“Well, you see, Amethyst was handling the bookkeeping for me. The day-to-day transactions. Except I got her a subscription to this thing called Hulu for her birthday—”
“I fell down what’s called a ‘rabbit hole,’” Beehive chimed in. “Did you know there are seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Hulu?”
“You’re saying instead of handling the town’s reporting to the state, you watched seven seasons of a TV show instead?” Beckett asked. His voice was very calm.
“To be fair, Mr. Mayor, it wasn’t just any TV show. It was Buffy,” Bruce said.
“Uh-oh.”
Ryan jumped at the whisper and found the redhead standing next to him. “That’s Beckett’s ‘you’re in huge trouble’ voice. What’s going on?”
“From the sound of it, Mrs. Beehive was supposed to be keeping track of the reporting to the state and instead spent six months watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
“Oooh! Team Spike,” the redhead said.
“Amethyst, this is beyond irresponsible,” snapped the woman in brown. “The state auditor will be here on the twenty-fourth. How are we supposed to get everything in order by then?”
“It’s my fault,” the bearded man said, hands fluttering. “I never should have gotten her Hulu. I should have just gotten her a blouse or a beanbag.”
Amethyst began to wail in a manner completely undignified for someone wearing a lace turtleneck and pearls.
“This is really not good, right?” the redhead asked Ryan.
“It’s pretty bad.” Barring a miracle, the town was likely good and fucked. A state auditor would have no problem levying fines and wreaking havoc on the municipality. Funding would be frozen during an investigation.
“I’m Gia, by the way,” she whispered.
“Ryan,” he said, shaking the hand she offered. “I met your husband and daughter at the liquor store last night and your sisters today.”
Gia grinned. “Did Aurora try to give you peppermint schnapps?”
He shook his head. “Tequila.”
“Beckett, we need to deal with this now,” the woman in brown announced. “Maybe a town meeting. We can ask for volunteers. Anyone with QuickBooks or bookkeeping experience. Hell, anyone with a computer and a scanner.”
The mayor sighed heavily. “Rainbow is right.”
“That’s Rainbow Berkowicz?” Ryan asked.
“That’s her,” Gia said before stepping forward and knocking on the open door. “Sorry to interrupt. But it’s time to cut a ribbon with a comedically large pair of scissors.”
He had to wait until after the ribbon-cutting, after getting wrangled into the group photo next to Mason in front of the building. But Ryan finally got Rainbow alone.
She was aggressively puffing on a clove cigarette on the concrete patio outside the empty office.
“Rainbow Berkowicz?”
“Who wants to know?” she grumbled.
“I’m Ryan, Carson Shufflebottom’s great-nephew.”
Rainbow blew out a cloud of smoke. “What does that nincompoop’s great-nephew want with me?”
“I need a few minutes of your time to discuss the foreclosure on Carson’s farm.”
“Unfortunately, I’m in the midst of a crisis. But you’re welcome to schedule a meeting after Christmas.”
“That’s convenient, seeing as how you’re foreclosing on my uncle’s farm on Christmas Eve.”
She peered at him through a villainous cloud of smoke. “I assure you, there is nothing convenient about a foreclosure. We take our loans very seriously. Unfortunately, your uncle didn’t do the same.”
“I need to see a copy of the loan and an accounting of the overdue balance, late fees, and accrued interest.” he insisted.
“Ha!” she scoffed. “Then you better start digging through your uncle’s files. Though I don’t see why you need to bother since Carson doesn’t seem concerned.”
“Carson is helping a family member after a surgery,” Ryan said stiffly.
“Cry me a river,” she puffed. “If the man cared about saving his farm, he would have paid his debt and he would have stayed in town to fight for it.”
“You expect me to dig through decades of a man’s personal finances when you could have an employee hit email or print?” The woman was diabolical.
Her smile was Machiavellian. “Unfortunately for you, the bank’s system is offline for maintenance for the next twenty-four hours. But Carson already has all of it. Still insists on paper statements. The man never throws anything away. A smart accountant like you should find exactly what he’s looking for in no time.”
She clamped the cigarette in her teeth like a bad guy with a cigar.
He thought of the leaning stack of shoeboxes on the couch. The note. Everything you need is here.
“You mean to tell me that not only are you refusing to take a meeting with me, no one else in your bank has room on their calendars to talk to me, and the ‘system’ is down so you can’t prove that there is a debt to be paid?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Rainbow said smugly.
“I’m not buying it.”
She shrugged. “Prove it.”
He kissed #5 on his list goodbye. There would be no plane ticket tonight. He had a small-town bank to destroy.
“Fine. But be warned, I’m not going to allow you to foreclose on the man the day before Christmas,” Ryan said darkly.
“Then I suppose you’d better get busy,” she said, with an unsettling wink and a cloud of blue smoke in his face.
Ryan coughed.
“You’ll be hearing from me very soon,” he promised.
“Looking forward to it,” she said. Her cackling laugh turned to a fit of coughing behind him as he followed the alley to the street.
Rainbow Berkowicz had no idea who she was dealing with. If anyone was up to the challenge of finding the loophole in four hundred pounds of garbage, it was Ryan Freaking Sosa.
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Pete McDougall: New-in-town nephew of Carson Shufflebottom makes a public appearance without gal pal Sammy Ames. Is there trouble in paradise? Was there never any paradise in the first place?
15
“Did you rob a craft store?” Ryan asked in horror when he climbed into Sammy’s SUV.
She glanced in the rearview mirror. Her back seat was filled with ribbons, bows, reels of fine wire, festive tablecloths, and a host of other items buried beneath the rest. “Har har. It’s for the wreaths.”
“I have to admit, I’m a little disappointed the glitter really was craft-related,” he said.
She punched him in the arm. “Stop picturing me in pasties!”
“You’re the one who was all, ‘Hey, let’s have some hot sex tonight.’”
“That was after you almost impaled me with your hard-on and before you declined my invitation.”
“I thought we weren’t talking about that,” Ryan reminded her.
“Oh, shut up. Did you find Rainbow and book your flight home?” she asked, pulling away from the curb.