Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea Read Free Page A

Registry. If that was true, maybe there was some other way to get off. But it wasn’t worth getting off the Registry if I was dead. Sam seemed reasonable. He’d understand if I didn’t want to round up freaky spirits that went around murdering people. I remembered the package and picked it up.
    It felt dense and slightly heavy. It wouldn’t matter if I just took a peek. I could just go back to the Deep Blue Sea and return it. I got the scissors from the drawer by the sink and cut the envelope open and poured the contents on the table.
    “Holy shit,” I said, staring at it. I dropped the scissors on the floor with a clatter, but didn’t pick them up. I couldn’t stop staring at the pile on the table.
    It was money. Not just money, cash. A lot of it, all bundled with paper bands that said $5,000 . There were ten of them. I touched them to make sure they were real. I smelled them. I spread the piles out to look at them. I took the bands off with shaky hands to count the individual bills. There was fifty thousand dollars there. Even in the good years when I was running my own agency, I never went over forty-five thousand. And that was for the entire year. I caught my breath. I would be able to pull myself out from under this crushing pile of debt with one job. Even if it was dangerous, it would be worth it. I could have my life back. It was a fresh start. Off the Registry and out of debt.
    I picked up the metal badge that sat there as I goggled at the cash. It was an odd sort of thing. It looked a bit like a police badge, only circular-shaped with a six-sided star inside it. Around the edges of the circle it read Department of Order and Chaos. Not something you saw every day. I turned the badge in my hand. It was warm to the touch. When I looked away from it, the corner of my eye caught a slight shimmer, as if the badge had light coming out of it. But when I looked at it directly, the effect disappeared, and it was just a piece of silver metal. I set it on the table. I gathered up the money and put a handful into a freezer bag, which I slipped into my purse. I put the rest into a paper bag, which I then put into a garbage bag, tying a tight knot in the top. I grabbed a screwdriver from a drawer by the sink and took a kitchen chair into the living room. I stood up on the chair and unscrewed the face of the receiver vent, coughing at the dust. I carefully pushed the bag back, making sure I couldn’t see it from below. Then I put the face back on. Sofi and I had never been robbed, but we had been searched by the police. I have to say, I’d rather be robbed. Criminals are more thoughtful than most cops these days. And to tell the truth, I wasn’t entirely sure that what I was going to be doing was strictly legal.
    I clipped the Beretta inside the waistline of my jeans and pulled my shirt down over it. I put on my coat, unsticking a peanut shell from the sleeve, grabbed my purse and walked out the door and down the faded red carpet that lined our hallway. I stepped outside and breathed in the cool air. As I headed down the sidewalk to pay my electric bill I dialed Sofi’s number at the hospital.
    “Hello?” she answered after six rings.
    “Sofi, it’s Niki. You’re not going to believe this.”
     
    On my way back to the apartment, I stopped by the landlord’s place just inside the main entrance. I paid the bewildered man two months of back rent and three months in advance. He wordlessly wrote me a receipt, looking with disbelief at the pile of cash I’d put in his hands. I smiled at him. He’d always been nice to us, even when everyone else, recognizing me from the papers, yelled or swore at us or gave us the evil eye.
    I shrugged. “Ran into a bit of good luck.” I turned to leave.
    “Niki?” he said. I turned to look at him. “I am very glad for you and your grandmother. She is a good woman. I’ve known her since we came here. I was not looking forward to evicting either of you.”
    I nodded. “I