Assuming Names: a con artist's masquerade (Criminal Mischief Book 1) by Tanya Thompson Read Free Book Online Page B

attention, freaking them out until they assured me, “I go, I go.” And they would go, making their own way there only to stare at the floor, mute with passive resistance, or outright decline the offer of employment.
    Tricia would warn them, “There is only so long the agency can afford to support you. You need to accept the next offer.” But if the job had been arranged by me, the suspected government agent, the offer was refused.
    For camaraderie and support, all the Eastern Europeans had been settled into one apartment complex. In an attempt to make them more comfortable with me, Tricia started going to the complex to do paperwork and see how they were getting on, taking me with her to arrange for furniture and other essentials that would help transition them into the United States. Alone among the men was Sergiu who did not require the assistance of the agency to pay either his rent or the utilities, and not once did he ask for money to buy groceries. He shared a three-bedroom apartment with Eugene and Daniel, but they had no need for furnishings as Sergiu had decorated the place. Black leather couches and chrome tables sat on grungy brown carpet, and garishly framed oil paintings hung on the white, patched walls. The rundown apartment had never seen anything like it, and Sergiu, with his affable humor barely contained, sat amongst it in a beautifully stitched suit telling Tricia he had a job as a dishwasher.
    “Excellent,” Tricia commended him. “Where are you working?”
    “Restaurant,” he flicked it away.
    “Yes, but which one?”
    “Ah …” he rolled his hands, one loosely circling the other, thinking, stretching out time. Taking a breath, he looked up to the mismatched spackled ceiling and frowned. Finally, he dismissed the question with an open palm, “I no remember name. But good place. Very nice.”
    “Do you think they could hire more, like Daniel and Eugene?”
    Sergiu’s eyes widened with his smile as he tried not to laugh. “Ah … yes,” flex of the shoulders and turn of the head. “Yes, maybe this okay.”
    “Will you ask?”
    He’d already been chuckling under his breath, but when he saw Tricia was seriously waiting for a response, he threw his hands up and laughed loud, “Yes, I ask.” Then, still laughing, he said to Eugene and Daniel, “Maybe we dishwasher together.”
     
    ~~~~~~
     
    Tricia had a private matter to discuss with a Bulgarian in an apartment across the courtyard and told Sergiu, “If you don’t mind, I will leave Constance here with you for the moment.”
    “Yes, yes, good,” he fluffed the air in front of him, sending Tricia out the door. To me he said, “Constanzia, you make us coffee,” gesturing in a circle around the room to include himself, Eugene, and Daniel.
    Sure, okay. Perhaps I should have been insulted to be dismissed to the kitchen, but I had absolutely no opinion about it. I simply got up and went to investigate the coffee maker. It was a standard electric machine, but I had no idea how to use it. I examined it from top to bottom then started pulling and prying at the parts. Finding the swinging bowl that held the grounds, I searched through the cabinets to locate the beans. Five pounds of canned coffee in hand, I treated the electric maker like a stovetop percolator and dumped the grounds into the basket without a filter. Having nothing else to go by, it seemed reasonable to fill it to the top.
    I was tap, tap, tapping the can on the edge of the plastic basket, scattering dark grounds across the chipped Formica counter, struggling to keep the wide brim from spilling its contents over the edge. The whole process was taking ages, but I was concentrating hard, determined to get it done.
    I didn’t know Sergiu was at my side until I smelled the heavy scent of Givenchy over the coffee. Holding the can still, I stopped to look at him and he asked painfully, “ Why , Constanzia? I good with you. Why this,” he indicated the coffee maker, “with