The Maverick - By Jan Hudson Page 0,19
strange going on last night?”
“I—uh—wasn’t here last night.”
“Hmm.” Sunny looked her up and down. “Interesting outfit.”
Cass refused to blush. “Let me go upstairs and change, and we’ll get this sorted out.”
She hurried up to her apartment. Except for her water and electricity being off, everything seemed normal. After quickly changing into jeans and a tee, she rejoined her sister in the back lot.
“Did Hank notice anything unusual?” Cass asked. Hank was a cop friend of Sunny’s who lived in the other upstairs apartment, the one where Sunny had lived until she bought her house.
Her twin shook her head. “He spent the night with his fiancée.”
“Well, damn.”
“Exactly.”
“Why are all these people here?” Cass asked.
“Because when I got here a few minutes ago, the alarm was turned off, and water was ankle-deep inside. I didn’t want to electrocute myself. Are you sure you set the alarm Saturday night?”
“Of course I’m sure! Do you think I left a faucet running, too?”
“Don’t get your panties in a wad, Cass. I was just asking to be sure. I’m hoping this was an accident.”
Cass’s brows went up. “You mean you think it wasn’t? Is anything missing?”
“I don’t know yet. People are checking everything out. It might have been a break-in. It might have been a burst pipe and a short in the electrical system. I don’t even know how bad the damage is.”
“Well, hell,” Cass said.
“That, too. We’ll just have to wait until all these people have time to investigate and assess the situation.”
Sid and Foster, the middle-aged owners of Hooks, the seafood restaurant next door, walked up. “Have they found the source of the problem yet?” Sid asked.
“Not that I’ve heard,” Cass said. “Do you have any damage?”
“Only a few damp spots in the kitchen,” Foster, who was the restaurant chef, told them. “I didn’t think anything about it when I first noticed. We have a good drainage system.”
“So do we,” Sunny said. “Or at least I thought so. I can’t imagine what happened. We have everybody from the water department and plumbers to the security company, firemen and cops trying to assess the situation. I’m sending our employees home for the day. No way can we serve customers.”
“Why don’t you girls come next door for a cup of coffee,” Sid said.
“Thanks, Sid,” Sunny replied, “but I really don’t want to leave right now.”
“We’ll send you out something,” Foster said. “I need to get back to the kitchen.”
A few minutes later a waiter and a busboy from Hooks brought out a table and set up a coffee and water station in the parking lot. One of their neighbors, who had stopped by to see what the fuss was about, brought over a plastic tub of cookies for the table. Everything was soon scarfed up by the various people on site, including the media reporters who stopped by for the story.
After what seem like forever, the consensus seemed to be that the back door lock had been jimmied and either someone forgot to set the alarm or someone knew the code. In an act of malicious mischief, the someone or someones had deliberately stopped up the drains and turned on every water faucet in the kitchen and bathrooms. Nothing seemed to be missing.
“Who would do such a thing?” Cass asked.
“Beats me,” Sunny said, “and the chances of ever catching them are somewhere between slim and none. I don’t think I’ve pissed off anybody lately. Have you?”
“Not that I can think of. Our problem now is cleaning up the mess. Have you called the insurance adjuster?”
“He’s on his way, and as soon as he takes a look at things, we need to start cleaning and assessing damage,” Sunny said.
“I vote for calling in the professionals,” Cass said. “There are companies that specialize in stuff like this. What are we going to do about all the food in the cooler and freezer?”
“Oh, Lord. What a mess.”
THE FOOD, WHICH WAS deemed safe, they gave to various homeless shelters and kitchens, and decided to leave the cleanup to professionals, as Cass had suggested. While she was packing a bag to move to Sunny’s house for a couple of days, Griff phoned.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
“No. Everything has been chaos here. I’m sorry I forgot to call you.” She told him about the break-in and damages to Chili Witches.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“In my apartment.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Before she could say more, he was gone. She locked up, went downstairs and stowed her bag in her car. There were a million