Craving (5 page)

“You’re already gone,” I said.

Chapter 4

Going through her papers was like rummaging through an office building dumpster. Receipts were scattered through her desk and kitchen drawers, a few statements lay about unopened, and a W-2 was holding a place in one of her journals. I had done this once before with the help of the executor of my parents’ wills. I knew exactly how it all went.

I looked at the balances of her bills, made a list of what I would need, and after a long shower and some more businesslike clothing, I made my way to the bank. For the first time, I was glad I had been her cosigner. Her debts in college would fall back on me to solve, but it was perhaps very good planning. Ever since she’d gotten her new job, it seemed as if all her money was handled through automatic channels; she didn’t need financial support, I had sort of viewed our relationship as complete, like a business deal. Now I had to tie up all the loose ends.

God, I’m a bitch.

As I drove, I wondered if she had set up automatic payments so she would never be reminded of how little she had. I could see the costs of her funeral, the settling of her estate, and hoped she had some kind of savings in the account.

I waited in the highly polished room of marble, where even the bulletproof glass looked decorative. When a banker could wait on me, I made my way to her desk. She was wearing a tan skirt suit and had her blond hair in a French twist. I envied her pale, chemically preserved beauty, reminded of all the girls I had always hated.

“So, Ms. …?” she coaxed with a smile.

“Pierce.”

“Ms. Pierce, you have an account with us?” The glint in her eye was hoping I would ask for a loan or the newest debt management refinancing.

I was almost delighting in the way I was about to make her feel: that horrible sense of confusion over what to say, mingled with the aversion of approaching someone else's hopelessness. Lilith Pierce, picking right back at the cheerleaders who had tormented her in high school.

It’s not her fault.

“I cosigned an account with my sister when she went to college. I’m afraid she’s passed away.”

Her face, like any good people-person’s, sank. “I’m very sorry.”

I forced a smile. “I need to settle her affairs. I’d like an account balance, as well as her overdraft credit card frozen.”

Her fingers flew to the keyboard and as expected, she forgot my plight all too willingly. “I’ll need you to swipe your ATM card and enter the pin.”

As I did it, my stoicism failed. My pin number—her birthday. My eyes dripped as I punched blindly at the colored keys. The machine beeped and very kindly, the lady pushed a box of tissue toward me, before carrying on with her routine. While she typed, the sounds of a room as soft as a library, but sharp as a train station, faded together as I tried to regain my composure.

“Ms. Pierce?” she asked, and a waver in her voice seemed slightly worried.

“Yes? What?”

She wrote something down on a slip of paper and slid it across the desk to me. “This is the current account balance. Your sister had no other accounts with us and I’ve notified the credit bureaus. It’s a complimentary service for our customers.”

I took the paper, glanced at it, and shouted in surprise. “
Four
hundred
thousand
dollars?”

The teller blinked. “Is that wrong?”

My mouth hung open for several moments. “Well, I don’t know . . . she . . . she had a good job, but . . . I didn't think it was
that
good.”

“Would you like to see an account history?”

“Yes, please.”

After some typing, she got up and went to a printer. When she came back, a stack of papers listed regular deposits each week for the last nine or ten months, each of about ten thousand dollars.

I leaned forward and examined them closely, but it was all codes and numbers to me. “Were these checks?”

“Transfers,” she said quietly.

“From whom?”

Her face lost all emotion. “It’s just an account number.”

I looked at her, feeling the slow build of frustration. “Can’t you tell who it belongs to?”

She shook her pale head and gave an apologetic smile carved out of wax. “Will you want to transfer the funds to another account or make a withdrawal?”

The tone in her voice clearly said she did not recommend me taking out much, and for her manager’s sake, I shook my head.

“I’ll keep the account,” I put a hand to my temple, still lost in the shock of it, "but is there some kind of paperwork I need to fill out?”

“No, you’re a cosigner, so you’ve always had a right to this money. And since it’s under the state limit, I don’t think you’ll have to file probate.”

