How About No
Page 33

“Yeah,” he replied. “It seems like I attract all the crazy neighbors.”
He directed a look toward Rome, and I had a feeling that I was missing something.
Rome grunted. “It’s not my fault that Tara moved in next to you. It’s your fault for telling me that you had an opening.”
“When I said that my renters moved out, I thought that you were going to move in, not your crazy ex,” he explained.
Ah.
Rome’s ex was a woman named Tara, and she had lived next to Liner for a time while her son was going through chemo treatments.
Rome’s son, Matias, hadn’t made it.
And some time in between Matias being diagnosed and Matias passing away, Tara had run away and never looked back.
That was all that I knew, and I knew better than to even touch on this subject by trying to find out more right now. I’d have to ask Wade later when there was no possibility that we’d be heard by Rome.
“I can tell you now that Debbie Doozy doesn’t have any dogs. Hell, she only has her kids every other weekend, and I fuckin’ cringe when that day comes around,” Liner mumbled, squeezing his way into the circle between me and Bayou.
I leaned a little more heavily into Wade, who took my weight with ease despite the fact that his leg was still bothering him.
“What do you mean by cringing when the kids come?”
My protective instincts were raring, and if two little girls that I had held and loved on since they were tiny little babies were suffering, I wanted to know.
Liner’s eyes turned down to study me.
“I think there’s more yelling going on than there is parenting,” Liner said. “I don’t ever hear specifics, because she rarely comes outside with them except to put them in her van and to take them where they’re meant to be going, but the muted screams through her closed doors, as well as the way she looks when I glance at her through the open front windows…yeah, I wouldn’t want to be her kids.”
I swallowed hard and felt my fist clench.
Then a wet nose briefly touched the back of my hand, and I looked down to see Capo close—but looking the other way.
My heart lightened a small amount.
“I need to get on my Facebook page and start doing damage control,” I sighed. “Hopefully I don’t have to pay back all those donors. I don’t have the money to do that, but this whole situation makes me feel awful.”
Wade’s arm tightened around my waist briefly. “We’ll figure it out, honey.”
His low rumbled assurance had me believing him, even though I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be that easy.
And I was right.
The moment that I posted about the woman on my dog rescue page, the shit hit the fan.
One, Debbie Schultz went nuclear and started a war by declaring us business partners and accusing me of stealing people’s money—though I only knew that secondhand since I’d blocked ol’ Debbie Doozy.
Two, people started to demand their money back—from me.
Three, someone tried to set my daycare on fire.
Chapter 15
I give just enough fucks to stay employed and out of the back of my husband’s police cruiser.
-Landry’s secret thoughts
Landry
“No,” I moaned, looking at the firetrucks putting out the blaze that’d started in the storage shed beside the daycare.
“They have it contained, honey,” Wade promised. “The building is perfectly fine. The only thing that we’re going to have to worry about right now is the electric. But that was turned off when this all began.”
“I’m not going to be able to open tomorrow,” I murmured.
“No,” he agreed. “Once they clear the building to us, I’ll get an electrician out here to disconnect the power to the storage shed from the main breaker. when that’s done, I’ll get someone out here to remove the shed—after the insurance adjuster takes a look.” He paused. “But, even when you can reopen, I don’t think that you should—not until we get this crazy bitch squared away.”
“Do you think the cameras caught anything?” I asked hopefully.
The state-of-the-art system had to come in handy at some point. All I’d really been able to utilize it for was firing employees who took naps during kids’ nap times.
I’d appreciate it if something positive came out of this horrible day.
“I got the stuff.” Liner came up to us, Hoax at his side.
Wade grunted. “Good. Take it to the house and see what you can find. Cameras twelve and fourteen have the best possibility of catching what we’re looking for. But, hell, she might’ve done us a favor by being stupid and parked in the front lot.”
I snorted. “She wouldn’t be that dumb.”
She was that dumb.
***
“I wasn’t there!” a woman screamed at the top of her lungs. “I was at home in bed!”
I’d come into the police station get my restraining order against the woman currently screaming. When Wade and I had walked in, it was to see all hell breaking loose in the bullpen.
Why you ask?
Because Debbie didn’t like being accused of something that “she didn’t do” according to her.
Except we’d seen her do it. Mostly.
Her van had been parked in full view of the cameras that Wade had trained on the driveway, and there was no mistaking the letters on the license plates or the stickers on the back glass declaring her a member of the Bear Bottom PTA.
“All right, you’re all set,” Castiel said, handing me the paperwork. “Since she’s here, we’ll go ahead and inform her of her limitations when it comes to you. But, just sayin’, she’ll likely stay pretty far away after she was caught doing this.”
Wade grunted. “I doubt it.”
“Well, she didn’t make bail because she spit on the judge,” Castiel said, eyes twinkling. “And you know how ol’ Judge Painter is. He doesn’t tolerate this kind of behavior on the best of days.”
I tuned them out.
I was tired.
I hadn’t slept in well over twenty-four hours, and honestly, I was ready to go fucking home.
I was so tired that I couldn’t even work up any rage over the fact that she was likely responsible for burning down mine and Wade’s house. I was just happy that she’d been caught pretty much red-handed doing the same to my business.
My phone vibrated again, but I didn’t pull it out of my pocket this time.
I knew that it was someone wanting their money back—money I didn’t have to give.
But hopefully once this was all settled, I’d be able to file a civil suit against her that would generate the funds to repay all of the people who had so graciously donated.
“Let’s go home, honey,” Wade said, giving me a slight jiggle.
I blinked, unaware that I’d gone so far into my head.
“Okay,” I said, bringing my eyes up only to find Castiel staring at me with confusion.
“What?”
He didn’t say anything, only looked at me.
Not in the mood for his shit, either, I turned on my heel and started walking as fast as my rapidly deteriorating body could muster.
Wade caught up with me just as I passed the desk that Debbie was currently chained and cuffed to.
She saw me, and her eyes narrowed. “You bitch!”
I stopped, unwilling to allow this moment to pass.
“What did you do to the dogs that you stole?” I hissed.
Debbie’s lips twitched. “Had them put to sleep. The humane thing to do.”
I narrowed my eyes. “The dogs—the ones that I fight for—aren’t on death’s door. They’re older and have at least a few more years of good times left in them. They are not ready to die.”
Debbie scoffed. “Whatever. You don’t need to be taking care of any dogs. You’re pretty shitty at watching things that are important.”
I didn’t miss the underlying accusation.
“I’m sorry,” I told her. “I’ve already told you I’m sorry a hundred times. But, Debbie? You not watching your daughter wasn’t my fault. It was yours. I’m not sure why you can’t see that.”