Joke’s on You by Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,52

stood up. “Hey, Mirena! Oh, we’re opening. I have an hour to get donuts started. Let’s do this.”

So that was how we sat for the next hour.

Dad, the paramedics, and the rest of the officers went to work.

Mom came and brought a bed for me to put near Dillan’s workspace, but it proved unneeded.

Asa had never been here during the process of making donuts before, and he was so fascinated that he forgot all about his stomachache.

Two and a half hours later, I was gathering Asa up and going to say goodbye.

Just as I made my way over to her, another of Dillan’s employees strolled through the door.

“I’m so sorry!” the older woman said. “I just got your message to come in. I thought with all the hub-baloo that you wouldn’t want me in.”

I’d never quite caught her name, but apparently I didn’t need to seeing as Dillan growled it a few seconds later.

“You can just go ahead home now, Moshe,” Dillan said as she finished decorating her last donut. “I’m done. Mirena can handle the rest.”

Moshe stiffened. “I’m sorry, Dillan. I swear. I didn’t think that you’d open or I would’ve come.”

“How did you know that anything was going on up here?” I found myself asking.

Moshe shrugged. “I have a police scanner. It was all over the radio. I use it to avoid anything that’ll cause me to be late.”

For some reason, her perfectly logical answer didn’t sit well with me. I’d had to rely on my gut a lot of times before, and it was telling me that Moshe was lying out of her ass.

But, as I looked over at Dillan, my girl knew it. So I didn’t bother to say anything.

“Thank you for your honesty,” Dillan said facetiously. “But, as this is your third ‘late,’ I’m officially asking you to leave. Your last check will be direct-deposited into your account.”

Moshe stiffened.

Then her eyes narrowed.

“I helped you close yesterday.”

“You did,” she agreed. “But you also were scheduled to leave at the end of the day anyway, because you asked for more hours. And you forgot to take out the trash, which was the only reason that I had to go out this morning. Oh, and I got strangled.”

Moshe’s eyes went to Dillan’s neck, which she’d covered up with some gauzy scarf that she’d had in her office.

“I was only late because I thought that you weren’t going to open,” she said stiffly. “I’m sorry.”

Dillan shifted. “You could’ve called. But, as I’ve said, this has been your third strike. I’m sorry, but you’re out. Have a good day.”

Moshe looked like she wanted to argue more, but I shifted where I was standing, momentarily drawing her attention toward me.

“You can leave,” I supplied.

Moshe gritted her teeth, turned on her heels, and all but stomped out the door.

“There’s no way that she gets up and listens to the police scanner to avoid being late,” Mirena said from the front counter. “There’s only one way here from where she lives, and if she has to leave her house in any way, that’s the way she has to go. Regardless of if it’s going to cause her to be late or not.”

“You know where she lives?” Dillan asked curiously. “I asked where she lived once, and she said she was moving. I asked how the moving was going, and she said that she wasn’t moving. I just thought she didn’t want me to know where she lived.”

Mirena shrugged. “She lives off of this old oil top road right outside of Kilgore. It’s a pretty nice house. It has these weeping willow trees that line the driveway, and a…”

“And a large white house with huge, hulking pillars. Looks like someone important should live there,” Dillan finished for her.

My eyebrows rose.

“Yeah, how did you know?” Mirena asked curiously.

“Because that used to be Kerrie’s place before he got a newer, bigger one,” Dillan answered, looking like she’d swallowed something bitter. “He rents it out to people now.”

My eyes lit on hers. “That’s quite a coincidence.”

“It sure is.” She sighed and focused in on me. “What’s going on? Are you heading home?”

She looked at Asa, who was now passed out on my shoulder.

“He has a doctor appointment that has to do with his throwing up,” I told her. “It’s getting a little worrisome.”

She nodded.

“I’m going with you,” she said firmly.

“Babe,” I said. “You don’t have to go with me. You really shouldn’t have even opened today.”

Reminding her of her earlier battle with Kerrie obviously wasn’t a good