He shook his head and flipped off the light. There was a nice bathroom with a clawfoot tub and a basin-like sink. Then it was his room.
Like the kitchen, it was a bit messy. He looked sheepish before he scampered across the room and started shoving all his clothes into a laundry hamper.
“Sorry, I’m not used to much company.”
“You’re also a man.” With flaws, thank god.
I walked across the room, trailing my hand over the cozy flannel bedspread and stopped at the window. We were right above the front of the store and could see down into the rock garden and the main street. The sun was starting to get low in the sky, casting long shadows in the golden light.
“So does that mean you’re neat and tidy, since you’re a woman?”
I scrunched up my face. “Are you kidding? I used to buy paper plates just so I wouldn’t have to do the dishes. My idea of vacuuming is borrowing someone’s dog for the day and having them eat all the crap off the floor.”
He laughed, a total belly-aching shake. What a fucking beautiful sound.
“All right, come on,” he said, grabbing my hand and leading me away from the window. “Let’s keep the Day of Fun moving by going in the backyard and cracking open a bottle of wine.”
“I guess the tour’s over.”
“No more house to see, unless you want to see my office and the garage.”
“Sure, whatever.” I shrugged like I didn’t care.
But moments later, after we had put away the groceries and took two glasses for our wine, he showed me the office. A place I very much wanted to see.
It was small and simple. The door downstairs led into the office and another door led from the office to the shop. The only locks were on that door. There was also a small window that I could easily fit out of. That would most likely be my escape route. I tried to get a sense of where the window opened up to the outside without seeming overly suspicious, but it looked like it was still on the hidden side of the hedge.
He had a nice, retro-looking desk, mint in color, and a couple of metal filing cabinets beside it. A swanky iPod dock and speakers sat in the corner on top of a thick stack of magazines while a Mac computer ran a slideshow of beach photos. A pair of glasses rested on the keyboard. Beside it was a framed photo of a boy on a beach, throwing a rock. You couldn’t see his face because of his hat, but I assumed it was Ben.
I didn’t see a safe anywhere, not even under the desk. Shit. Maybe I’d be robbing the register, and as crammed as it looked, it almost seemed insulting to steal it from him.
“Where do you keep all your tattoo equipment?” I asked.
He opened a closet that sat between the two doors. This was better organized than the rest of the house, with built-in shelves that housed plastic boxes affixed with post-it notes and labels. And at the very bottom of the shelving unit was the safe. It was bolted to the ground—not too easy to pick up and run away with—but with only a three-number combination lock. Although three number locks were easier to decode than six number ones , they were also easier to remember and usually nixed the need to be written down somewhere near the safe. Eight times out of ten, if someone had a six-number combination lock, they had that code written down somewhere in the room.
I just had to guess Camden’s three numbers. I didn’t have the time and patience to listen for the contact points and wheels and graph the results, and I certainly wasn’t about to do any drilling. I would need to get in, crack the code on only a few tries, and then get out. No fingerprints, no sound. The only thing I’d leave was some sort of sign that made him think a pro didn’t do it. Evidence of sloppiness.
Naturally, I was counting on the safe being actually full of cash or something valuable, when for all I knew, Camden used it for mementos and prized comic books. I hoped the bank transaction fees for a small business were high enough that he made a deposit just once or twice a week. I’d just have to chance it. I didn’t want to think about Plan B yet.
I made sure to let my eyes gloss over the safe only once and then looked at Camden. “Is this where you come to think? Your office?”
He shut the closet with a click. “Actually I go outside. Care to join me?”
He held out his arm and I gleefully took it, carrying the glasses with my other hand. I fought back the pinpricks of guilt that had started building inside my throat, and by the time we made our way through the garage that smelled like ponderosa pine, we were in his backyard.