Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 46197 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 231(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46197 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 231(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
That was another thing that had surprised me. It was the doctor, Neil Carmichael, who met me at the door this morning and showed me around. He also gave me a list of things to do that were simple instructions on answering the phone, booking appointments, and finding files. His first patient had walked in, carrying a homemade apple pie in one hand and a small toy-sized fluff ball of a dog in her other.
Since then, I had booked several appointments, changed a few, emailed the elementary school a student’s vaccine records, pulled six different patient files, and been given a box of fruitcake cookies by a patient who had stopped in just to deliver goodies.
How had Bane found me a job like this? I doubted he knew Dr. Carmichael personally. I mean, why would he? A doctor with his own practice in another state.
Rocket nudged my leg again when I straightened back up to take the last patient’s file and put it back in the cabinet. He was going to be good for me. I’d managed to smile and even laugh once at his antics. There was something to this therapy-dog thing.
The phone rang, and I went to answer it.
“Dr. Carmichael’s office,” I said. “How may I help you?”
“Yes, I need to speak to a Cressida Beck,” a woman replied.
“That’s me,” I answered hesitantly because no one knew I had this job except Bane and the rest of the Southern Mafia, I assumed.
“Oh, okay. Well, your phone is ready to be picked up. We are open until five today.”
My phone? I hadn’t gone to get a phone yet. Opening the bank account had taken all my time this morning.
“I, uh, don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The iPhone 17 … you wanted the lavender one, and all we had in stock was black. I had to have one sent to us from another store …” She trailed off, then added, “You already paid for it.” As if that would jog my memory.
I knew I hadn’t paid for anything. Bane or Kash must have. The fact that it was lavender, my favorite color? Only Kash would know that. The pang I’d tried to push away while focusing on work and Rocket was back. This was his doing. All of it. I didn’t want that damn phone either.
“I, uh … I don’t want it,” I blurted a little too harshly I realized.
Silence. She clearly didn’t know what to do about that.
“Can you just refund whatever card it was charged to?” I asked her.
“No, I can’t. It was paid in cash. You gave me the cash … I mean, I thought it was you who had come in and opened the new account.”
A female had done this? Who had Kash sent to do it?
“It wasn’t me. It was a friend,” I told her.
“Oh, well, I’m not sure what you want me to do. But the phone is in your name, and the contract is signed … by you. Or who I thought was you.” She was as confused as I was.
Dammit, Kash. You could have just told me goodbye. Spoken to me. Allowed me some form of closure. This is more painful than if you’d done it to my face.
“Fine. I can’t pick it up today though. I work until five.”
“We can have it dropped off at your office if you would like,” she said. “Dr. Carmichael’s, correct? On Broad Street?”
My eyes narrowed as I stared straight ahead. “How do you know that?”
“Uh, it’s on your account,” she replied.
Of course it was. I was gripping the phone so tight that it was starting to sting my hand. “Yes. Then if it can be brought to me, that will be fine.”
“Great! I’ll have someone bring it then.” She was clearly relieved.
“Thank you,” I told her, then ended the call.
It had been easier when I thought Bane had done all this. The Mafia wanting to get rid of me was one thing. Kash wanting to was another.
It was a cut I hadn’t wanted to accept, but I had to now.
Twenty-One
Kash
I stood in front of Arthur Howt as his head slowly bobbed with his struggle to hold it up. Blood dripped from his ears, nose, and mouth. He was starting to choke on it too. Once he had begged me not to kill him and admitted to the things I’d read him in the texts he had with Cressida, I’d gone a touch mad. Whatever control I’d been trying to hold on to vanished, and I’d seen red.
I wasn’t sure he was even aware of his surroundings anymore. His eyes were a touch vacant. But he did still whimper when I took my knife to him. He was feeling pain if nothing else.
“We gonna leave him strung up here? Or ditch the body elsewhere?” Than asked.
The abandoned mine we’d brought him to was one that I’d been in before. Two years ago, several of the guys in the Alabama branch had been sent to help the Arkansas branch handle an issue. The issue had been brought here and tortured until he talked. No one came here. It was closed due to safety issues and illegal to mine in. While the Arkansas branch took their victim’s body parts to feed the hogs, I didn’t want to spend the time doing so, nor did I trust them not to report our being here to Linc.