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“The shop closes at five thirty, so that would be the earliest. If you can stay to help clean up and prepare for the next morning, maybe until six or six thirty. I don’t want it to interfere with your homework.” Even as Maddie said it, she could hear her mother in her voice. Helen always encouraged them to be active after school, but only if it didn’t interfere with their studies.
“That would be perfect. When do you need me to start?”
“Well, I understand you’ll probably need to talk to your parents and such. If you can come by today after school, we can fill out some paperwork and I’ll give you a tour of the shop. Then maybe you can start tomorrow?”
A cloud of white powder shot into the air over one of the mixers and one of the students hollered in surprise. “Incorporate the dry ingredients slowly!” Brenda shouted. “Will you excuse me?” she asked before rushing toward the back of the classroom to aid her finely dusted student.
Gertie just smiled and shook her head. “You can’t rush that part,” she noted with sage wisdom in her voice. “I’ll be by today after school. I’ll text my parents—they’ll be fine with it. My mom has mentioned me looking for an after-school job now that I’m sixteen, but I hadn’t gotten around to it yet. This sounds great.”
“Who has their cookies ready to bake?” Brenda called from the back of the room. “Those of you who are ready, let’s carry those trays into the kitchen and get them in the oven.”
“That’s me. I’ll see you this afternoon,” Gertie said, and with a wave, she headed off to bake her batch of cookies.
As they headed out of the classroom, Blake thanked Brenda. “And there you go,” he said to Maddie. “You’ve got your responsible teenager. I’d even wager that one could help you with the baking.”
Maddie was very particular about her baked goods, but he was right. Gertie looked like she knew her way around a mixing bowl. “Thanks for your help. At the very least, she should be able to help me through the next few weeks.”
“No problem. If you happen to see that teenage octopus running around town, be sure to send him my way.”
Emmett was pretty certain the situation couldn’t get any worse. He had a criminal record. He was losing money because he had to close the bar to serve some of his communit
y service time. He still owed the city of Rosewood three thousand dollars in fines. He also had twenty-four hours of time with Maddie to look forward to. Things seemed pretty darn crappy if you asked him.
But he was wrong.
Standing at the base of the Rosewood water tower with a gallon of paint and a sack full of rollers, he knew things had just gotten much, much worse.
He’d never given much thought to the water tower. It was there, looming over the cityscape of Rosewood like the Space Needle in Seattle. Large, silent, and forgettable. And it had certainly never crossed his mind how one might get up to the top of it. Why would anyone not associated with the water company want to do that?
Standing at the base of the tower now, he found that the method of scaling the water tower was the only thing on his mind. As best he could tell, a spindly steel ladder running along one of the tower’s legs was the answer. How the hell would he be able to climb that thing while carrying paint? The Penis Picasso, at least, just had to carry up a can of spray paint, not a gallon of exterior-grade latex.
“Well, we’d better get to it. I don’t want to climb down in the dark,” Madelyn said.
The dark? Shit. He hadn’t even considered that possibility. How could this be a viable punishment? One of them could get killed climbing up this thing.
“If you’ve got the paint, I’ll carry the rest.”
Emmett tore his gaze away from the tower to look at Madelyn. She seemed annoyed that he wasn’t responding to her the way she expected. “I don’t see how we’re going to get any of it up there. I need both hands to climb.”
“Here.” Madelyn reached for the gallon of paint and settled it into the canvas bag she’d brought with her. She tucked the brushes and rollers in with it and slung it over her shoulder. “Done. Let’s go.”
She marched over to the ladder and started climbing it effortlessly. Emmett watched her easily scale twenty feet into the air before she stopped and looked down at him.
“Are you coming? I’m not doing this by myself.”
“I’m coming.” Emmett put his sneaker on the bottom rung and gripped a higher one with both hands. “I can do this,” he repeated silently to himself as he started up the ladder behind her. He kept one eye trained on the next rung up, not looking down or letting his gaze stray to the side. One at a time, he told himself.
The next thing he knew, the platform that surrounded the tower was in front of him. Madelyn was standing impatiently to the side as he reached the top and stepped off the ladder. The walkway was maybe three feet wide with a railing around it. It wasn’t so bad. He made it up there without any trouble.
“Isn’t the view amazing? We used to climb up here as teenagers.”
On reflex, Emmett turned to look and immediately regretted it. The three-foot platform seemed to shrink to only a few inches. The heavy steel railing became as flimsy as cardboard tubing. With his heart threatening to leap out of his chest, Emmett flattened his back against the water tower. His knees felt like jelly beneath him. He couldn’t breathe. He squeezed his eyes shut to block out his surroundings, hoping that when he opened them again, he was on the ground and this was all a bad dream.
He pried open one eye and could see the sprawling football field out in front of him. No luck. What the hell was he going to do? He was going to get stuck up here. The fire department would have to send the ladder truck after him.
“Are you afraid of heights?” Madelyn asked with an accusing tone.
“Maybe,” he admitted. The truth was he was afraid of falling, afraid of the sudden stop at the end, but yes, he supposed that added up to a fear of heights.
