“I don’t want your fucking cookies,” he roared. “You shouldn’t even be here. This should’ve been mine, all of it, and you just swooped in and fucking took it.”
This was the wrong time to realize that I hadn’t asked many questions about the bait shop before accepting the title. Another protocol I didn’t know was the one for winning property in poker games. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know. It all happened so quickly that—”
“No, it fucking didn’t!” he yelled, slashing the air with his knife. Every time the sharp, hooked end of the blade caught the light, I mentally begged Beck to look out his window.Spy on me like you always do.“You think I didn’t notice how you weaseled your way in?”
“Really, that’s not how it happened. It wasn’t—”
He flipped several tables and advanced on me, yelling, “I told you to shut up.”
“Right, right.” I closed my fingers around the back of a chair. It would’ve been nice to have the use of both arms tonight. Would’ve been so great. “How can I help? What can I do to fix this?”
He groaned as if these questions were the height of ignorance. “I’ve been trying tofixthis for months. You don’t know how to get a fucking clue.” He scratched his head with the butt of his knife. “How many times do I need to fuck up this place before you realize you don’t fucking belong here?”
“The patio,” I whispered.
“The patio,” he mimicked.
“It wasn’t an animal.”
“Uh, duh. You have to be extra stupid to think that.” He shook his head, disgusted. “I don’t know how the hell someone so pathetic conned my uncle into thinking you gave a shit about him.”
“I—” I peered at him for a moment.Uncle?“What?”
“I knew the old man was losing it but I didn’t think he’d give you the whole damn bar,” he went on. “How’d you do it? How’d you get him to give you everything?”
Because I truly didn’t follow, I asked, “What are you talking about?”
He kicked over a chair, pushed another out of his way. It tipped back toward him and knocked him in the shins. “I had big plans for that bar,” he shouted, pointing the knife at me as he hopped around to shake off the self-inflicted sting, “and then you showed up and talked Leary into signing the place over to you.”
If I’d read up on the knife-wielding protocol, I probably would’ve encountered a tidbit about not arguing with the knife-wielder but I was behind on my worst-case scenario preparedness so I said, “That’s not what happened. Not at all. I didn’t ask Leary for anything.”
“And yet you walked away with all the money after he sold the building!”
A roll of thunder rumbled overhead and he kicked a chair in my direction. I held on to the one in front of me but didn’t move. I needed to stay in front of the window.
“That bar was supposed to be mine. Uncle Leary promised it to me, and you came along and fucking stole it.”
So, this was the other grand-nephew. The one Leary referred to as “shit for brains” with a grouchy sigh and roll of his eyes. His name was Joey and his mom was a sweet lady who didn’t understand why her son always managed to stumble into bad situations. I didn’t know if this qualified as stumbling so much as barreling in with some big ideas and a knife that looked like it could skewer a dinosaur but I’d take that up with Leary at another time. Right now, I had to get myself out of here alive.
“Because you spent so much time at the bar,” I said, and the knife-wielding protocol was flying right out the window now. As best I could manage with the cast, I clasped my hands behind my back and went to work loosening my watch. “You visited Leary all the time. You did so much for him. You played barback whenever he was short-staffed. You knew all about the tavern. You were always there, weren’t you, Joey?”
Seeing as we both knew none of that was true, he responded the only way he could: by grabbing the chair in front of me and throwing it at the bakery case. The glass shattered and a weight landed in the pit of my stomach as I realized that strange smell was gasoline.
This guy was wrong abouteverythingand he was out of his mind, and he was going to burn this place to the ground.
“I should’ve killed you that day,” he snarled. “Thought I did, the way you went flying off that dumb bike. Didn’t think I needed to turn around and hit you again but you’re one of those bitches who just don’t know how to stay down, aren’t you?”
“It was you?” I sucked in a breath as lightning cracked nearby. It was loud enough to snap his attention for a split second and I threw my watch to the floor behind me as hard as I could. “At the bike path, it was you?”
“I’ve been watching you ever since Uncle Leary told me he gave you the money. You didn’t even know it.”
He reached out, shifting his sweaty grip on the hilt and nearly dropping the knife before pressing the tip of the blade to my chest. I felt the unyielding pressure through my t-shirt and I understood with terrible clarity that this guy wouldn’t stop until I was dead. He’d probably kill himself in the process too but he was determined to take me down with him. I cut a quick glance to the side, hoping,prayingthat anyone from the oyster company looked this way.
“That’s not what happened, Joey. We can call Leary right now and clear it all up. He’ll tell you that’s not what happened.”
He rounded on me, grabbing me by the hair and dragging me across the café. Since I didn’t have even the slightest whiff of a plan, I didn’t bother fighting back. I didn’t have a lot going for me with one arm and I had to save my strength until I knew I had a real chance to get away. Because I was going to get away. This wasnothow it ended for me. This was not the chaos that came for me. There was more ahead of me, more to do, more to see.
And Beck. There was so much of this life left to live and I was going to live it with Beck, regardless of how and where we made that happen. Those details didn’t matter now and they never would. We’d work it out. Wehadto.
