31. Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-One
Betty
S omehow, we’ve made it all the way back. Even better—he’s here to stay.
Somehow, in the middle of festival week, Laredo cleared his schedule and showed me that I’m his priority. Boardwalk wizardry led to a candlelight dinner at Seaside’s fanciest restaurant, the bow-tied ma?tre d’ doing a triple take when we arrived in full costume to the white-linen-covered venue. I’ve never laughed so much in my life until I recall when last I had. This time last year.
Dinner laughs led to after-dinner drinks at Driftwood. Maxey pulled out all the stops with a custom Potter-inspired drink. It would have been the perfect way to end the most perfect date. But he wasn’t done.
A long, romantic, moonlit stroll on the boardwalk. The conversation turned from light to serious. Him lowering barriers I didn’t know he possessed. The struggles he’d endured over the last year. A theme that matched mine. Different cities, similar struggles. Our separation a year ago seemed to have sent us spiraling, struggling to regain our equilibrium.
Somehow, our feet led us back to the carnival. One glance and Laredo read my mind. Midnight kisses under the stars high up in the Ferris wheel turned out to be the perfect way to end the night.
Yes, Laredo respectfully declined my invitation back to my place to spend the night. A cute remark that he didn’t want me to get the impression he was the type of guy to sleep with a girl on a first date had us both laughing. I admired what he was doing, even if it was totally unnecessary.
He wants me. I want him. Our future is a foregone conclusion.
This morning, I woke in my bed alone with a cryptic text from Olivia.
Olivia -y ou’d best get down here, something’s going on.
It’s midmorning, and Driftwood hasn’t even officially opened, so I have no idea what could be so interesting. Did they discover a pirate treasure map in the bathroom after close? Wouldn’t be the first time.
I sent her a text a few minutes ago to let her know I’m on my way. I practically skip down the boardwalk and can’t wait to update Olivia on the rest of the date. I squint at the bright sunlight as the Driftwood comes into view, and I realize I’ve underestimated everything.
Standing on the boardwalk at the outdoor patio area is Mark McBain. Rather, Deputy Sheriff Mark McBain. Six three, two hundred twenty pounds of chiseled muscle in full uniform. His deputy cap is squeezed under one arm, pressed against his ribs as his gaze is focused on scribbling furiously into his notepad while an unusually serious-looking Maxey talks to him.
Maxey points to something Mark has written. The deputy sheriff nods, scratches across the notepad, and begins scribbling again.
Curiosity pulls me closer. I’ll admit I’m a nosey body, which is why working at Driftwood was perfect. There, people would get tipsy and shout out secrets they hold tight to their chest all week long.
I spot Olivia doing the world’s worst bar wipe-down, her eyes focused on Deputy Sheriff McBain, and for once, it’s not because of her not-so-secret crush on him. She’s as curious as I am. I cross in front of her, blocking her from her poor attempt at reading lips.
“Out of the way,” she yells, striding over to me.
I don’t move, forcing her to give me her undivided attention. “What’s the deal with your favorite deputy?” I hook a thumb over my shoulder in McBain’s direction.
Olivia takes a step to my right so she can keep an eye on him. “Just getting up to speed. Apparently, Miss Irene got taken advantage of last night.”
My fingers coil into tight fists by my side. Miss Irene is a kindly old lady who wouldn’t harm a fly. If it wasn’t for bad luck, she’d have no luck at all. “Is she okay? Is she hurt? Did it happen here?” I rattle questions, and a half dozen others bubble to the top of my head.
Oliva’s eyes go wide, and I prepare for the worst. “No. Not like that. My god, no! She’s fine physically.” I huff out a breath. Olivia knows what a special place I hold for Irene Jenkins. Miss Irene is in her late fifties, has been through two horrible marriages, and had about given up on everything until she started the food pantry over thirty years ago. “Some slick-talking man convinced her to donate to some bogus charity. He apparently used her info and emptied her bank account.”
“Damn. There’s a special place in hell for anyone who stoops to that level.” I can’t believe something like this happened in Seaside. The local newspaper features on crime usually comprises an occasional DWI and tourists misbehaving.
I can’t recall the last time Miss Irene visited Driftwood. She’s not a social drinker and avoids bars since her second husband trolled every bar in the area not named Driftwood. I refused him service and texted Miss Irene whenever he showed up. After close, if you stand quietly near the bar, you can still hear the echoes in the high ceilings of her cursing him out.
