“We’re going to off-load these back onto the market. Easy flip, at least get the money back that Eli lost, and nobody will have to be the wiser. It’ll look like an account glitch. I mean, we might lose shipping, but that’s not the worst thing to explain away. We’ve probably got to sell them on a different marketplace, so the original seller doesn’t flag the post for fraud and so nobody else that saw the listing gets suspicious.”

“That’s your grand plan?” AJ was unconvinced. His whole face scrunched up so that his eyebrows were furrowed and his lips were pursed.

“Yeah. It’s brilliant.” Daniella folded her arms across her chest.

“And pretty immoral,” said AJ, flattening his mouth back out into a skeptical line.

“Dude, she’s getting us out of this mess and with a time crunch to boot. Daniella’s a genius.” This was Eli.

“But. You’re just passing the problem along to somebody else. That’s not right. You know that’s not right.” That was AJ.

Daniella snorted. “What’s right and what is expedient are two different things.”

“How do you know we’re not just saddling somebody else with the same problem—if not worse?” AJ sounded like he was giving a lecture on morality or ethics or something to a giant philosophy hall. It was nauseating.

“We probably are,” Daniella fired back in the same tone. “But that’s not my problem. The nine thousand dollars missing from our inventory and a store that is about to close is.”

“No, it’s his problem.” AJ pointed at Eli.

“I resent that,” said Eli.

“So do I,” said AJ.

“Shut up, both of you. If the bookstore closes, we’ll be out of our home base. We could all go out and get regular jobs at a diner or a fast-food place or an ice cream shop or one of those crappy retail jobs on Michigan Avenue. This place is home whether or not we like it. I can’t sit by and wait for everything to close. I have to do something. I don’t agree with Eli’s methodology, but I do agree with what he was trying to do. He was trying to save this place.”

Eli raised his eyebrows at Daniella’s use of the word methodology, and she just scowled back at him.

“Look, maybe those jobs aren’t half bad,” said AJ.

“That is so not my point.” Daniella crossed her arms again.

“I just. I don’t want to belong to the kind of place that’s preserved at the expense of someone else. I don’t want to save my home by throwing someone else under the bus.” AJ was so somber that it nearly undid Daniella.