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Liz pointed to Imani.
“Fine,” he said and turned on Imani. “My lawyers will be calling you.”
“I look forward to that,” Imani said and that was the most emotion she’d shown; she really was looking forward to it. “Until then, you have until five o’clock today to vacate the building, including any personal items and any employees and equipment you may have introduced into the structure. I wouldn’t tarry over lunch.” She stood up. “I believe we’re done here.”
Cash looked at Ken “My own brother stabs me in the back. You could have torn that up.”
“You want me to steal from Liz because we’re brothers?” Ken said. “You really are losing it, Cash. I know this was a blow—”
“Ablow!” Cash said, and there was so much fury in his voice that I stepped in front of Liz again.
Imani Coleman did not step back. She couldn’t be more than twenty-five or twenty-six, but wherever she’d come from had honed her like steel. She stared Cash down now, calm as ice and twice as cold. “Be careful, Mr. Porter. Be very careful.”
Cash blinked a couple of times. Then he spoke to Ken. “Well, our family really is going to hell. You betray me . . .” He stopped, choking on the words. “Do you know where Patsy is?”
It was Ken’s turn to be surprised. “What?”
“Patsy,” Cash said. “You know, our sister. Who bailed the family's garage out after dad died by doing those porno videos? I saw her on the way here. She was on the back of a motorcycle with one of those biker guys.”
“Logan.” Ken smiled. “Good for her.”
I realized Cash was in that mode where he was going to hurt anyone he could, it didn’t matter. He had to hurt others, so he didn’t feel any of his own pain. He was in denial and always would be. He’d burn the world down first. He’d thought he was throwing Patsy under the bus, but he was wrong. He was just showing what an ass he really was.
Cash stared at his brother for several long seconds.
I decided to be a little petty in order to break this up. “No Costco, Cash.”
Cash glared at me and then nodded as if he’d made his mind up about something and ignored Ken. Once more he did the chameleon. He turned toward Liz and his voice was level, conciliatory. “We could work together on the factory, Liz. Like you wanted.”
“No,” Liz said, her voice very firm. “You were selling it. For a Costco, for cripes sake. Right in this historic little town, you were going to put a big box store. So no, I will never work with you.”
He let out a big sigh. “That’s too bad. I liked your ideas.”
“They’re still my ideas,” Liz said. “And they’ll still get done. Because now nobody is going to tear down that building. And there sure as hell is not going to be a Costco in Burney.”
“Sure there will,” Cash said. “You don’t have the money to rehab the factory. And nobody’s going to help you. These people who you think are your friends? They’re not who you think they are. They’ll screw you over. Everyone does. They always go to their own self-interest. You don’t have any friends here, Liz, you left them all behind, but not me. I’ll be here for you.”
His eyes shifted to me briefly and I didn’t like what I saw there.
Then he left, big finish, leaving the door open behind him. Mainly because it wasn’t one of those you could slam.
I thought,He is going to be a problem.He was going to dog Liz, and she was going to keep shutting him down. Cash was not good with rejection. He’d paid Mickey to silence Thacker and to burn down his family’s garage and gotten his mother to take out two mortgages on the Red Box with no intention of paying her back, and I was getting more sure that he was the one who’d forced Jimmy off the road. At some point, he was going to stop asking Liz to join him and start taking . . .
Liz and I were going to be spending a lot of time together.
CHAPTER 36
Cash left, and I still hung on to Vince. The world was rocking under my feet, but he was the firm, immovable safe space in the middle of it all.
Imani turned to Ken. “I’ll bring Anemone up to date and call you later.”
“Thank you,” Ken said, and his voice was heartfelt, and I thought about the mess Ken was in, having to side against his own brother. Cash really screwed things up for everybody. And for the first time, I wondered how much grief Cash had brought to other people when we were in high school. Even Belinda Roarke, somebody I’d never had an iota of sympathy for, must have felt like hell when he took her to homecoming, slept with her, and then dumped her to come back to me.
Vince sat down next to me, holding onto my hand.
“Well, that went well,” I said, moving into fix-it mode, bright and cheery until I realized I hadn’t the faintest clue how to fix any of it. I looked at Ken. “I don’t know what to do next. It’s a big factory.”
“My recommendation?” Ken asked.
