“He must have a lot of time on his hands.” Ford said, trying to keep down his rising anger and irritation.
“Remember, babe, we don’t know for sure that he is the one who did this. There are more homophobic people in the world—even in this community—than we know of.” Sawyer’s words were deceptively mild, though the look on his face didn’t match.
“I think we should call the cops,” Ford said, letting out a puff or air because he knew that Sawyer was right. “This is trespass and criminal damage.”
Sawyer shook his head and groaned. “The cops have been involved so much in our lives lately. I’m sure they are just going to love hearing from me again.”
Ford couldn’t help but agree with that. Their lives were starting to resemble a daytime soap opera. “So...,” Ford quirked a brow before he went on. “Which one of us gets to make the call this time?”
Sawyer had a devious look on his face. “I think we’ll let Drake handle that since he is the one who found it first.”
Even with all that they’d found out this morning, Ford couldn’t hold back the laugh that burst forth. “He’s gonna love you for that one.”
Sawyer let Ford walk in front as they moved through the fenced area that was supposed to keep people out of the working construction zone. Once they got to the main buildings, Ford saw what Drake meant.
“They’re going to have to shovel the watery sand out to get back to work,” Sawyer said.
Ford nodded. “I can’t believe he would do this. All it serves to do is delay for a couple of days while this gets tidied out.” He paused for a moment. “Or whoever did, but I still feel deep down that it’s Larry”
Once they made their way through the area, they saw Owen—Ford didn’t know his friend was here—and Drake. The two were diligently working on gathering the sandy mess into buckets to be dumped outside.
Ford shook his head as he looked around. This was a bigger mess than he thought as they walked over to the men. Owen looked up first, then straightened, wiping his beads of sweat on his forehead with his arm.
“Hey.” Owen nodded in their direction.
Drake turned, too, and Ford could tell the man was stressed, not that he could blame him. “I can see what you mean.” Ford looked around at the muck that was all around them.
Drake let out a sigh. “It’ll probably take us two, maybe three days of work to get through all of it.” The contractor grabbed a bottle of water, guzzling half of it without pausing. “Sorry about that.” Drake wiped his mouth.
“No apologies necessary,” Sawyer said.
Ford nodded. “We’re sorry you have to deal with this. We appreciate you handling it so efficiently.”
Drake lifted his shoulder in a half shrug. “No biggie. The rest of the men are in the south wing. It looks the same over there, though not quite as flooded.
Ford frowned, “Is there a problem?”
“Nothing to worry about at the moment,” Drake said, “but I’ll double check.”
Ford looked over at Owen who'd gone back to work, continuing to load up the barrel. “Owen, I really appreciate your help. I know you have another job and this is probably last on your list of things to be doing.”
“It’s what friends do.” Owen stood up straight and stretched. “Don’t even worry about it. Dean would have come, too, but he’s on duty.”
Well, that’s a good thing,” Sawyer piped in. “Drake, can you do me a favor and call the police and file an incident report? I want this on record in case more things happen here and since you were the first one here, it would be best coming from you.”
Drake nodded and gave a quick “Sure” as he passed by with another bucket. When he came back in, he stopped next to them.
“Can I show you something I found this morning?”
Sawyer nodded, and they followed behind Drake over to where two of the pipes that had ruptured were laid out. Drake knelt down and picked up one of them and held it up. “See how clean the break is and then how the pipe has buckled here?” Drake pointed to where there was a bend along the broken edge of the piping, and Sawyer leaned closer to look at the spot. “In my opinion, that could only happen if someone used a pipe cutter and then another tool to force it apart. Honestly, this confirms to me it was done intentionally.” Drake put the pipe in his hand down and straightened. “But that’s really not the most damning evidence.”
“What do you mean?” Sawyer asked.
“Over here.” He walked over to the edge of the construction site, and they followed. “Right here.” Drake knelt down and pointed to where he was referring to.
“Red spray paint.” Ford knelt beside Drake to get a closer look.
Drake nodded. “Yeah, that makes me think it was done by the same person who spray painted your trailer and the sign.”
Ford looked up at Sawyer, and while it wasn’t exactly evidence obtained by the police, Drake had confirmed what the two of them believed. It had to be Larry.
After seeing this new evidence of tampering, they made their way back to the main building where Owen was still working.
“I at least owe you brunch.” Ford smiled as he patted his friend’s shoulder.
“I’ll hold you to it.” Owen winked at him.
“Did someone call for help?” Ford turned around. His jaw dropped as he saw several men heading towards them, his dad at the front of the line. “Dad?” Ford couldn’t believe his eyes “What are you doing here?”
“We heard that you needed help.” His dad smiled. “So, put us to work.”
Ford pointed to Drake. “He’s in charge.”
Drake got to work telling each man where to go. At least twenty men had shown up, and Ford didn’t know all of them—well,
