Shooting the Moon by Brenda Novak Page B

partway up her arm as she took a sip of her own cappuccino. “What’s the grand total?”
    “Fifteen thousand seven hundred eighty-nine dollars.” Lauren circled the figure beneath the column of numbers she’d added together on the pad she normally kept by the phone. “That is, if I don’t break the Certificate of Deposit Nana gave me when I graduated from college.”
    “Fifteen thousand, huh?” Kimberly twirled her bracelet with two perfectly sculpted nails. “That doesn’t sound like much, kiddo. You could get a lot more if you called your father. I’m sure he’s got plenty stashed away.”
    “I doubt much of it’s liquid. He keeps his money pretty tied up in investments. Besides, Harley’s never had much. I think fifteen thousand will sound like a fortune to him.”
    “Does that mean you’re not going to call your father about this?”
    Lauren frowned as she pictured speaking with Quentin. Couldn’t she wait until she’d cleaned up this mess she’d made? It would be so much more pleasant to tell him with a smile in her voice that he didn’t need to worry any longer: Brandon was safe, they were all safe, she’d taken care of everything.
    “What more can my father do than I’m already doing?” she asked.
    Kimberly adjusted her visor. “It just seems like he’d want to be involved. What if your plan backfires?”
    “It can’t backfire,” Lauren argued. “We offer Harley money, he rejects the offer, we sweeten the pot. It’s that simple. Pretty soon, we’ll reach a number he can’t refuse.”
    “I don’t think I’d accept any amount of money, not if it meant giving up my child.”
    “He’s not you. He’s always been dirt poor. And he’s not ‘giving up’ Brandon. He did that a long time ago. This is just—” she shrugged “—insurance that he’ll stay out of the way until Brandon grows to adulthood.”
    “Okay,” Kimberly said, but she didn’t sound very convinced.
    “The problem is how to approach him,” Lauren went on. “Should I call him and arrange a meeting? Or show up at Tank’s apartment and hope to catch him off guard?”
    Leaning back, Kimberly crossed her feet at the ankles and toyed with the white pleats on her skirt. “It would help if we knew him better,” she mused. “Do you think Damien could tell you more about what he’s like?”
    Lauren propped her elbows on the table. “Damien doesn’t really know him. He was out of high school by the time Harley was a freshman.”
    “Jeez, I didn’t realize Damien’s so old.”
    “He’s eight years older than we are.”
    “Okay, so what about Tank? Do you think we can enlist his help?”
    “Are you kidding? Harley’s his friend.”
    “Wait, I got it.” Clapping her hands, Kimberly shot out of her chair and did a palms up “ta-da.” “We spy on him!”
    “What?” Lauren cried. “No way!”
    “Don’t say no yet. I’ve seen it done in lots of TV shows. We simply get a pair of binoculars and stake out Tank’s place. We watch what Harley does, get a feel for what he’s like, and let that help us with our decisions. If he’s drinking heavily or doing drugs or entertaining one woman after another, we can feel justified in buying him off, fighting him to the death, whatever. Because then we’ll know his true nature, right?”
    Lauren definitely saw the benefit of obtaining more information about Harley, but spying? “And if he’s not doing any of those things? I’ve got to fight him anyway.”
    “Who says?” she demanded.
    Lauren’s father said. And she had to listen to him. It was her place in life to be the good daughter, the one who always tried to maintain peace in the family. She’d heardit as a constant litany the whole time she and Audra were growing up: That lazy Audra, if only she was more like you, Lauren…If only she had her head on straight like you…Lauren knows what life’s all about, don’t you, my girl?…Lauren would never be so stupid…
    “ I say,” she lied. “We