“I’m saying it’s an awful big coincidence.” Declan drank his whiskey slower this time.
Finn grabbed the whiskey bottle and turned it up, not bothering with the glass. When he lowered the bottle, fury blazed in his eyes. “I’ll handle it.”
“How?” I sipped my whiskey, self-deligating myself as the voice of reason.
“I’ll talk to her.”
“And tell her what?” I raised my eyebrows and opened one hand, silently demanding the whiskey bottle. Finn slapped it into my palm. “You can’t accuse her. You can’t tell her that we think she did it. We have no evidence or Declan would be telling us about the police report he and Bree filled out. Going after Bethany tells her exactly how close she got. It tells her that she hit a nerve, and it hands her an opportunity to cause more damage with the story she’ll spin.”
Finn’s jaw worked. I was right. He knew it, but that didn’t make it easier to swallow. “I will not stand by and do nothing.”
“We do not give in to our need to protect and put Bree in a worse position.” I drilled a finger into the counter, straight into the middle of the blueprint I’d drawn up of Bree’s apartment. I’d had some ideas for how to maximize the space but hadn’t finalized anything enough to show it to her.
Finn tracked the movement, some of the tension bleeding from him when he realized what he was looking at. “I’m going to talk to Bethany. I won’t accuse her, but it’s time we had a chat. In fact, I’d say it’s long overdue.” He crossed his arms, the mutiny in his expression daring us to tell him to back down.
I kept my mouth shut.
Finn was too volatile to order around. He took orders from his captain at the fire department to keep others safe. His instinct to protect wouldn’t be tamped down.
“And you think this chat will not give Bethany all the ammunition she’s looking for?” Declan snorted. “Think it through, Finn.”
“I am.” Finn dropped onto the seat across from me. “I know how to talk to Bethany in a way she’ll understand. Now what are we going to do about the car?”
“Where is it?” I met Declan’s tired gaze.
He gripped the edge of the counter and stretched, causing his back to pop. “Still in the lot behind the pub. She hung up the keys after coming back from the bank.”
I turned the problem around like I would a blueprint, checking it from every angle. “My brother-in-law runs a body shop in Boston.” I hadn’t talked to him since the funeral, but we’d been close once. “He specializes in dent repair, which means he works with paint matching on a daily basis. I’ve seen him work on cars older than Bree’s.” I paused and swallowed hard as images of my wife danced through my head. They still hurt but not in the way that used to wreck me. “If anyone can match the original paint and make it look like nothing happened, it’s him.”
Hope glinted in Finn’s eyes. “You think he’ll do it.”
“I think he loves a challenge.” And he’d been trying to get me to pay him a visit for a while. I’d let our friendship go when I lost my wife, his sister. It had been easier at the time. “I’ll call him in the morning. It’ll take him a day, maybe two.”
Declan straightened. “I’d like to get it there without her noticing.”
“Which means no asking permission.” Finn grinned.
“I’ll take it tonight. If I leave now, I can be there when he opens the shop. Maybe even get it back to her by the end of the day.”
Declan reached into his pocket and extracted a set of keys with Shayla’s green shamrock keychain and a fuzzy leprechaun hat attached.
I plucked them from his hand. “She’s not expecting to see me tomorrow, so all you have to do is keep her out of the back lot until I return.”
25
FINN
I knew what Declan and Ronan wanted me to do. They wanted me to wait and let Bethany show her hand. Couldn’t do it.
I parked in front of Elegant, the salon between the hardware store and the post office where Bethany worked. The front window had been decorated with faded pictures of outdated hairstyles, and a chalkboard sign beside the door advertised spring color specials in loopy pink handwriting. Not my kind of place, but I wasn’t here for a cut and color.
Wind chimes made from old scissors hung above the entrance and clinked against each other in the March breeze.
Not a health hazard or stabbing waiting to happen. I snorted, shaking my head. Wouldn’t matter. Mayor Albridge sat in the chair by the door, chatting it up with one of the stylists.
My steps thudded so hard on the sidewalk my spine vibrated. I’d told them I knew how to handle Bethany. And I did, but that didn’t mean I’d hold back.
The bell above the door clanged in a racket that raised goosebumps on the back of my neck.
