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I waited at the bottom just to tick him off. It was fun sometimes. “I don’t understand.”
“Come inside, or I carry you in. Clear enough?”
This wasn’t going to be one of the fun times if I persisted, so I climbed the stairs.
Once inside, I went to the front and peeked out the window. From here it was clear what Winston had been talking about.
The cops were in front of Lenz’s house next door, and a crowd had already converged to watch as they carted boxes out.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Executing a search warrant, it looks like,” he said.
He should know, seeing as he was ex-FBI.
“What do you think they’re looking for?”
“I’ve learned not to guess.”
Eventually, the cops left and Winston let me go back out to do chainsaw battle with the downed trees.
* * *
I’d just cutthe engine on the chainsaw when my phone rang. Rosa’s name appeared on the screen.
“Hi, Rosa,” I answered.
“How’s the time off going?” she asked.
“Bored out of my mind.” She wouldn’t understand if I told her I enjoyed uprooting trees.
“I have something that needs your signature, if you could come by.”
I couldn’t chance running into Josh at the office—avoiding him meant not a minute in the building. “I can’t come in. Have Mr. B take care of it, or just give it to Dee and she’ll figure out who to give it to.”
“This needs to be signed by you. It’s a modification to your retention agreement.”
“What? I’m not agreeing to any more conditions.”
Rosa was positively giddy. “I think you’ll like this change. It’s all being accelerated.”
Acceleratedsounded like ending sooner, getting paid sooner. Possibilities raced through my mind. The two hundred thousand bonus would save Casa di Rossi if it came soon enough.
“Accelerated means what?”
“Paying off your loans and getting the bonus payment. Mr. B came by this morning and asked me to redo the paperwork. I think it’s awfully nice of him.”
“Yeah.” I couldn’t dispute that he was nice. This was a godsend, and though my first inclination the last few days had been to argue with anything Josh wanted, I wasn’t stupid enough to turn this down. Later I’d make it clear that I wasn’t giving in. I couldn’t be bought.
“He couldn’t say enough good things about your work,” Rosa said bringing me back to the present. “I’m going to miss him.”
What was I supposed to say to that? Josh was abandoning us, and me, and leaving Rossi’s in the hands of that know-nothing, Wenzel. I couldn’t tell her or anyone how much I would miss him when he was gone. Not being able to be honest with the people I’d worked with for years was a horrible side effect of all this.
“Oops,” she said. “I wasn’t supposed to say that. It’s all very hush-hush.”
Good thing nobody knew. They’d probably have people walking out today once they heard Wenzel would be in charge.
“When can I get the money?”
