“I’d argue Sandy is the heart,” Dad offered.
“I get what you’re saying and I think you get what I’m saying,” Adrian replied.
“I’m fortunate enough to get what everyone is saying,” I muttered.
Ignoring me, Adrian continued. “Like I told your son, unless they come up with video and audio of you carrying a takeout bag full of counterfeit cash to one of those lobster boats, they don’t have a smoking gun.”
“But they have the sound of the gunshot and a body with a bullet in it,” I said.
Adrian nodded. “Yeah. That’s a fair assessment.”
Dad swept another gaze over the documents, his brow furrowed and his lips turning down into a frown. He looked closely at some of them, pausing to read and putting them on the table again with a shake of his head. He was quiet for several minutes and I prayed the gravity of this was beginning to settle on his shoulders.
Then—“I’ll tell the judge I didn’t have any part in this and I’m sure they’ll see it’s all a big misunderstanding.”
Adrian cut a glance in my direction while I blinked at Dad. Once he decided something, there was no shaking him from it. On any other day, it was a great quality. He told the truth and believed in his bones that everyone else did too. He was as loyal as a golden retriever and his values were ironclad. But it spiraled into a real problem when his beliefs clashed with reality.
“It will be more complex than simply stating your innocence,” Adrian said. “As we discussed when we went through all of this, we’ll have to refute the prosecution’s entire case.”
“That’s why my smart boy hired you,” Dad said. “You’re more than capable, I’m certain of it. You already have a fancy schmancy plan cooked up too. Now it’s a matter of putting it into action.”
I pulled out my phone to distract myself from the cold, sinking sensation in my gut. I really needed to get those contingency plans lined up.
* * *
The minuteI turned off Market Street toward the oyster company, I knew many things were wrong. The Twisted Barn Breweries truck sat directly in front of Naked Provisions’ entrance. Despite the hell I’d promised to rain down on Twisted Barn if they blocked the café again, this was the least troubling of the issues I’d cataloged by the time I climbed out of the car.
The presence of multiple firetrucks and police vehicles was a big concern but there were also two dozen people milling around the parking lot, and they were all soaking wet.
Notcaught in a sun showerwet butwalked into the oceanwet. And everything around me was wet. Cars, firetrucks, Naked’s front windows.
By comparison, SPOC was dry and unscathed.
“What the actual fuck,” I muttered to myself as I headed for the café.
When I made my way around the beer truck, I found Muffy sweeping a ripple of water out Naked’s main door. Behind her, Meara and Bethany sloshed through ankle-deep water to carry a table outside and stack it alongside a half dozen chairs. I didn’t see Sunny. Maybe she wasn’t in yet. Hopefully.
I tugged off my necktie before setting to work on rolling up my cuffs. “What the hell happened here?”
Muffy pushed another wave out the door. It was dark inside, the lights off. “Your beer dude clipped the fire hydrant.” Her glare sliced through me. “The good news is the water pressure is strong as hell. The bad news is a tidal wave came right through the front door and we’re going to have to shut down for the rest of the day.”
I hooked two chairs under one arm, two more under the other, and followed the women outside. “You don’t have to shut down,” I said, going back for one of the remaining tables.
Muffy scoffed. “That’s nice of you to say, but unless you have your minions here with a quickness and I manage to resuscitate today’s entire menu based on whatever we didn’t lose in the tsunamiandget the cops out of here, I don’t think—”
“You.”
I pivoted toward her voice. I didn’t know how it was possible but I’d know Sunny’s voice in a dark, crowded room and it wouldn’t even take me that long to find her.
“You and your beer person! And your fucking fire hydrant!”
Sunny advanced on me and I was thankful for the tabletop flattened against my torso because she looked like she wanted to reach into my chest and rip out my vital organs.
“He’s calling minions,” Muffy said with a meaningful glance toward me. “They’ll be here very soon.”
“I don’t care about minions.” She had her long skirt gathered at her knees and held in place with a thick rubber band. “Everything was beautiful chaos and perfect imperfection until you showed up and now we have been flooded and ransacked and flowerpot-destructed! We were wonderful and dry before you came along and tried to buy the building!”
“We said that was in the past,” I yelled.
