and I can do it together.”
“But I haven’t even fired Molly yet.”
“You need to do that tomorrow. First thing when she shows up. I’ll cover her lunch shift. I’m coming in early for Tutoring Club anyway.”
He gave me a sideways look. “So you’re the one runnin’ things now?”
I laughed. “Me and Ruth. Glad you noticed.”
He grunted and turned back to his task.
I headed over to intercept Ruth, hoping the news that Molly would soon be history would cheer her up.
“You’re never gonna believe what that bitch did now,” she snapped, her eyes blazing.
I put a hand on my hip and shook my head. “Max already told me. He also told me that you’re right. She’s got to go.” I knew better than to admit that I’d been the one to convince him. She’d be madder than a wet hornet that he’d listened to me and not her.
“Finally,” she said with plenty of sass, but I could see the relief in her eyes.
“I told him that you and I are going to take charge of hiring her replacement. A part-time replacement.”
She lifted her hands. “Praise the Lord.”
“How do you want to go about this?” I asked. “Put an ad in the Ewing paper?”
“Maybe,” she said. “I might know someone.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of that. She hadn’t mentioned this mysterious “someone” two months ago, before Molly was hired, and even though we’d gotten more time off lately, neither one of us had much of a social life.
“Want to give me a hint who?” I asked.
“You don’t know her. I’ll give her a call and ask.”
“Max hasn’t fired Molly yet, so we need to be discreet until he does.”
She rolled her eyes but nodded. Her mood hadn’t lifted as much as I’d thought it would, which suggested something other than Molly was weighing on her.
A family of regulars walked through the door and settled down at a table in my section. The boy was part of my tutoring club, which Max and Wyatt had encouraged me to start back in April after I’d helped a couple of kids with their math homework. My cover story was that I’d tutored students as a second job, but the truth was I used to be a third-grade schoolteacher in my old life in Dallas. Back when I was Caroline Blakely, oil heiress, engaged to a man who’d conspired with my father to kill me.
“Miss Carly,” the little boy called out as I approached their table. “I read part of that book about the guy in the underpants! Two whole chapters!”
“You did? That’s great, Dustin!” I rubbed his head.
He beamed with pride. Reading had been a struggle for him, but after our first sit-down talk at Tutoring Club, I had concluded he just hadn’t found anything he loved yet. I’d ordered some books of my own to hand out to the kids, and when they really loved a book, I let them keep it. The fact that he’d read two chapters since the day before, during summer break no less, was amazing.
His parents looked equally pleased. Thank goodness. His father had been resistant to his son spending part of his summer “learning.”
I took their drink orders and then waited on a group of construction workers who looked beat from working outside all day. It was cooler at our altitude, but it was still hot working in the sun.
More construction guys came in soon after. There wasn’t a ready supply of skilled labor on the mountain, so Bart had to bring them in from out of town to build his resort. Some of them stayed in the fleabag motel Max’s father owned across the street, but the rest were holed up in Ewing, much to Bart Drummond’s chagrin. Or so I’d heard. I hadn’t seen the man for nearly three months. The last time I’d seen him, we’d stood side by side, studying the hole where his oldest son’s girlfriend’s body had been discovered.
The excavation and foundation guys had left, replaced by construction workers, electricians, and plumbers. The only continual workers were the construction manager, a few of his underlings, and my friend Jerry, an older man who was a permanent resident at the motel across the street.
Jerry was well into his sixties and had been down on his luck for as long as I’d known him, but it hadn’t been difficult for him to land this job. The contractor had approached him in the tavern and offered him a full-time gofer gig on the spot.