“When you’ve got men who are skilled like Drew and me, fixes like this don’t take long.”
“How much do I owe you two?” she asked.
“We’ll talk about that later, but it most certainly won’t be two thousand dollars.”
“Oh my gosh,” she said breathlessly. “Bryan, I’ve got absolutely no idea how to thank you.”
“I know one way you can start,” I said, grinning. “Call Jennifer. Pitch her that story. We still need to get up and running for John’s showcase.”
“I can do that,” she said. “I’ll call her right now.”
“Let me know what she says. And Hailey?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s all going to be all right. Okay?” I asked.
“Okay.”
I hung up the phone and walked back inside to help Drew with the last coat of paint. We set up a box fan to sit overnight on the wall so the paint would dry quicker, and I made a mental note to come back for it in the morning. Drew and I studied our handiwork, impressed with how quickly we got all of this cleaned up and back in tip-top shape.
Then, Drew looked over and asked the one question I knew he would.
“I take it the two of you are doing better now?” he asked.
“We’re doing just fine,” I said, smiling.
“Good. Because Anna’s moved into town, and I wanna hit her up.”
“What?” I asked.
“Yeah. Ran into Anna at the store the other day. She looked radiant, man, a lot happier than she was back in July. But I didn’t wanna call her or anything because of the bad blood between you and Hailey.”
“Why’d she move into town?”
“She said something about starting over, but I didn’t really catch it. Her eyes are too pretty, dude.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, grinning. “Well, you have fun with that. I’ve got to pick up dinner for Hailey and me.”
“Get outta here, man. Go. I’ll lock this place up,” he said.
“Thanks, Drew. Seriously.”
I strode to my truck and got in right as Hailey called again. She seemed frantic, rattling things off a million times a second as I held my phone to my ear.
“Wait, slow down, Hailey. Start from the beginning,” I said.
“Don’t get dinner yet. We have to go to the police station,” she said.
“I’m on my way,” I said as I pulled out into the road. “What’s going on?”
“They pulled the footage from that camera across the street this afternoon. They want me to come take a look at it. I was hoping you’d go with me.”
“Of course, I’m on my way home now.”
“I also called Jennifer,” she said.
“Oh, really? What did she say about the story?”