“They didn’t? For real? How stupid can you be?”

Neesa’s eyes were closed again. “Even if they had asked, I wouldn’t have told them nothing.”

“Why not?”

“I needed that job,” Neesa said wearily. “Herman was my boss too. He could hire me, fire me, pay me overtime, give me a better shift, let me clock in whenever I wanted. And if I’d said no, he’d give me a shitty reference so I couldn’t get another job.”

“That’s always the way, right? So, did you have the same kind of arrangement with Herman that your friend had?”

“Not quite.” Neesa glanced over at Drue. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this stuff. I don’t know you from Jack.”

“Who am I gonna tell?” Drue said lightly. “I don’t know you either. I don’t even know your name. Pretend I’m a shrink.”

“True,” Neesa said. “This is the first time I’ve talked about any of this stuff, ever. But what the hell? It all happened a long time ago. Nobody except me even remembers Jazmin’s name anymore. You asked if I had the same deal with Herman that Jaz had? The answer is no. My deal was different.”

“How so?”

Neesa took a deep breath. “See, I screwed up.”

She abruptly dumped the contents of her purse into her lap and pawed through the jumble of detritus. She held up a crumpled pack of Newports. “Damnit. I coulda swore I had one left.”

“You want me to stop at a gas station so you can buy some?” Drue asked. She detested smoking, had forbidden Trey and others from lighting up in OJ, but this one time she was willing to make a sacrifice, if it would keep Neesa Vincent talking.

“That’s okay. I got a carton at home.”

“Thank God for that, right?” Drue said lightly. Her new friend’s apartment complex couldn’t be that far away. She had to get her back on track again. “So, how’d you screw up at work?”

Neesa toyed with a plastic cigarette lighter, turning it over and over between her long, curving fingernails. “There was an incident, with a guest, and Herman found out about it, and he fixed things. So then I owed him.”

Drue looked down at the cell phone, trying to remember how much battery life it had. She prayed it was still recording. “What kind of incident?”

“Some money went missing from a guest’s room. There was a car dealers’ convention that week, and those men were all rolling in money. This one dude, he checked out early, and I was cleaning his room, and I found a wad of bills. Like, hundred-dollar bills, in the pocket of the bathrobe. You know, the ones the hotel puts in guest rooms?”

“So you kept the money. Totally understandable,” Drue said.