“Hey, Annie,” I said. “You’re working hard.”
She laughed, flexing her arms. “Gotta keep these things from flapping.”
“You want to see my dad?” I asked. “He’s inside.”
“Oh, not looking like this,” she said, turning even more pink.
My dad and Annie’s friendship had taken an unexpected twist following his serious illness. Annie had confessed soon after he fully recovered that she’d discovered how much she liked him, romantically liked him, when she thought she might lose him. And he admitted to liking her for years but not wanting to mess with what they had. They’d been dating ever since.
Now every time Annie said his name, she blushed. It was adorable.
My father and I had a difficult relationship the first twelve years of Elliott’s life—he was not happy that I’d gotten pregnant and dropped out of college. All that changed when Annie talked me into moving in to help take care of him over the summer. Now my dad and I both regretted the lost years and were working hard to make up for it, and we were both grateful that Annie had made the whole thing happen.
Annie turned to Mira. “I’m so excited to see your play.”
“Aw, thanks,” Mira said.
“We’re picking you up at six sharp,” I reminded Annie.
We said our goodbyes and Annie power-walked up the stairs into her house, looking at her watch and pressing two fingers to her neck to check her pulse.
A few doors down, we passed Horace sitting on his porch. He waved from his rocking chair. “It’s a scorcher,” he said and held up his glass of iced tea. I knew from experience that it was sweet enough to cause an immediate cavity. We waved back.
“It’s nice here,” Mira said. “You know all these people.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s a good community.” I nudged her with my shoulder. “And you’re part of it.”
She looked at me under her lashes, as if she didn’t believe me, and then we arrived at Joss’s farm. He was in his front yard, setting up long folding tables. Seeing him in his tank top and weathered jeans got my heart pounding.
He smiled when he saw us. “Ready to work?” he asked Mira.
She nodded. “Boxes inside?”
“Mud room, as always,” he said.
She went in with a little smirk.
Then he pulled his sunglasses on top of his head and I got to see his blue eyes crinkle at me. “Are you helping today?”
“Sorry, no,” I said. “I just walked Mira down.”
“So it’s my lucky day.” He looked over his shoulder to make sure Mira was inside before drawing me close and giving me a thorough kiss. “I missed you.”
I melted a little, not just from the heat, and slid my arms up around his neck.
We jumped apart at the sound of the door opening. Mira backed out, dragging a stack of folded boxes and trying to look like she hadn’t seen us making out.
“I better go,” I said. “Cat food to cook and all.” My phone rang. It was Norma. “I gotta take this.”
I kept my voice low and moved away. “Hello, Detective Chiron.”
“What’s up?” she asked. It sounded like she was using her speaker phone.
I looked over my shoulder to make sure Joss and Mira were busy. “A weird thing happened in front of our house about forty minutes ago.” I smiled at Horace as I passed him on the way home. “I don’t want to, I don’t know, submit an official report or anything yet.”
“Why don’t you tell me what happened and I’ll let you know my recommendation.” She sounded friendly, but I could sense the steel underneath. Even though we were friends, she was going to handle whatever I told her by the book.
I paused a minute. Did I want to make this a big deal?
“Colbie,” she said. “Just tell me.”
“Okay.” I told her about the man taking photos in front of our house.
“You got the license?” she asked.
“Yes.” I let her think it through.
“Okay,” she said. “Give me the number. I’ll check it out. If I find something we should be concerned about, you’ll have to file an official report.”
I gave her the information on the car and went into my house. My dad was in his favorite chair, with a soda in one hand and the remote in the other, focused on the Red Sox game. Trouble was in his lap. She raised her head and stared at me. Can’t you tell him to put on Animal Planet?
“Still on for Wednesday?” Norma asked. We had started a Wednesday Margaritas get-together with Lani a couple of months ago.
“Of course,” I said.
We hung up and I checked my website for recent orders. I scheduled their production time, making sure not to interfere with what was needed for Take Your Cat to Shop Day.
Then I got curious about Mira’s foster family and decided to do a quick Google search. When I lived in the city, I’d heard about Dennis Franklin but didn’t realize he was originally from Sunnyside. Soon after he finished college, he started a construction business that grew rapidly. He moved his family to downtown San Diego when he’d become A Big Deal. He made a ton of money churning out housing developments that stuck as many houses as possible onto any property he could buy. The local paper had done a big piece on how he was returning to his roots when he bought acres of farmland right outside Sunnyside and began developing it with million-dollar mansions—unheard of this far from the city—as part of a resort community with a golf course, pools, and community center.
What was even more astonishing was that Dennis had no problem selling the huge homes. He even moved his family into one of the first ones completed, although they still spent plenty of time in their downtown penthouse apartment overlooking the Coronado Bridge. The remaining houses were currently being built and seemed to be living up to their lavish reputation.
I dove deep, searching the internet for everything I could find on him and his family, including YouTube videos of him at charity events and professional pieces produced by his company. He looked like a normal, mid-fifties rich guy. I watched an interview where he complimented his kids and his employees while receiving plenty of pats on the back for his visionary leadership.
Recent videos were much more “happening,” with short segments designed for social media. Most of them consisted of a woman behind the camera asking different company employees questions. The employees gave fun, snappy answers, which could have been rehearsed. There were also shots of construction workers on site—carrying lumber, installing drywall, and connecting plumbing. Maybe the only reason I noticed the difference was because I was now working with a publicist on my product launch.
There were several articles about a class-action lawsuit against Franklin Development by Dennis’s employees. They alleged unfair business practices, creating a hostile environment, hiring undocumented workers; the list went on. The lawsuit made it sound like Mr. Franklin was a bad guy all around, the exact opposite of the videos I’d seen on his website. But considering his mistreatment of Mira, I was inclined to side with his employees.
Then I got to the article about Mira’s play that the Franklins were angry about. Someone interviewed each of the four playwrights who won the Playwrights Project contest.
Mira snagged the most attention in the article. In spite of her childhood history, she’d written a winning play that, according to the executive director, “exhibited not only a mastery of the genre, but also an insight not often found in someone