Page 68 of The Sea-Mist Cottage Inn
“It’s not Mrs.,” I corrected. “Ms.—or just Leo.”
“Alright, Leo,” Durbin said and offered his hand. “Sorry to make your acquaintance this way.”
“Yeah, me too. We saw some of it on the camera feed, but it was hard to tell—what happened, and how bad is it?”
Durbin tilted his head toward the path that led to the cottages from the parking lot. “Let’s head back, and we’ll talk.”
Still holding hands, Roman and I followed the sheriff. We got as far as the back wall of the main cabin, before I drew up short and dropped Roman’s hand so I could use both of mine to cover my mouth.
The thing about the Sea-Mist? It’s in a little valley. The forest rises up anywhere from six to twenty feet around the part of the property where the cottages sit. That little valley is a major selling feature. It’s why the cottages aren’t visible from the road, why the land is so lush, why the area is so secluded.
As it turns out, it also makes a pretty good basin.
“My god,” Roman breathed.
The whole area was a swamp. No, not a swamp. A lake. The picnic tables seemed to be actuallyfloating. Every cottage I could see from where I stood—and our cabin— was at least a foot deep in water. Worse yet, water rushed from under the doors, making waterfalls down porch steps. The cottages themselves were flooded as well.
Several people, probably deputies and utility workers, moved about, trying to get the flood abated, but it seemed a fruitless endeavor to me.
“They busted the main, and broke the pipes into the cabins too,” the sheriff said.
The human brain is a weird machine, and maybe mine is weirder than most. While I stood there in dumb shock, surveying the utter ruin of the one thing I had that could give Wyatt and me a new start—the thing I had only hours ago managed to save from foreclosure—a scene from an old moviepopped into my head, and I actuallylaughedand quoted it aloud.
The old movie wasBull Durham. One of Micah’s, and Wyatt’s, favorites, so I’ve seen it often enough to have it memorized. It’s about a minor league baseball team, and there’s a scene where the team, demoralized from a string of losses, wishes for a rainout. The lead character, Crash Davis (a young Kevin Costner) makes a rainout by opening the sprinkler pipes and flooding the field.
“Oh my god,” I quoted, chuckling darkly, “we got ourselves a natural disaster.”
Sheriff Durbin and Roman both turned and gave me the looks my word vomit deserved. Durbin looked almost offended. Roman looked worried. Both were confused.
“Sorry,” I said. “I don’t know where that came from.”
“It’s fromBull Durham,” Roman said, and I wondered if he’d been thinking about the same scene before my outburst. “You okay?”
I shook my head. “I think I am very much not okay.”
“It’s Bonfire Night,” Durbin said, pulling the moment back on track, “and there’s always a little bit more mischief, but the damage here is too much to be a prank, I’d say. We got a look at the footage from the security company. Four people did this, men by the look of ‘em—they were camouflaged pretty well, though. Still, they didn’t act like dumb kids looking for trouble. They acted like they were on a job. So I gotta ask, Leo—you got any enemies? I know you were raised up around here and left for a long time—anybody mad you’re back? You burn any bridges?
Those questions all sounded like victim-blaming to me, but I didn’t get my hackles up. Making an enemy out of the sheriff would do me no good. If I wasn’t already on his enemies list.
I had a name for him, and I was eager to see how he’d react to hearing it. Was Sheriff Durbin really best buds with Manfred? If so, would he protect his friend and fuck me over?
“The only person I can think of who I might call an enemy is Darryl Manfred.” I focused all of my attention on the sheriff.
It was quickly clear that he did know Manfred, possibly well enough to call him a golf buddy. Durbin sucked in a long breath, held it, and sighed. “Right. The deal he was working before you came back. Are you accusing him of doing this?”
Oh, I was sure Manfred was behind it, but I stopped short of making an accusation to the sheriff. “You asked me if I have enemies. As far as I know, I have only one: Manfred.”
Durbin shook his head. “But he wants tobuythis property—what makes you think he’d try to destroy it?”
“Two things,” I answered at once, trying to ignore the worddestroy. “First, he wants the property, not the business, so flooding me out probably wouldn’t get in his way. Second, just today—or, yesterday, I guess, I cleared the back taxes, so my ownership is ...” I tried to think of a good legal word to use there—surely there is one—but I don’t know it, so I finished with, “secure. Manfred was banking on me getting foreclosed on because my mother left a big tax bill behind.” I didn’t know if, or how, Manfred would have heard that I’d paid the tax bill he'd so smugly called out at the town council meeting, but he was slimy enough to have people on the take all over California government.
“Actually, there’s another thing,” I added before anybody else jumped in. “Manfred showed up here a few weeks ago, made himself comfortable like he owned the place while we weren’t home, and when I got here and threw him out, he threatened me.”
That got Durbin’s attention. “Threatened you how?”
Now that I’d said it, I thought back to that encounter, when Manfred had been standing in Cottage 12 like it was his. I’d thought I’d remembered the scene vividly, and it was a clear picture in my head, but a silent one. I couldn’t remember the words we’d exchanged. I remembered only how I’d felt.
“I don’t remember exactly what he said, but it was clear he meant to get me out of his way.”
