“To boil down and pawn the bronze?” Lillian fired back. “Your sister has been leaving no stone unturned with the medallion hunt. All I hear out of that girl’s mouth is money, money, money. Mayor, I demand you take them both in for questioning.”
“This is a witch hunt,” Pepper cried. “What about being innocent until proven guilty?” Typical small-town mob.
“People.” Beau raised up his hands. “Calm down. We’re getting to the bottom of this dognapping. It’s my highest priority, I can assure you. Miss Knight?” he said without glancing over. “A word?”
Funny how silence can sometimes sound exactly like “Oooooooh, someone’s in trouble.”
Pepper glanced at Ziggy, her charge for the day, who romped with the dog pack without a care in the world. “Sure.” She trailed the mayor across the park. He was a big man. Football player big. The sun brought out the copper highlights of his strong cheekbones. His hair was thick, wavy and a shade lighter than black. He paused next to an out-of-the-way picnic table.
“Look, you have to know that I didn’t steal—”
“I’m not here for Davy Jones,” he said. “I know you didn’t steal the dog. Last night I called my best friend three different times. He didn’t pick up. I know he wasn’t on the boat, because I was there.”
“Oh.” She examined her shoes.
“Let me shoot straight. Whatever you and Rhett get up to is your choice. You’re consenting adults. If it’s fun for you to run around pretending it’s a big secret, then who am I to judge?”
“We aren’t pretending,” Pepper said. “He doesn’t want the gossips to know.”
“And I can’t fault him for that,” he shot back. “But what I need to talk to you about is Tuesday. She’s your sister?”
“Yes?” Pepper blinked. This was the last thing she expected Beau to bring up. “Don’t tell me she’s a suspect.”
“No.” He grimaced. “She’s a royal pain in the ass.”
Pepper chewed the bottom of her lip. When did Tuesday cross paths with the mayor? And what gave him the right to talk that way?
“My turn to be straight,” she snapped. “Only I’m allowed to talk trash about my baby sister.”
“I respect that.” He stood a moment in uncomfortable silence. “Can you introduce us?”
Pepper lifted an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“Introduce us,” he said with gritted teeth.
“You smack-talked my sister, but haven’t personally met her?”
“I don’t even know what she looks like,” he muttered.
“I’m sorry, back up? I wasn’t aware that Tuesday’s skills had developed to the point where she was making people she’s never met crazy.”
“The Back Fence,” Beau blurted.
“The gossip blog?”
“I have a new column there. Mayor Musings.”
“Catchy.”
His jaw twitched. “I didn’t name it. Anyway, she baited me.”
“What do you mean, like a troll?”
He nodded slowly. “I wrote a post and she…she poked fun at it.”
“My sister isn’t mean.” Pepper tried to imagine her sister being a troll who hangs out in the comments section. She didn’t have an angry bone in her body. Plus, she’d never lurk online. If her sister had something to say, she’d make sure she found the person’s face and said it to them, straight on, damn the torpedoes.
“The comments weren’t mean.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “They might even be funny. The problem is that my job is serious. My messages are serious. And she’s turning them into a joke.”
“So you want me to introduce you to her so you can ask her to play nice.”
“I have important meetings coming up. I can’t be made a laughingstock,” he seethed.
“Aren’t politicians supposed to have thicker skin?”
“Arrange a sit-down. When you have a time, call my assistant, and she will put you straight through.” The mayor stalked away.
