Page 25 of Gave Proof Through the Night

“Well, he wasn’t exactly a mark,” she allows. “Mark-adjacent.

Meaning he was an innocent bystander and a means to an end. We’d done a job on a dirty conglomerate about two years back. Dale had been a mid-level accountant there. The kind of cubicle-sitting, pencil pusher who’d bring a PB&J for lunch and remembered everyone’s birthday. Tanya had needed his keycard and a copy of an internal audit paper file he had access to. That company was so shady, they had actual physical ledgers the IRS couldn’t trace. That’s why Zoe couldn’t get in the digital route. Tanya made a point to run into Dale in the elevator, manufactured a reason to talk, and after she’d had everything she needed and was about to disappear, he mustered up the nerve to ask her out.

He’d never had any idea what the company he worked for was actually doing. That was the thing about Dale. Just a man with a decent heart who’d taken a steady job, clocked in and out every day, and minded his own business. The Dales of the world are never the mark. Just like that hockey player isn’t the mark. That’s a line we don’t cross.

We only ever target corrupt organizations. Companies that prey on people, predatory operations, men with too much power and not enough consequences. And we’re efficient. Small sums that Zoe can manipulate with a simple alt/click/shift, or moving over a decimal point. She’s good at burying those kinds of things. When we did that job, we made sure none of it could be traced back to Dale. Then, at Tanya’s request, Zoe performed her techy magic on a Linkedin job listing and they made Dale an offer he couldn’t refuse. Now he works for a legit firm with a corner office.

“He’s not like Dale,” I say, even though Jeremiah is also mark-adjacent.

“Okay,” Tanya says, in a voice that means she’s willing to drop it.

Zoe, to her credit, lets it go.

“So, this DC thing. What would I need to do?” Tanya asks.

“The usual,” I say. “Props, gear, costumes. Logistics. Nothing out of your wheelhouse.”

She absorbs this. The math line appears between her brows. “This is about something, isn’t it?” she observes.

“It’s always about something.”

“No.” She looks at me. “I mean it’s a real something. Whatever this is, it’s big.”

I let the pause sit. Then I say, “Yeah. It’s a big whale of a real something.”

She’s quiet. Waffles, apparently bored of sitting, heaves himself up and walks to the counter. He puts both enormous paws on the edge of it, stretching his neck. He gets his whole face in the butter dish.

Tanya watches him. “Oh, you found the butter. You found it. Yes, you did, my smart boy.”

Waffles’ snout is covered in butter. His big, slobbery tongue licks it clean.

Tanya looks back at me. “I made a promise,” she says. “In front of Dale’s grandmother.”

“I know.”

“Dale would be…” She stops. “What if it goes south?”

“Has it ever gone south with me?”

She cocks her head and gives me a hard stare. “Two words. Bergen County.”

We do not discuss Bergen County. I choose to pretend Bergen County never happened.

I deflect, my eye catching the stack of bridal magazines on the sideboard. “You don’t have a wedding date.”

She goes very still.

“Engaged eight months,” Zoe says, from my left.

“Eight months,” I say. “But no date. Because a wedding costs money you don’t have yet.”

Tanya says nothing. This is itself a confirmation.

“Do this job,” I say. “And you can book a castle. An actual castle. With a drawbridge if Dale wants one. And a honeymoon that isn’t a long weekend within driving distance of Lafayette. Maybe even Scotland.”

I think I’ve got her there, because she’s obsessed with Outlander and Dale just happens to have Scottish ancestry.

“Oooh, a destination wedding!” Zoe turns her phone around without being asked. She’s already pulled up a venue page with stone archways, chandeliers, vaulted cellars, a rose garden, and a cobbled courtyard with fairy lights. It looks like a fairy tale.