“Shh, he’s coming this way.” Olivia’s whisper warning is neither low nor discreet. I turn to find Deputy Sheriff McBain failing to suppress a smile. She’s totally busted.
“Morning, ma’am.” Mark lowers his chin, his hand tipping his official sheriff cap in Olivia’s direction, and I feel her melting right next to me. Deputy Sheriff McBain is all Southern charm, dark, short curls, eyes the same color as the ocean behind him, and a dimple that even I have had to restrain myself from reaching out and touching.
Olivia gives him a full-on curtsy as if he’s the King of England. I pinch her elbow to snap her out of her high school stalker daze.
“Deputy Sheriff McBain,” I say, drawing his attention away from the foam dripping from Olivia’s mouth. Olivia is a stunner. Has had guys chasing after her since puberty. Handles unruly drunks regularly. But two seconds in the deputy sheriff’s orbit, and she reverts to a tween experiencing their first crush.
“Betty. Good that you’re here too. Saves me a stop.” His lips pull tight, the smirk from a moment ago tabled. He raises a finger in my direction as if to say give me a second and then turns his attention back to Olivia. “Liv, I understand you worked last night?”
An audible breath escapes from her lips, and I know the reason why. He called her Liv. She once admitted to me every time he calls her Liv in her head, she starts naming the kids they will have one day. “Laura,” she utters.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing.” She runs her thumbs across the tips of her fingers, trying to hide her embarrassment. “I said nothing.” Her panicky eyes capture mine. I try to communicate with her telepathically, something we were pretty good at when the bar got too loud to hear ourselves. K eep up, answer him. “Yeah, I worked last night. Work I did. I like work. Work, work, work. That’s what I do.”
It takes everything in me not to smack the palm of my hand to my forehead. Mark’s brows rise, a questioning look on his face, and I half expect him to call the EMS unit to see if she’s experiencing a stroke.
I hop in to save my best friend. “Deputy Sheriff McBain? Olivia told me about Miss Irene. What does this have to do with the Driftwood?”
Mark hooks his thumbs on his belt, his body relaxing as if preparing to tell a story. “We don’t have all the details, which is why we’re still investigating, but this man ran into Miss Irene in town last night, struck up a conversation and after a few minutes convinced her to donate to some charity for kids, which, from what we can tell thus far, doesn’t exist.”
Miss Irene has a soft spot for anyone down on their luck. Her heart is especially tender for children. Whose isn’t?
“She donated; she says she sent twenty dollars from her phone to the charity.” Mark looks down at his notepad. “An hour later, her bank account is emptied, this bastard leaving thirteen cents in the account.” The vein in Mark’s neck pops, and I pray I’m around the day he catches this dirtbag. “Best we can tell, he either cloned her phone or the site she visited downloaded some remote software. The techs will figure it out.”
When Mark flips a page in the notebook, I realize the worst isn’t behind us. The bank sent a notification to Miss Irene because of the unusual activity. She called, and they opened an investigation. Anger courses through him, causing his lips to purse and his body to stiffen. “As you can imagine, Miss Irene was so distraught she began to check all her online accounts. All her credit cards were compromised. And…” He takes a deep inhale, his eyes turning to me. “And the pantry. Emptied all the accounts. Payroll, operating costs, and fundraising. Took everything but thirteen cents.”
I recoil, feeling as though I’ve been struck in the chest. Throughout the year, we consistently run campaigns to support the pantry. Grants, donations from local businesses. Our fundraising hits its peak at the end of the summer season. Those funds carry us through the quiet winter fundraising season until things pick up again in the spring.
“That must be nearly three-quarters of their operating budget. Gone?” I mutter. The thief chose the perfect moment to drain the accounts, the accounts swelling at their peaks this time of the year. My thoughts shift from Miss Irene to the hundreds of families the pantry supports. “People will starve.” My concern quickly shifts to red-hot anger. “Who is this bastard?”
Olivia’s words shock everyone as she suggests, “Let’s castrate him,” her voice devoid of any humor. We are both hometown girls, protective of our town and the people in it.
The corner of Mark’s lips curl up for the briefest of seconds in Olivia’s direction. “We have to find him first. Miss Irene called us when she found out about the pantry funds. The bank’s investigation is purely forensic. We can—” Mark licks his lip. “—let’s say we can get a little more hands-on.”
I form a quick fist pump by my side, out of his view. Both Olivia and I know what he means by hands-on.
