Grinning to myself with as much maturity as the teenagers possessed, I reached out, grabbed the branch of a particularly full bush of some sort, and shook it vigorously.
The three boys stopped, straightened, and looked behind them.
I stopped rustling the branches and hunched down low, watching them from my hiding spot.
One kid whispered to another. “What the hell was that?”
“I don’t know. Go check it.”
“I’m not going to check it out! You check it out.”
“It’s probably a cat.”
“Cats aren’t that big, you dumbass.”
“Fine, a dog then.”
The boys went quiet.
I grinned and relished the silence that hung in the air. Feeling no remorse, I picked up a branch from the ground and snapped it.
One of the kids yelped. Another scrambled backward and slammed into the third. They fell on their asses and promptly tripped over each other as they tried to regain their footing.
“We should get out of here,” one said.
“I second that.”
I snapped another branch and shook the bush. For added drama, I decided to cup my hands to my mouth and make eerie animalistic sounds. I’d done this to my brother a handful of times as kids. Each scare was just as satisfying as the last.
This was no different. The boys panicked.
I wished it hadn’t been so dark because there was no doubt in my mind I’d have been able to see the whites of their eyes as they raced to the far side of the property to give me and my bush as wide a berth as possible.
Hellbent on making sure they didn’t come back here and destroy more property, I lunged from the bush when their backs were turned and they’d reached the driveway. I let out a loud bellow and one of the boys actually screamed. He pitched forward in the dirt and landed heavily on his stomach.
I hobbled after them, back hunched, arms raised above my head, and yelled again.
One of the boys kept on running like he thought he was going to die. The other, the shortest of them all, ran on all fours to retrieve his fallen comrade. He screamed at him to get the hell up as I closed in on them.
They ran as fast as they could into the night.
I intended on chasing them right to the end of the dirt road, but a sharp pain in my shoulder made me stop. I grimaced, clutched my aching shoulder, and let my arm fall to my side as fresh pain flared in my collarbone.
“Shit,” I hissed.
As I made my way back to the house, I replayed the screams from the boys in my head. I grinned. The pain was worth it. Tomorrow, I would fix the mailbox. Maybe I could head back into the market and find someone who would know where I could get some paint and sealant.
I massaged my shoulder and shook my head at myself as I walked gingerly across the dirt road to the front porch. “Peter Stenley, coder turned handyman. Who’d’ve thought?”
Chapter 6
Katie
I heard Ginny and Roman bickering twenty feet down the hallway as I approached our meeting room. It was a small space with big one-way windows so that guests outside couldn’t see us working. It sort of ruined the illusion of all the hard work we did if the guests could see our room full of notebooks, planning boards, floral arrangements, candles, coupons, certificates, and changes of clothes and shoes.
It was like the green room at a theatre production. It was only for the eyes of the performers and directing company.
I rounded the corner and found my two assistants frantically flipping through papers. Ginny was on the phone. Her forehead was creased, a telltale sign that something was amiss and she was stressed. Roman was looking through what appeared to be inventory lists for all the restaurants.
“None,” he muttered as he flipped through page after page. “None, none, none! Ginny, are you still on hold? We don’t have time for this shit. If Katie—”
“If Katie what?” I asked as I folded my arms across my chest.
Roman and Ginny looked up. Ginny pointed at the phone to her ear as if to say, “can’t talk, busy.”
This left Roman to deal with me. He swallowed and nodded at the powder-pink portfolio on the conference table between us. All of my clients’ information was kept in individually labeled portfolios and stored in the shelving unit against the wall to my right. The entire wall was comprised of storage solutions for my files and vendors.