Either way, that problem was above her pay grade. She couldn’t risk her neighborhood clients hearing that she’d gone to the cops with information gleaned while cleaning in the background. Nosy was a bad brand for a maid, and people talked. Most of her patrons were client referrals.

The trip to the library was really about cashing in. Oksana closed the webpage with Nate’s body and opened the address to the currency exchange that her cousin had provided. It reminded her of the places in airports that displayed exchange rates to the local tender on a ticker, except here everyone was selling money denoted by ones and zeroes, saved on ledgers posted to computer servers across the world.

Oksana opened her account. She clicked a few buttons, advertising her “coins” available for purchase. Fifteen minutes later, she had an offer for far more than her photo purchasers had negotiated. She clicked accept.

Oksana smiled to herself as the US dollar equivalent of her cryptocurrency entered her account. The Walkers had been good clients, she mused. But they’d never paid her as much alive as Nate had dead.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

RICK

Rats crawled behind the dumpster. Rick heard them scratching and squeaking as he stood in the restaurant alley, waiting for Banque’s side door to open. The noises set his skin ablaze. In the dim light, it seemed that the vermin were climbing up his pant legs or scampering down the neck of his shirt. They’d become more aggressive since the shutdowns. Starved by a dearth of overflowing restaurant dumpsters, they’d begun venturing out in daylight and invading apartments. Eating each other. He would swear that he felt their claws.

“Will you stop that?”

Frank hissed at him from the opposite side of the alley. They’d chosen their posts with care. Rick was directly in front of the exit, as his job was to call for Philip’s attention as soon as he appeared, distracting him from Frank at the door’s side. Before Philip could run, Frank would have the pistol pressed into the chef’s left flank along with wire instructions for the $350,000 that Philip owed them.

“What am I doing?” Rick spat.

“Scratching.”

Rick wanted to ask how Frank could see him that well. The only light in the alley was a diffuse glow from a sidewalk streetlamp and a window several stories up in the neighboring building. Frank was shrouded in darkness. Rick had thought that he’d been as well.

“Every second you’re pawing at something,” Frank continued, silencing Rick’s question. “The back of your neck. Your sides. Your hair. Stop being so freaked out. You’re giving me the jitters.”