“We pulled in our tech resources from Portland. He traced the movement of the funds out of the account. They are long gone, the monies transferred from account to account until they hit offshore accounts. The tech is contacting the FBI, but chances are someone was waiting on the other side and has already liquidated the account. Obviously, this guy has done this before and isn’t working alone.” Mark looks over his shoulder at the bartender. “The phone used is a burner. It’s turned off for now. We have a track and trace activated. If he turns it on, we’ll be on it. However, our tech did get the IP address of where he performed his transfers. He connected to the Wi-Fi here at the Driftwood.”
My ears perk up, and I connect the pieces. This is why he’s here.
“I gave the description from Miss Irene to Maxey, but he says he was swamped all night and couldn’t place him. Liv, I’m hoping you might be able to help.”
Olivia takes a step forward as if she’d been drafted into the army. “At your service, sir. What do you think of the name Victoria?”
Mark does a double take. “What? Are you trying to tell me your middle name? Because I know for a fact it’s not Victoria.”
Olivia’s lips flap open. “You know my middle name?”
I nearly bite off my tongue watching the coolest girl I know lose her shit around the handsome deputy sheriff. “Let’s focus, people.”
Mark gives Olivia a wink that will play on repeat in her head for the next month. “Here’s what we have thus far. White, male, dirty-blond hair, thin mustache, dark eyes.” Mark snickers again. “Miss Irene describes them as the soulless eyes of a man whose own mother kicked him out of the nest when he was a child.”
Miss Irene never says a crossword about anyone other than her two ex-husbands. This guy in a short time joined that exclusive club.
Olivia bounces on her toes. “Add a T-shirt with a sports team logo or music artist and you’ve described twenty percent of the dudes that come in here…” She jumps three feet in the air. “Oh my god, oh my god.” She turns to me, grabbing me by my wrists and continuing to jump. “Margo is in town!”
“Yeah, I know.” Mark half snickers. It’s his job to notice.
Olivia ignores him and continues to jump as if it’s going to trigger a clue for us both.
“I never know when she’ll pop in. Whether I’ll be so busy to not notice if she’s in… with some dude.”
“Eeekkk! Oh my god!” I scream, joining her in the air. I know exactly what she’s thinking. We bounce as if we’re on a trampoline.
“Tell me…”
Olivia sprints, pants on fire, away from us, and I turn to capture a very confused deputy sheriff. “What is going on?”
“My younger sister,” I start.
“Yeah, Margo. I get it. She’s back for the summer. What does this—”
I cut him off. “We’re a little overprotective, and we kinda take photos of the IDs of guys in the bar just in case she comes in and disappears with one of them. Don’t judge.”
“I’m not. It’s smart, and I like where this is going.” Mark lifts his chin, searching for Olivia, who has disappeared behind the bar.
“Here it is!” Olivia darts around the high-top tables as if she’s a running back for the Seattle Seahawks. High above her head is a fistful of photos printed from the office printer; it really was a busy night.
She slams them on top of a table and quickly spreads them out. Two dozen pages quickly get narrowed down to five based on the description. Mark begins snapping pictures of the pages and tapping away on his phone.
“This is incredible. Sheriff Murphy is with Miss Irene; I’ll have him show these to her, and I’ll have our tech contact begin background searches. Hopefully, our person of interest is in this pile and is stupid enough to have used a real credit card.” He finishes tapping away and looks up at Olivia. “Liv, you have no idea how helpful this might prove. You may have cracked this case for us.”
Her lips part, and we all stand in silence for a beat, waiting for her to speak. Her eyelashes flutter as if coming out of a trance, her words flirty. “I’ll always be here for you, Mark. For whatever you may need. Whenever you may need it.”
I take a step back, giving them some privacy. I don’t hear the words Mark says in return but can tell from the swoony look in Olivia’s eyes that they hit the mark.
I pull out my phone, tapping away with my own urgent message. I have a food donation event with Ricco this afternoon. The donations are more critical than ever. But I need to be here. For Olivia, for Miss Irene. I need to see this through.
I need someone to cover for me. Someone I can trust. The two most qualified and at the top of my list can’t—Miss Irene and Olivia. I’m shocked to realize who has quickly climbed to number three on this list. My fingers tap away as my heart skips a beat with the realization.
Stuck at Driftwood. Please cover the pantry collection with Ricco for me.
I stuff the phone in my pocket and take a deep inhale. I have no question that he’ll handle this. I can't believe how good it feels to have him back in my life.