“The books,” he said, half-turning. “Financials, receipts, payroll, vendor contracts. Going back three years if you have them.”
“I have them.”
“And the scholarship accounts. Rick said there’s a foundation structure.”
“The Laguna Promise Foundation. My grandfather started it. It funds?—”
“I’ll review the structure.” He nodded once, the way someone closes a file. “I’ll need a few hours before I have questions.”
He disappeared down the hall. A moment later she heard a chair scrape against the floor, then the click of a briefcase opening, then typing.
Anna stood in the kitchen with a knife in one hand and half an onion in the other and listened to the sound of someone turning her life into a spreadsheet.
Tyler arrived half an hour later with cheese and a thermos he’d already half-finished in the truck.
“The auditor’s here,” Anna said.
Tyler set the blocks of cheese on the counter and looked toward the hallway. “Already? We don’t open for?—“
“I know. He showed up during prep. Pressed khakis. Briefcase with brass clasps.”
“Brass clasps.”
“Brass clasps. At a beach restaurant.”
Tyler poured the rest of his thermos into a mug and leaned against the counter. “What’s he like?”
“I’ve spoken to him for maybe two minutes. He asked for the books going back three years and vanished into the back office.” Anna slid the onions into a prep container and reached for the tomatoes. Roberto’s replacements—perfectly ripe, no bocce potential. “He didn’t look at the ocean.”
“Everyone looks at the ocean.”
“He looked at the register.”
Tyler paused. “Rick wouldn’t send someone terrible.”
“Rick would send someone thorough. Those aren’t the same thing.”
They finished prep and opened at ten. The morning flowed the way it always did—regulars first, then the late-morningwave, then the lunch rush that packed every table and had Anna moving between the grill and the counter and the register in the rhythm she’d spent months memorizing. Two grilled cheeses on sourdough, one on focaccia with the tomato soup, Mrs. Patterson’s classic with extra pickles. Tyler handled tables and coffee refills. The Shack hummed.
Through all of it, the typing from the back office never stopped.
At eleven Anna poured a fresh cup—black—and carried it down the hall. The office door was open. Michael sat behind the desk, laptop open, a yellow legal pad covered in handwriting so precise it looked typeset beside him. He’d laid out her files in stacks. Neat stacks. Organized by something she couldn’t immediately identify.
She set the coffee on the one clear corner of the desk. “Brought you another. Black.”
“Thank you.” He didn’t look up. His fingers kept moving on the keyboard.
She stood there for a second, waiting for something. She wasn’t sure what. He reached for the coffee without breaking his typing rhythm, took a sip, set it back down on exactly the same spot.
Anna went back to the kitchen.
Bernie had arrived at his usual time, ordered his usual coffee, opened his tablet, and sized up the situation in about four seconds. Fifty years of observing this restaurant had made him fast.
“Who’s in the back office?” he asked when Anna refilled his cup.
“Auditor. Rick sent him.”
Bernie made a note on his tablet. “How long?”
