Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 76881 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76881 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
I sit back down on my bed. I want their help, but I don’t know the best way of going about asking. “I—I have a question.”
Savage cocks his head, watching me like a curious specimen he isn’t quite sure what to do with. “Can’t promise you’ll like the answer, but spit it out.”
“You guys take jobs from people, right? Like you found me because of my uncle. Did he hire you or something?”
“Yes and no,” Savage answers slowly. “Sometimes people have shit they need doing that isn’t exactly within the bounds of the law. Our MC is known for being open to that sort of work. Your uncle didn’t hire us directly, he put out a general bounty. Anyone who knows where to look can see it.”
“How did you find me, anyway?”
Savage looks to Poe.
Poe shrugs. “You did a pretty good job staying under the radar but you’re twenty. Your ex-roommate got engaged and you commented on her post. Once I had that, it wasn’t hard to follow the breadcrumbs.”
Seriously? “Oh my God. I’ve only turned my phone on like three times since I ran.”
He grins. “What can I say? I’m good. Most people have no idea how much information they’re shedding as they walk around in the world these days.”
“Okay, so… If I wanted to hire you, how would I go about that exactly?” I'm so far over my head. “Is there an app?”
Three sets of judgmental male eyes stare at me
“No app?”
Savage shakes his head. “No. No fucking app. It’s not like hiring a plumber. You’d have to have the right connections, ask for a meetup and present your case. Then we decide if it’s something we’re willing to do and if it’s worth our time. If everyone agrees, we make it happen.”
Here goes nothing. “This is a meetup, right? I want to hire you to keep me safe until I can go back and get this whole mess sorted out.”
Crank starts to chuckle.
Savage holds up a hand for silence. “You wanna hire us? First rule is that all cards need to be on the table. You need to be completely fucking honest about anything that might impact our ability to do the job. The good, the bad and the ugly. Don’t hide shit because you think it makes you sound bad.”
I rub my sweaty palms over my thighs. “I don’t know where to start.”
“The beginning,” Poe says.
“Right. Okay. About a year ago I was living out of town, studying office management. I got a call at the start of the summer telling me that my mother had been in an accident. She was…” I swallow hard. It’s still tough to talk about the details. “She was hit by a car when she was going into work. One of the employees found her a couple hours later. It was probably instant.”
Crank sucks in a pain breath through his teeth. “Shit.”
“Yeah.” I sit quietly for a few moments, not sure what to say. Words aren’t enough and they don’t change anything. “Anyway, she and my uncle Walter owned a laundry business together. Well, she was the owner, but he started it with her and did all the accounting. Holland Laundry Services. They handle washing for businesses. Restaurants, gyms, motels like this I guess. When she died, she left her share of the business to me. I went home for the summer, but I wanted to finish studying and Uncle Walter encouraged me to go. It made sense since he knew the business, right?”
“That’s the uncle that’s looking for you, right?” Savage asks.
I nod. “I didn’t hear much from him when I was studying. Everything seemed like it was going fine. I noticed a couple of the employees who had been there for a long time quit, but new people were hired. It wasn’t really until I finished school and went home that I noticed something wasn’t right. We lost contracts, and I found lots of notices for missed maintenance. I asked Uncle Walter about it, but he said the economy was hard for everyone.”
“Doesn’t sound like a guy who has a million dollars sitting around.”
“He’s not! But I started getting a bad feeling about the answers he was giving me because on paper, it looked like profits were up, and he and my aunt were driving brand new cars. He started pressuring me to sell him the business, and that’s when I started snooping around. I snuck into his office to go through the books because I didn’t think he was telling me everything.”
Crank laughs. “Sneaky.”
“It was my company! I don't think that counts.” I wrinkle my nose at him. “Anyway, I was right. Only maybe half of the books matched up to anything we were actually doing. There were customers listed that I’d never heard of or seen on orders, and others that I knew weren’t making as many drop offs as were listed in the system. I made copies of everything and stashed it away before I confronted him. I’m not dumb, I didn’t tell him I had proof. I just wanted to give him a chance to explain, figuring he’d gotten into trouble and needed help.”