Michael hadn’t eaten it. He probably hadn’t even seen it—Joey must have left it after Michael went back to the office. But Joey had made it anyway, because Joey didn’t cook for people who asked. He cooked for people who needed it and hadn’t figured that out yet.
Anna put the plate in the walk-in with the Post-it still attached, hung her apron on the hook—ANNA in Margo’s handwriting, permanent marker on masking tape, same as it had been since she was twelve—and turned off the lights.
Tomorrow. Eight o’clock.
She locked the door and walked home thinking about dairy allergies and brass clasps and a man who looked at the register instead of the ocean.
CHAPTER FIVE
Something was different at the Shack.
Stella knew it before she was through the door. The air had a charge to it—not bad, not crisis, just shifted. Like someone had moved the furniture two inches to the left and everyone was pretending they hadn’t noticed.
Bea was right behind her, backpack over one shoulder, college brochures threatening to escape from the unzipped front pocket. They’d walked from school together, Bea complaining about her portfolio statement and Stella half-listening while mentally composing shots of the light on the boardwalk. October was coming. The afternoons were getting shorter and the shadows longer and everything had a golden urgency to it that made her fingers itch for the camera.
The Shack was still half-full unusual for this late. Mrs. Patterson occupied her usual table by the window with her classic grilled cheese and extra pickles, bent over a crossword, pen tapping her chin between answers. Bernie was in his corner booth, tablet propped up, but his coffee sat untouched and his eyes kept going to the hallway instead of the screen. Two tables of tourists were finishing up, shopping bags piled on empty chairs.
And from somewhere down the hall—the back office, it sounded like—came the steady rhythm of someone typing.
Anna was behind the counter, wiping things that looked already clean. Tyler was at the grill, scraping it down, but he kept losing his grip on the scraper and starting over, which wasn’t like him.
“Who’s typing?” Stella asked, dropping her bag into her usual booth.
Anna glanced toward the hallway. “Auditor. Rick sent him to look at the books.”
“Since when?”
“Monday.”
Stella looked at the hallway. The typing was steady and fast and precise — no pauses, no backspacing, just a continuous stream of keys being pressed by someone who knew exactly what they were doing. “Is that normal? For an audit?”
“I have no idea what’s normal for an audit. This is my first one.”
Bea had already settled into the booth across from Stella, but she wasn’t pulling out homework. She was looking at the hallway too. Her hands were still on her backpack straps.
“What’s his name?” Stella asked.
“Michael Torres.” Anna slid two plates of focaccia toward their booth. “He’s thorough.”
“That’s what Anna says when she means intense,” Tyler said from the grill, not looking up.
“That’s what I say when I mean thorough.” Anna picked up the rag again.
The front door opened and Luke Donovan walked in, phone in one hand, looking like a man who had been sent somewhere against his will but was determined to enjoy the sandwich.
“Hey.” He dropped onto a counter stool and set his phone face-down. “Meg wanted me to check on things.”
“Meg could call,” Anna said.
“Meg has called. Twice. She wanted eyes on the ground.” Luke picked up a menu he didn’t need—he’d been ordering the same thing for twenty years. “She also wants to know if the auditor is still here, what he looks like, whether he seems competent, and if Anna is quote handling it unquote.”
“Tell her I’m handling it.”
“I told her that. She wants independent verification.” Luke set the menu down. “I’ll have the usual. And tell me about the auditor so I have something to report.”
Tyler brought Luke his grilled cheese without being asked — the Luke special, which was just a regular grilled cheese with an extra slice of tomato because Luke had once mentioned he liked tomatoes and Tyler had never forgotten. Tyler set it on the counter and went back to the grill, and Stella caught something in the way he moved—distracted, a half-beat off his usual rhythm. She filed it away.
“The auditor,” Anna said to Luke, “is a man in pressed khakis who has been in the back office since Monday. He drinks black coffee. He has a dairy allergy, which is—I don’t even know what to do with that at a grilled cheese restaurant. He doesn’t look at the ocean. And he told me we have a five-hour revenue window like I’d never considered the concept of time.”
