CHAPTER SIX
Jackson
", she hates us," Finn announced as he walked back in the door. "So much for seeing where things go."
I shrugged. "She hates you, maybe."
"You think so?" He arched a skeptical eyebrow. "I wasn't the one she was shouting at."
"Nah, she was just blowing off steam. She had a crappy night." I glanced at him and saw his face flicker when he realized she'd told me more about herself than she'd told him. "But you..."
"What the hell did I do?"
I turned away from my knife sharpening a little too quickly and had to reach out a steadying hand on the counter. I'd been awake for twenty hours straight at this point and everything had taken on some kind of underwater unreality. "Didn't you hear her when she said she could take care of the trash herself?"
Finn narrowed his eyes. "She needed help."
"But she didn't want help."
"Sure she did. You're just not used to actually, you know, being anything other than a self-absorbed dick." He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes for a moment. "Sorry," he exhaled. "I'm fucking fried."
"Me too," I agreed. "We're not going to get anything done like this. Why don't we lock up?”
Finn's face twitched for a moment. I waited, keeping my mouth shut as he wrestled with the need to sleep versus the need to keep plowing on with our work. He still needed to find a front-end staff.
As for me back here, of the full staff I needed, I had exactly two sous chefs. There was Kyle, the new general manager who came in twice a week to work on food development with me. We'd met with the local vineyards almost first thing, and our wine list was fleshed out almost to completion, which was at least one thing we could tick off the list. It was a bit harder than what I was used to, but I was determined to use the local stuff. I mean after all, since we were surrounded by vineyards - or so I'd heard anyway - it seemed stupid as hell to stock the French and Italian shit.
But that was just one piece of a very large, very intricate puzzle and sometimes I wondered if it would end up looking like the picture on the box.
"Yeah," Finn finally said, holding back a yawn. "We come back fresh at noon. How's that?"
"Four hours of sleep?" I scoffed. "Man, you are lazy."
He snorted and started heading towards the front. "Where'd you park?" he called back to me.
"On the street across the way." I hit the lights and started following him out the door.
Outside, the light of day seemed almost blinding. So I didn't see that Finn had stopped short until I almost plowed into him.
"What the fuck?" I said, stumbling over to the side. "You can't just stop in the middle of the sidewalk like that."
"Do you see that?" Finn asked.
I looked where he was pointing. "See wha—?"
And then I noticed it. It was faint and almost unreadable, and she'd clearly tried scrubbing it away. But the words were still legible across the front of Bee's store.
"Go home?" Finn read. "What the fuck?"
"I have no idea."
"Who would do that?" he demanded.
"Again, I have no idea."
"That's fucked, look at that, they ruined her window decal!" I could hear the anger in his voice, making it catch in the back of his throat.
"Now I know why she said it'd been a crappy night," I observed. My own anger was a low hum in the back of my brain. Quickly I turned in a circle. "No one else on the block got hit."
"Just her?"
"Seems like it."
"What the hell?" Finn asked.
I shook my head. "Somebody's got it out for our neighbor girl?"
"Who?"
"Finn, we just met her like an hour ago. We know nothing about her."
"I know, but..." He was starting to pace.
"Finn, you can't solve this problem for her," I said, as gently as I could.
"Yeah but..." He stopped. I could practically see smoke coming out of his ears. "You have to think, if this person is targeting the only shop that's open on the block, maybe," he paused. "Maybe we're going to get targeted when we open? So, don't you think..."
My lip twitched. I couldn't help it. He was hell bent on making this his problem.
And me?
Maybe I didn't mind making it mine too. "We should ask her about it," I said, then went up to her window. "Shit," I said as I peered into the store. "She's not in there."
"Yeah she had a delivery truck in the back," Finn noted, glancing around the corner. "It's gone now."
"She does her own deliveries too?" I was liking this girl more than I expected.
Finn nodded, a dumbstruck sort of grin on his face. "Seems that way." I couldn't help but notice how he wasn't moving towards his car.
Then again, neither was I.
"Are you going to—?"
"You don't have to stay," he said quickly.
"Bullshit," I declared. "You're not being the only hero here."
He glared at me. I crossed my arms and smiled back at him. "We haven't slept in nearly a day," he reminded me.
"Won't take long," I said.
He blinked. "Fine," he finally sighed. "I'll go get the bucket and soap."
I nodded and rolled up my sleeves.