“Will we see you tomorrow?” David asked, wiping his hands on one of his work rags. “I was going to pick up the new toilets in the morning.”
“Tomorrow is Sunday. I think we need to take the day off and relax a little bit before we have to work our butts off the rest of the week,” Aaron replied.
“Whatever you say, boss,” Sasha said.
“Say a prayer for me, gentlemen. Between dealing with my mother and all the sucking up I have to do, I may not make it out alive.”
“It’s shame you have to be subjected to a party with caviar and champagne,” Sasha said. “While surrounded by the town’s rich and famous.”
“Don’t forget having to collect all those checks to help fund the library so people like you and me can read all the books we want for free,” David added. “The sacrifice is real.”
Aaron slapped his knee a couple times. “You two are a real comedy act. Hilarious. Let me know when the show is hitting the road. I’ll be sure to buy a ticket in every city.”
Sasha couldn’t stop laughing. “I’ve got the perfect joke for the opener. A biker, a carpenter and a tortured rich guy walk into a gala...”
David shook his head but still chuckled at the big man’s ridiculousness.
“Careful now, or the punch line of that joke will be, ‘...and the biker got fired,’” Aaron warned him.
Sasha’s expression immediately turned serious. “That’s not funny, boss man.”
“You would know all about things that aren’t funny.” Aaron pretended to drop a microphone. “Boom.”
“That’s because everything about you is funny. Your face, your hair, your unusually long fingers.”
Aaron glanced down at his hands. He didn’t have unusually long fingers. Did he? “You’re not worth the comeback. Have a good night,” he said as he walked out the door.
He would survive a few hours of hobnobbing, he kept telling himself as he struggled to tie his bow tie and slid his feet into shiny dress shoes that rubbed his heels and left blisters every time he wore them.
He checked his phone. No new messages. No missed calls. What was Bonnie doing? Was she really going to let Mitch fill her head full of conspiracy theories? At this point, she probably believed his father had hired someone who’d purposely made it look like Lauren did it, knowing she’d be vindicated and the case would go unsolved.
He stopped in his tracks. What if his father had done it? Or paid someone to do it? That wasn’t such a far-fetched idea. His father had been beside himself when the police were holding Lauren for questioning. He wouldn’t have expected her not to have an airtight alibi. He could have been freaking out that he set her up to take the fall.
He also wanted nothing more than for Aaron to give up house flipping and come back to the family business. His mom had been warning him all week that his dad wanted a couple minutes of his time at the gala tonight. Maybe he planned to make a big deal out of the vandalism and use it to lure Aaron back on board.
The more he thought about it, the more he was sure his dad had paid someone to destroy his house. He was the most likely suspect, hiding in plain sight. Getting him to admit it wasn’t going to be easy, but Aaron would make him confess. He’d use his pride against him, forcing him to take credit because the plan was brilliant.
HILDE RUTHERFORD WAS not a talker. In fact, they had been together for more than an hour and the woman had said approximately seven words—if he counted “mmm-hmm” as two words. Aaron had schmoozed with all the important donors but had yet to see his father. It wasn’t like him to not be front and center on this night. Maybe he was busy paying off his hired hand and getting the vandal out of town.
“Mr. Cole,” someone from behind him said just as Aaron spotted Walter Cole enter the gala.
“Can you hang on one second? I need to speak to my father about something. I’ll be right back.”
“It’s kind of an emergency,” the young man in waitstaff attire said, following him as he crossed the room to get to his dad.
“Can you handle it on your own for five more minutes while I talk to my father? Please.”
His dad held a drink in one hand and laughed at what was most likely a terrible joke.
“I’m not sure Mr. Bennett and Miss Windsor will wait that long. I sense they’re ready to make a scene.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THERE HAD BEEN multiple points in time leading up to this one when Bonnie thought this might be a bad idea. Now that they were in the library and she could hear all the voices coming from the party, she was sure of it.
Dressed in the blush-pink bridesmaid’s gown she’d worn on that fateful wedding day, Bonnie wished she could be transported back in time to that morning. She would have confronted Mitch and told him to break up with Lauren, not because he thought he was in love with her, but because he was sure he wasn’t in love with Lauren. There were no time machines in the library, however.
“Maybe we should leave,” she whispered to Mitch as they waited at the check-in area. “Their reactions may be less satisfying than we think.”
“It’s fine. We’ll be making our grand entrance in a minute. They don’t have the cash, trust me.”
Mitch’s big plan was to demand a refund for the tickets he’d paid for when they were refused entry. If they didn’t give him the refund in cash tonight, he would threaten to sue the library for not allowing a paid guest entry, guessing they would rather let him in than take the risk of losing all the money they were trying to make tonight in court.
“You have two minutes remaining,” Mitch
