“I suppose. Ready?”
“Yup.” He typed the number into his cell phone, thanked her and hung up, immediately pressing dial on his cell.
“Book Haven.”
“Zoe?”
“Yes.”
“This is Tim. Your neighbor.” He wasn’t sure why he needed to clarify which Tim he was—how many could she possibly know?
“Oh. Hi. Is everything all right?”
“No. Yes. Maybe.”
“Well, that’s not confusing at all.”
Her sarcastic tone made him smile, the same way it had that morning. It wasn’t as biting as Denise’s, but still got her point across. “Do you know of any reason why someone would slash your tire?”
“What?”
“Because you didn’t run over a nail.”
She was quiet for a few moments. Could she really be thinking that hard about who would want to slash her tire?
“Not unless Mrs. Wilson is still mad for that time my brother glued her mailbox closed.”
His bark of laughter caught him by surprise. “Why—? Never mind, I don’t really want to know. I don’t think Mrs. Wilson has it out for you for something that happened close to twenty years ago.”
“Then no. I have no idea. Could it have been random?”
“Maybe, but it’s unusual to have that kind of vandalism without trying to break into the car or steal the tires. Did you notice any other damage?”
“No, that was all.”
“All right. The tire shop is putting a new tire on the rim for you. I’ll pick it up and drop it off this evening.”
“Um, tonight won’t work. I managed to get the internet and phone companies scheduled for this evening and I’m going to get some boxes out of storage so I can start clearing it out and Linda’s daughter is going to prep the loft tonight so she can start painting first thing tomorrow and I need to push out job notifications to hire employees and—”
“So you’re saying your busy tonight?”
“Yeah. You can leave it beside the garage.”
“I’ll hang onto it for ransom.”
“Ransom for what?”
“Dinner.” He hung up as she sputtered her response, chuckling as he pictured her face at his statement. Dinner could wait a few days while Zoe got her store settled, but he wasn’t going to let her off the hook.
