“No, I’m not. I’m on a mission,” she said, her features going carefully blank as she lifted her chin.
“What happened to your head?” I asked. The “weapon” that fell was confirmed to be a pair of sharp silver scissors. “Are-are you cutting your hair?”
“I was until you interrupted me.” Her nostrils flared.
“What the hell are you doing up here? Benny Jr. is pissed.”
“I’m not doing anything.” She scooted back and tried to look innocent.
The effect was ruined by half her hair sticking out wildly around her and the trench coat, making her look like a bad guy in a movie. I was even more confused with every passing second. Why was Bee cutting her hair in a trench coat on the top of the mountain on New Year’s Eve? Why was she acting like this was a totally normal thing? Why did it seem like I was the one out of line when she was very clearly going through something? If I hadn’t been so anxious to get the hell out of there, I might have had more time for this.
“Right.” Whatever this crisis was, it certainly wasn’t my problem. “We gotta go. There’s a bad storm and?—”
“I’m not going.”
“You can’t stay.”
“Just call Benny Jr. and tell him I’m not going to steal his crappy dollar-store imports with a four hundred percent inflation price tag. I … just need to stay the night. He’ll be fine with it. Now get out of here.”
With that final thought, I allowed myself to be shoved out the door, leaving nothing but stunned silence in the aftermath.
I did what any grown man would do in this situation. I called my boss to tell on her.
“Did you find the bastard?” Benny answered right away, slurring into the phone. “Robber? Huh? Shit out of luck. I haven’t had money up there in years unless you count the penny press machine.” His voice was edged with a vehemence I didn’t like.
“No robber?—”
“Hooligans, then. Some of those high school shits trying to start trouble.”
“No. No, it’s, uh, Bee.”
“Who?”
“Bee Perkins.”
“I don’t know who that is. Sounds like a family-friendly chain of breakfast restaurants.”
How could he not know who Bee was? She was a staple of the community.
“She works at the cat café.”
“Sure. Right,” he said, but I wasn’t convinced he actually knew.
I remained shocked into silence.
“What the hell is she doing? What a little weirdo,” he said.
I strongly disliked how he spoke about Bee. He had a tone. I didn’t know Bee well, but at least she wasn’t a shady businessman who sent people up a deadly mountain on a holiday.
I ground my jaw before I shared the worst of the information. “She says she wants to stay the night. She said she isn’t going to mess with any of your stuff.”
“In that case, sure, tell her to put her feet up and make herself at home,” he said in a cloyingly saccharine tone. Then, before I could get a word in edgewise, he added in sharp sarcasm, “Idon’t give a crap, Soupman. This isn’t Maybel’s B and B. Get her the hell out.”
“She isn’t doing any harm.” I thought of her scissors, oversized trench coat, and shifty gaze. I didn’t think she was doingwell, but I didn’t think she had any intention of trouble, outside of attacking me. And I didn’t begrudge her for that. I was big and scary. At least she tried.
“Get her out. Why are we still talking about this? I’m paying you to bring her down the mountain.”
“She says she won’t go.”