I gave a sigh of relief and then realized that I had nothing to be relieved about. If anything, I should be outraged. I, through saving pennies, working two jobs, sacrificing any chance of a family outside her, putting in hours of work on her applications and her loan papers, had gotten her through grade school and into college. I had even loaned her several thousand dollars the first year to make it easy on her as she transitioned. She had always sworn to pay me back, but even when she had nearly half a million dollars in the bank, she hadn’t done so. If anything, I should be righteously pissed.

“We’ll ask you to bring in a copy of her death certificate for our records, though.”

Then it hit me; of course she hadn’t bothered to pay me back. She never intended to live and I was her next of kin. She was paying me back with exorbitant interest.

In that moment, I nearly snapped my ATM card in half.

“May I help you with anything else?”

“Her bills . . .”

“Are on automatic payment plans.”

“I’ll be terminating the services soon. Will I need to do anything to stop the payments?”

She was getting tired of me and the mortality I represented. It was obvious from the drawn look on her face. “No, it’s all done by computer.”

I got to my feet, a bit dazed. “Thanks. I’ll bring that certificate in as soon as they finish with her.”

“You’re welcome. Again, I’m sorry.”

Without an answer, I walked back out to the parking lot and to the car. When I got there, I stared up at the sun roof for several minutes, breathing deeply. In some sick way, I was relieved I wasn’t going to have to buy her a casket myself. That was, until a dark thought found its way into my head.

Before I knew what I was doing, I was up and walking back into the bank. Banker Barbie was with another customer, but she smiled at me as I walked past her to the courtesy phone.

“Unger.”

I took a deep breath. “This is Lilith Pierce.”

He paused. “I had a feeling.”

“I’ve found something odd.”

“Oh?”

I squeezed my eyes shut and for some reason could picture him sipping his coffee from that black mug. “I know you have to wait for . . . warrants or whatever for bank records right? Well, I’ll help you there. She had over four hundred thousand dollars in her checking.”

He was silent.

“Regular deposits from a private numbered account. Every week. I was a cosigner, but it was just so she could get an account. I never checked in on it, until now.”

“And you suspect that a records keeper wouldn’t have access to that kind of money without, oh, leverage?”

“It would be a motive, right?” I pushed.

“Hmm,” he said ambiguously.

I sat down at the chair and leaned into the voice shield. “You said you spoke to her boss.”

“I did.”

“What did he seem like to you?”

I could hear him thinking; his little gaps and soft murmurs under his breath told me everything. “A sleaze. I think I know where you’re going with this. Are you sure that’s the only wealthy man she might know?”

“It’s a perfect place to start," I nearly whined, knowing I sounded too excited, "if you think it’s worth it.”

He gave a chuckle. “Do
you
think it’s a good idea. I mean you’re the psy—”

“Don’t, Unger, I swear.”

He deferred. “I’ll check it out.”

“I want to be there.” I don’t know why I said it. It was just me, nosy and exactly the cat to die from it.

The throat grumbled. “Not allowed.”

“Come on! I’m level-headed, and like you said, I’m the . . .”

“I
didn’t
say it, if you recall.”

I shrugged and realized he couldn’t hear a shrug.

“Well . . . They’ve had me going through cold files, since my partner went on maternity leave and I’m soon to be put out to pasture. I’m what they like to call a meddler. I’m sort of the only one who thinks there might be a case here,” he murmured softly. “So I’m on it on my free time, if you catch my drift.”

I knew why. It didn’t help that one crazy woman showed up days too soon for the death announcement of another crazy woman. Because of me, there was an investigation, but because of me, there was no case. I hid my face in my hand.

He whispered an apology into my private silence.

“Don’t be. I get it.”

I waited, listening to him debate with himself the shit-storm he’d endure and whether or not it was worth it to make me feel better. I hoped he was a big enough fan of the
X
-
Files
to at least take an interest in me. Eventually, he clucked his tongue.

“Alright.”

Triumph! “When and where?”

