Page 82 of Sweet Ruin

Whoever this man is, customer service is not his strong suit.

I sit up straight as if he can see my slouched posture. “I’m, uh…” How do I phrase this? “I’m calling about a loan through V Haven Holdings.”

“Yeah,” he grunts for the third time.

“I’m— My name is Delilah. I’m the guarantor on a note. Account of Connor Boyd.” I look down at the calendar and the ocean of black X’s. “I’d like to speak to Kane Makov.”

He doesn’t say anything for long enough that I check the display to see if the call dropped.

Then he says, “Say that name again.” He’s paying attention now in a way he wasn’t ten seconds ago.

“Kane Makov,” I say. “Tell him it’s— Tell him it’s Lilah. He knows who I am.”

“Hold on.”

He drops the phone on something hard. I hear echoes from the room he’s in. A door, somebody talking, a barking dog, a chair scraping.

I sit there with the receiver against my ear and my heart going hard. I look around my office while I wait. The cot with the blanket folded on the end of it, the health department certificate in the frame with the crack in the corner, the tape dispenser.

The X’s. All those fucking X’s.

Then:

“Ms. Dorsey.” It’s the same man who answered, but he’s become far more friendly since he walked away. Deferential, almost.

“Yes.”

“You at the bakery?”

I don’t remember telling him my last name. I definitely never told him I have a bakery.

“Yes,” I say.

“Alright. Stay there.” He clears his throat. “The boss is coming to see you in person.”

16

DELILAH

The boss is coming to see you in person.

The gruff stranger hangs up before I can ask when.

Okay. Fine.

I mean, like, good. Great. Grand. Wonderful.

That’s what I wanted, isn’t it? I called the number. This is what happens when you do such things. People answer.

I guess it’s just all happening a little too fast for me to process.

Feeling unsettled, I grab my things, get up, and go out into the front of the bakery. It’s five to five and it’s already full dark outside, that matte, blue-black winter dark that makes me feel like the concept of color is just something I once saw in a dream.

All the lights are out except for the single pendant bulb hanging over the register. It’s casting long, crooked shadows everywhere. Really dialing up the spooky atmosphere here.

A few minutes pass in silence. Pedestrians hustle by on the other side of the window, bustled against the cold. Car headlights sweep through and beyond. Wind groans.

Kane does not appear.