He shook his head. “Gotta talk to Nicole.”
“About?”
He thought fast. “The pay system. I had trouble with it last night.”
Sam rolled her eyes. “It’s a pain in the arse, isn’t it? But Nix wants to keep a tight fist around the finances.”
“Why?” Gil asked. “There a problem?”
“Not right now, but Nix thinks we lost a chunk of change sometime during the last year. She wants to find it.”
Gil rubbed a hand through his hair. “What if Edgar took it to fund his little retreat into nowhere?”
Sam shrugged. “He might have.”
Noah scowled at Gil. “He didn’t.”
“How do you know? No one knows where Eddie is or why he left.”
“I just know.”
“How?”
Noah gritted his teeth. “You got Franco booked at eight, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Gil huffed. He stood. “See you pricks later.”
He slouched off, his baggy hoodie and swooshed hair giving him the profile of a sulky teen. One down, three to go. Noah hung around as Scott, Sam, and Nicole chatted, trying to look like he wanted to be there. He was about to give up on a moment with Nicole when Tabby clocked him. “Oi, Sam, I found a log that looks like a dragon outside. Come see it.”
She then frogmarched her older sister and Scott outside, dropping him a huge wink he chose to ignore.
Nicole immediately headed for the kitchen, pulling pink rubber gloves out from under the sink. He strode after her, feeling like a bull in a china shop. “You shouldn’t do that. You cooked.”
She whirled around. “So, who’s going to do it?”
Noah held out his hands.
She looked at him in disbelief. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.” He tugged the gloves away and pulled them on. They were tight, but they fit. He gently nudged her away from the sink and plunged his hands into the soapy water.
“Did you learn to wash dishes in The Rangers?” Nicole asked, her blue eyes hard as glass.
He didn’t reply. Couldn’t. Hearing that name come out of her mouth was a sock in the gut. “How long have you known?”
“A couple of days. Do they know?”
“Who?”
She gestured to the doorway. “Sam and Tabby and the others?”
He shook his head.
“What about my dad?”
He turned back to the plates, scrubbing the syrup from a chipped dinner plate and placing it in the drying rack.
“Noah?”