He gave me an address that I scribbled down hastily on the back of the balance slip.

“Can you find it?”

“Yes.”

“Half an hour.”

“I’ll be there,” I said. Then I hung up the phone and drifted past the security guard. Outside, I meandered to the ATM, put in the card and pin and looked at the numbers for myself. It was not a dream. The numbers were as clear as plasma. I was rich, but if it was blood money, it would all go to charity. I took out a hundred dollars and went back to my car.

I didn’t bother to wait, but drove across town to the corporate headquarters of the company called AMRTA. In the shadow of the gleaming tower of slanting angles, I watched as people went in and out. I tried to recall everything she had said about her job, but like her schooling and all the other aspects of her personal life, I had never really listened. I had done my duty and didn't think that with all that I had done, I needed to do anything else. I couldn't even recall her major in college; though, I knew there was some kind of literature or book connection.

Sifting through echoes, I remembered her telling me it was the job of a lifetime and that she was amazed they’d given it to her, but beyond that, nothing. Regrettably, all I could clearly see from the call announcing her employment was the glass I had thrown at the wall, right after I had hung up on her for telling me that Howard and I should never have gotten together in the first place. At the time, I had felt righteous, since a child like her had no place giving me advice.

I wondered if she had forgiven me as she stood on the edge looking down.

A knock on my window startled me from my brooding. Unger’s face smiled in at me tensely. I got out and tried to look pulled together.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

I nodded.

“You’re not going to fly off the handle again, are you?”

“I’ve never flown off the handle. I have no idea why that happened.”

He gave me a skeptical glance.

“Unger, I know you think I’m a grieving family member, but it’s not like that. We weren’t close. I never knew her, that’s obvious. This isn’t about vengeance. My best behavior,” I attested, with my hand in the air.

He looked away. “Then if you do this, you’re not her sister. You’re my associate.”

“Do I get a fake name?”

He glanced at me with a raised eyebrow. “Only because I’m afraid of you.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Then I’ll go by Cassandra Blake. It sounds professional-ish.”

He was already heading to the door and I followed behind him swiftly. “Let me do the talking.” Suddenly, he stopped and turned around. “You can’t ever tell anyone I let this happen.”

I sighed and put my hand on his shoulder. “If you didn’t, I’d be here on my own.”

He frowned and gave a decisive nod. “Let’s go then,” he said, but I could tell from his tone that this was just a courtesy for a grieving woman, which didn’t matter to me in the slightest.

I trotted behind him. “So, what’s this company all about?”

“Well, their mission statement is hardly explanatory. As far as I can tell from my research, they’re into all sorts of things, from pharmaceuticals to real estate.”

“What’s the acronym stand for?”

“I wondered the same thing”—he shook his head—“but it’s not an acronym. It’s a Sanskrit word.”

“Meaning what?”

“The nectar of immortality,” he said with a confused shrug.

Chapter 5

As soon as we passed through the doors, something in my stomach twisted uncomfortably. There was nothing specific, but the sterile severity of the place stunned me.

It was almost as if we had fallen into a postmodern pit of ergonomics and efficiency. I looked at Unger, but he gave no sign he felt it too. With an uneasy touch, I put it out of my mind and tried to look natural.

The reception desk was a massive stone structure directly in the center of a granite echo chamber. The immense windows that made up the north-facing wall were tinted, so that the entire scene had an aura of man beating materials into a sterile kind of submission. A bank of elevators shone behind the security guard’s head in a vicious silver beam, but dinged cheerfully. Clones in every kind of suit moved around, like ichor in the fat, hardened, corporate arteries, their leather shoes clicking impatiently.

It set my teeth on edge.

“What’s with the security?”

“I’ve been told they contract with the government too,” Unger whispered.

He walked up to the desk and laid his badge on it. “I’m Detective Unger,” he said to the waiting official. “This is my associate, Ms. Blake. I’ve talked with Mr. Moksha once before. Some questions have come up and I’d like to speak to him again.”