miserably on the very low front end of his now useless car.
And that’s because all four tires were utterly flat.
“What the hell happened?” Jax asked facetiously.
The man didn’t have the strength to answer. He barely even flinched when we walked up to him.
“I think I know,” I offered.
