“When in reality she probably got distracted by a stray dog and missed her flight.”
My mother was one of the best people in the world. The very best. She’d give you the shirt off her back and every last cent to her name, and she’d also forget that she turned on the garden hose a week ago and wonder why the backyard had become a swamp. “Basically.”
“Holy fuck, man,” Lance said.
“Yeah. My firm isn’t in love with the idea of a partner managing billions in private equity while having a business he co-owns facing prosecution for money laundering. They were in favor of some time out of the office and away from the finances.”
“But you’re good, right? They’re not investigating you?”
From this angle, I could see straight into Naked Provisionsandwatch the black sedan that had followed me here from the airport. I was guessing FBI, SEC, or US Marshals. That they were content to stay in the sedan for hours suggested they weren’t here for me but they wanted to keep tabs. That was a nice bonus to the excitement of the day.
“Based on everything my attorney has learned, yeah, I’m good. It seems like it was an on-the-ground operation.”
“Okay. At least we have that,” Lance said. “So, what’s the plan?”
“I don’t even know,” I admitted. The exhaustion was catching up with me again. “Turn over most of the staff. Weed out any remnants of the previous management. Make my attorney earn his hourly and keep my parents out of prison. Figure out where in Central America my mother is.” I glanced at my watch. Where the fuck was Parker? “Wake my brother up and put him to work.”
“Which brother?” The sarcasm in his question had me rolling my eyes.
“The baby,” I replied. “The last thing Dex would ever tolerate is me making him work, let alone doing it in Friendship.”
“Life of a major league ballplayer,” he mused.
I needed to call Dex and update him on this before he was blindsided in a locker room interview, but I was more interested in harassing Lance at the moment. “Why is your sister opening this café all by herself? Why aren’t you or your parents here?”
He murmured to someone before answering. “Sunny doesn’t need me standing around being useless, and by her standards, I’d be extremely useless. She doesn’t need anyone’s help, man, and she has no problem saying so.”
“Yeah. I noticed that.”
Lance barked out a laugh. “Remember all the shit we used to give her? I can’t believe she never tried to kill me in my sleep. It would’ve been justified.”
“We weren’t that bad,” I said.
Sunny came out of the café with a tray full of small cups that she distributed to the people waiting in line. She had her hair pulled up on the top of her head now, leaving her shoulders bare. It was nearly indecent. I was never leaving this window. I rubbed my eyes.
Fuck, I couldn’t stare at her like this while talking to her brother. Lance was my rock. My person. We hadn’t lived on the same continent since college and we could go months without talking now but we were always there for each other. Loyal to the marrow, not counting this present conflict of interest.
“We were merciless shitheads, Beck. Remember when we dismembered all of her dolls and then Frankenstein’d them and put them back like nothing had happened? She fucking hated us for that.”
“She hated you,” I said.
“Remember how we’d mess with her service dog by stuffing bacon in our pockets and walking into her room every few minutes? She screamed the roof off when she figured that one out. My parents were so pissed.”
Ah.So that was what Sunny had meant about me not maturing past my sixteen-year-old self. I had to believe I was better than the bacon trick. And the doll dismemberment. I just fucked around with other people’s money now. Much more civilized, at least on the surface.
“We were terrible,” he said. “My mother got drunk at Christmas a few years ago and told me that we were the reason Sunny refused to show any weakness and wouldn’t take anyone’s help for anything. Not the disability but a pair of high school dirtbags.” After a pause, he continued, “She’s living at home, at my parents’ place. She’s been there—what, maybe a year now? A little more? I’m not sure but she doesn’t say much about this new business. Mom thinks she wants it to succeed before involving us, or something along those lines. She’s independent like that.” He cleared his throat. “Keep an eye on her, okay? I’m sure she’s kicking ass and all but she’s still a kid, and since my parents moved, she’s kind of on her own—even though no one is ever alone in that town.”
My entire life was an endless sequence of keeping an eye on people, but keeping an eye on Sunny seemed like a much more complicated undertaking. Rather than telling my best friend that it was a disastrous idea, I went hard for his favorite topic: dunking on the weird little place where we’d grown up.
“There were signs announcing an asparagus festival when I drove into town,” I said. “It’s small-town charm on acid. It’s the kind of thing you read about in travel guides. I would not be surprised to find a goat presiding as the official master of ceremonies.”
“Friendship loves to be friendly,” he said. “They’ll invent reasons to socialize, even if it requires celebrating some fucking asparagus. Good luck with that, man. I couldn’t do what you’re doing.”
I had many more questions about his sister, but Lance muttered, “Shit” and there was a flurry of conversation on his end. “I gotta go, Beck. Keep me posted on the criminal activity at home.”
“It will hit the national news soon enough once it’s connected to Dex,” I said.
“Hey, listen. Don’t tell Sunny I said anything about you watching out for her. She’d hate that I asked you to do it and I’d get an earful about how she doesn’t need a babysitter. And don’t give her too much of a hard time. You’ll regret it,” he said with a laugh.
