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Abbe was just about to tell him when someone spoke over her.
“Because she needs the prize money and the good publicity to reopen her shelter sinceyoucanceled her funding,” someone said.
They both turned and saw Danny’s figure rise from the spot on the bench next to Abbe’s scarecrow.
“Danny, what are you doing here?” Abbe asked, too surprised to really register what he had said at first.
“Oh, hi!” he said sarcastically, waving at Rafe. “I’m Danny Harrison, the guy who used to live here with Abbe. And you’re Rafe Loring, CFO of Arc A Enterprises.”
Danny said it slowly, turning to Abbe while he spoke so he could watch her face. When it finally sank in, Abbe felt weightless, like she’d just been pushed off a cliff.
“What?” she gasped, all the air leaving her lungs.
“Go ahead. Tell her,” Danny continued, passing the buck to Rafe, practically joyful. “Tell her all about how you not only pulled her funding, but how you ordered your new head of marketing to dig up dirt on the shelter to get Abbe closed down.”
Rafe took a step toward Danny like he was going to hit him, but stopped himself. “That’s not true,” Rafe said.
Danny gave Abbe a sad smile. “It is true, though. And I have proof.” He took out his phone and tapped the screen, loading his proof. “You know, Abbe, I had a feeling that Arc A pulling your funding, and then the raid right after it, had to be connected somehow. So I called up an old buddy from a PETA rally I organized who works at Animal Welfare now. It turns out a woman named Miranda marched into his office with a stack of cash and Abbe’s social media feed and told him to find something on her.” He showed Abbe the waiting screen of his phone. “This is Arc A’s website,” he scrolled down to a picture of Rafe, “Here’s a picture of the CFO—”
Abbe took a reflexive step back, recoiling from the hard truth.
“Abbe, wait. This isn’t the whole story,” Rafe said urgently.
“Oh, I’m not done yet,” Danny said, scrolling down a little more. “On a hunch, I looked up your website to see if a woman named Miranda worked for you. And look at this. Here she is. Showed it to my buddy, and he said this woman came in and offered him cash to set up Abbe. He refused the money of course,” Danny was quick to say, “but someone else took it and wrote Abbe up on a bunch of bullshit and got her license revoked.”
“I had no idea about any of that. Abbe!” Rafe said, trying to get her attention.
Abbe was in a daze. Danny held up the photo of the same woman with a platinum bob who had come into Furry Faces, calling herself Jessica. “Does she work for you?” he asked Rafe, though it was obvious. Her picture was on Arc A’s website, just a few faces beneath his.
“Yes,” he admitted, his voice low and dangerous. He looked at Abbe, pleading. “But I had no idea she bribed someone to raid your place. You never told me that had happened.”
“I met her. She came into my shelter,” Abbe mumbled, looking at the photo. “She took pictures, fishing for violations.”
She scrolled up to the picture of Rafe again. The caption said,Raphael M. Loring, Chief Financial Officer. The screen got blurry as her eyes filled with tears. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t how they were supposed to be.
“How could you do this?” she whispered. “Whywould you do it?”
“I didn’t,” he said. Then he tipped his head back, growling momentarily at the stars in frustration, before starting over. “Initially, I did. I pulled your funding. It wasn’t personal, we were just making changes in our donation roster.” He stopped and took a ragged breath. “And then you made that post about my company abandoning you. I was livid. It made us look so bad. I went in, intending to confront you, but then I met you and—"
And then I jumped into bed with you, Abbe thought, finishing the sentence he wouldn’t. She had to get away. She spun away from him and started running toward her front door. She felt like she was going to pass out or throw up or something. Rafe caught her and spun her around to look at him.
“Wait, please, Abbe,” he begged.
“I asked you what you did. You saidbeancounting,” she said, pushing ineffectually at his hands. “This whole time, coming into the shelter, buying me camera equipment, and it wasyouwho yanked my funding? Did you do all that just to make yourself feel better?”
“I reinstated your funding the day after I met you,” he said, clutching at her and trying to pull her toward him. “You never told me it was taken away again, or that you were raided. I had no idea about your license. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Let go of me!” she yelled, finally extracting herself from his reaching hands. “Just get away from me!”
Rafe held his arms out to his sides, like he didn’t know what to do if he wasn’t allowed to touch her. But he didn’t reach for her again. He stood staring at her, his face a pale mask. The only thing Abbe could think was that this was unnatural for them. This betrayed feeling wasn’t how she was supposed to feel around him.
Abbe fumbled with her keys, got them in the lock, and threw herself inside. She heard Rafe and Danny say something to each other on the other side of the door, but she couldn’t make out what it was.
She was pacing around with the lights off, her hands in her hair, unable to think of what should come next. There was a gap between where she was ten minutes ago and where she was going to be in another ten minutes, and mercifully, the only thing in that gap was the numbness of shock.
She heard Danny knock on the door and say, “He’s gone. It’s okay Abbe, you can open the door.”
Abbe kept pacing, feeling like she was nearing a destination that she didn’t want to reach. “Go away, Danny,” she said back.
