“Future Mrs. Green,” he said. When Nathan gave him a weird look, he continued. “Sang! Who do you think I’m talking about?”
A weird twist of emotions sprouted from inside Nathan all at once. “Do you call her that?”
Dr. Green chuckled. “Not behind her back. I’ve said it to her. I think I like it even better than Pookie.” He sighed wistfully. “Don’t you just love it when she gets all bashful? I like the pink in her cheeks.”
Dr. Green couldn’t get married to her. What was he talking about?
There was another short knock before Nathan could explain why it was weird.
The door opened and North checked in. He’d shaved, and his hair was combed back. His dark eyes met Nathan’s first and then went to Dr. Green. Seeing they were the only ones in the room, he came in, closing the door behind himself.
Thank goodness. Nathan sat up sharply. He’d heard he was fine, but seeing it for himself was another thing. “Good to see you made it out.”
Dr. Green turned to him, eyebrow cocked. “Something happen in those offices?”
North’s tone was dark, but calm. “The police asked about keeping the Jeep. Well, they didn’t ask. They’re keeping it. But they were polite about it.”
“Let them keep it,” he said. “Don’t fight with them on it.”
“That’s what the lawyer said. I don’t like kowtowing to their whims when they’ve no need to bring it in at all. No one died in it.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the door. He pushed a palm at his eyes and rubbed as he turned to Nathan. “What are you doing in here?”
“No idea,” Nathan said. “I got called down. No one was in here.”
“So what’s Sang doing in the principal’s office?” he asked.
Dr. Green slid his chair behind his desk, picking up his bag and opening it. “Mr. Blackbourne’s in there. Don’t worry about her.”
“What do you mean don’t worry about her?” North barked. “She shouldn’t be in there.”
“We should see about getting some new vehicles.”
Nathan knew what Dr. Green was doing: distracting North from thinking about Sang and what she’s doing while he was cranky.
North’s wild eyes blinked rapidly a few times before he seemed to chill out. “I’ve an SUV I brought in this morning and a big box van in the garage.”
Nathan spoke carefully. North was tense today. Without much sleep, and his Jeep gone, they all probably need to proceed delicately. “The BMW was fished out. It was brought there.”
North snorted. “That’s going to be a helluva job. I have to pull out all that leather. I don’t know if I can restore it to what it was.”
“Of course you can,” Dr. Green said. He blinked at his laptop and inspected whatever was on the screen. “It’s been done before, I’m sure.”
“And I have to swap plates,” North said. “Guess I’m taking Mr. Blackbourne’s car, but I probably need Vic with me when I leave. So he can drive it back.” He looked at Nathan. “Which means you or someone else needs to take the SUV.”
“Sure,” Nathan said. Whatever he wanted.
“With Hendricks actually gone”—Dr. Green waved his hand shortly—“what do we do now? Where do we go from here?”
North put out a hand. He raised one finger like he was counting off. “We need to find out who took the Jeep.”
“Volto,” Nathan said. “I told them.”
“Yes, but who dropped it off?” North said. “Volto didn’t drop it off. Who drove it and parked it out front?” He raised another finger. “I don’t know why the food was switched out at all.”
“What was in the boxes in the truck?” Nathan asked.
“The same shit,” he said. “Meat. Lettuce. It’s like a one to one swap for the most part. Mostly produce. Although I didn’t have time to ask the guys why they agreed to swap it while I was sneaking back out.”
“Who were they?” Dr. Green asked.
“They have a warehouse near North Charleston,” he said. “That’s where I ended up. When I left, I noted the address. Victor tracked down the owners, who also own a couple of restaurants in the area.”
Dr. Green lifted his gaze from the laptop to North. His eyes were glazed over, lost in thought. “Doesn’t make sense. Taking food from a school to restaurants downtown? Did the food look old? Is he selling old food out the back?”
“And replacing it with restaurant food?” Nathan asked. “None of that makes sense at all.”
“Don’t ask me,” North said and lowered his hand from counting off. “There’s so much fucking going on, I don’t even know where to start. Like what the hell was Kota up to last night?”
Nathan’s face caught between being horrified and trying to calm himself down. He didn’t want to get North riled up about this.
Dr. Green refocused on Nathan. “Right, what was he doing at Lily’s?”
Shit. Nathan was hoping to keep that under the radar for the most part. But he’d have to tell them about it sooner or later.
Did it have to be now? With North?
Without facing either of them, he swung slowly in his chair. His jaw tensed as he spoke. “Kota went out to talk to her about Sang. We wanted to ask her...to see if Sang was really into...this. We didn’t expect everything to turn upside down like it did.”
North and Dr. Green were quiet for a long moment. Nathan kept looking at Mr. Blackbourne’s desk, hoping what he’d just said explained itself and he didn’t have to go further.
North eventually spoke, slow, dark, deep. “What do you mean, really into this?”
The tense air around them thickened immensely. Nathan dared to look him in the face, trying to be as delicate as possible. “We wanted to be sure Sang isn’t being influenced by us. If she’s really into this idea or if she’s being pressured because we want it.”
North’s hard face tightened at the mouth, his jaw shifting like he was grinding his teeth. His dark eyes wide.
Dr. Green snapped up before North took a lunging step at Nathan. Nathan jumped from his chair, backing away but not looking at his face any more. He was afraid of this.
North barked at him “What the hell are you fucking doing to us?”
Dr. Green put a palm on North’s chest to stop him from lunging. “Stop.” His voice drew in power, a lot like Mr. Blackbourne did. “Not here. Those cops will hear and will come in.”
“Let them,” North growled. “Before I tear his face off.”
Nathan didn’t take the threat seriously. North’s barking worried him more. Like Dr. Green said, they didn’t need attention. This was the wrong time and place for this. Not with everyone up in arms about what was going on.
“Calm down,” Dr. Green said. “I’m sure there’s a logical explanation.” He kept a palm on North’s chest and slightly turned his head so he could look at Nathan. “Tell us. Why didn’t you tell us what you were doing?”
Nathan glared at North across the room. “I don’t know why you’re angry about it. Don’t you want to be sure?”
“I’m angry because you did it without asking us,” he pointed to his own chest. “You went behind our backs for this?”
“I wasn’t going to risk you all telling her about it,” he said. “Warning her. Or trying to influence her. Kota understood that.” He told them about the diary, how he read it, how Sang had wished to be normal and talked about getting married and having a normal family. “We needed to be sure. So Kota went to ask Lily to talk to Sang about this and be absolutely sure we aren’t influencing the decision. That’s all we wanted. To be sure.”
There was a long pause. Nathan sensed he’d probably not say it all right, but how could they not understand this? They even talked about this in the very beginning, not pushing Sang into any relationship, to let her approach them if it was going to happen.
Dr. Green’s face twisted. He dropped his hand from holding back North. “No. I change my mind. Go ahead and punch him.”