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I do the same with mine. “So dumb assholes who think they can do anything?”
“Not sure. I warned them about the fire ban, but the little mama said they’d cook in their camper. They have tents and one of those cheap ass grills.”
“Think they’ll use it?”
“No idea.” The radio on his hip hisses out a message. He unclips and answers it, and when he’s done, he puts it back in. “Reporting in to report there’s nothing to fucking report.”
“At least you know.”
He chuckles. Then jerks his head toward where the guy left. “And I ask again. Trouble?”
“Not sure.”
I hesitate because he’s a close friend, one of our tight group, but this is all to do with Sidney. She’s not going to want people to know shit. Not this kind of shit. If there’s something to it, I’m also not about to put them at risk. Not until I know what’s going on and what needs to happen.
This isn’t like facing off against Dakota’s terrible family or a fire. This is mafia. And that guy . . . he didn’t look like mafia. Or what I imagine mafia to be.
But someone from her mom. Oh, yeah, I can see that.
The last thing Sidney needs, if that’s the case, is her mom turning up.
Shit, I don’t know. With her, the world is the wrong way up, and things I would never have second thoughts about I do long equations over.
But her? When I’m with her. In bed or talking? That’s perfect.
“We’re here if you need us.” Then he checks his watch. “Gotta go. Thanks for the water.”
I wave him off and get back to work.
I’m not really surprised when that other man returns.
“Sorry,” he says, not sounding sorry at all, “but you see, I’m looking for my girlfriend.”
“Let me guess . . . Sidney?”
His eyes light up.
“You’re not the first to ask.”
“That’s her car up there.”
“Do you have ID? I don’t know you at all. Maybe you’re a stalker. Though it’s brave stalking the three-hundred-pound man who brought the car in.” I smile. Hold out my hand. “ID?”
He smiles back and doesn’t check his pockets. “Oh no. I forgot it. But it’s Vince.”
Something dark shifts in my blood at the mention of the name. It’s so close to Vic or Victor. Couldn’t be someone fucking with me, now, could it? But I don’t speak. With his type, they start vomiting words to fill voids. He knows he’s getting jack from me.
“If you stole it, her car,” Vince says, looking pointedly at my tattoos like he’s some housewife from the fifties, protecting her fake pearls, “Daddy’s not gonna be happy. Not now he’s got the new job.”
“As I said, some dude brought in the car, though I did see some pretty stranger driving a vibrant-red ninety-two Mustang. She might have sold her Audi and bought the Mustang. Sweet ride, heading outta town, toward Westhead Falls. Now, if you don’t mind, I gotta get back to work. Don’t want me to be out causin’ trouble and stealin’ on the streets.”
With that, I pretend to get back to work until he’s gone.
* * *
For the rest of the afternoon, it bugs the shit out of me, what he said about Daddy.
I’m not worried I sent him on a wild goose chase. Vince probably won’t go, and I know Sidney is planning on working all day at my place. Still, I ask Lawson to have someone watch my home and keep an eye out for this guy.
