Well, that explains why she’s so familiar. I used to see her all the time, but usually from a distance, through the barrier of trees that separates her property from my grandmother’s. She worked at the food truck one summer. They served the worst hot dogs. “I’m Van.”

“Van?”

“Donovan,” I say in frustration. My grandmother only shortened my name when she was talking to family.

Her eyes flare, and this time not because I’m flashing her. “Donovan? Firestone?”

“Yeah. That’s me.”

“Oh.” She blinks a few times, and her expression goes stony. Or stonier than it already was, anyway. “We’ve been emailing.” She motions between us.

“Huh?” Today has been a cluster, and I’m about ready to throw in the towel.

Her lip curls up in a half sneer. “About Bee’s estate. We’ve been emailing back and forth for months.”

I give my head a shake and drag my gaze away from her mouth. “Nope. I’ve been emailing with some dude named Dillion.”

“Not some dude—me. I’m Dillion. Dillion Stitch.” She crosses her arms, eyes narrowed in distrust.

“I thought you said your name was Lynnie.” I rub my temple; my brain hurts from the crap I’ve been through over the past couple of hours, and this sure isn’t helping.

“No. I said Bee called me Lynnie. My actual name is Dillion.” She pokes at her cheek with her tongue, gaze flitting from my mouth to my eyes and back again.

I rub my lip self-consciously. “Do you have any other names you go by that I should know about?”

“Nope, that covers it.”

“Why did Bee call you Lynnie?” I don’t know why I’m entertaining this. For all I know she’s lying about who she is. I hate how paranoid I suddenly am.

“Because Bee thought Dillion was a boy’s name, so she dropped the first half. I don’t know why she added the i-e to the end, though. I never asked, and she never offered.” She blows out a breath and looks around the cabin, eyes suddenly soft. “Not that that matters. Anyway, I’m guessing you’re here to put the will into probate. You must be here to have the place appraised so you can sell it to developers or whatever. Good luck on getting the lot divided, by the way. Parceling off the land will never happen. Besides, the zoning laws on this side are different, so whatever plan you’re probably hatching isn’t going to work. You might get a fair price for the land, but I’m not sure whoever buys it is gonna get much love from their neighbors.”

“Right. Okay.” I have no idea what she’s talking about, or why she’s so damn hostile. “I can’t sell right now anyway, so chill out.” As of this moment, this is the only place I have to go while I’m figuring out what my next steps will be. And I love this place, so I have no plans to sell—not that it’s any of her business.

She frowns, her eyes narrowing. “But you’ll sell eventually.”

“What’s it to you if I do?” I’ve had it with people today.

“You might be able to sell, but you’ll never get them to agree to subdivide the lot.”

“Good to know.” And I’m about done with this conversation.

“I’m keeping an eye on you.” She points her index and middle fingers at her own eyes and then jabs them in my direction. “Both of them, actually.”

And with that she storms out.

The screen door hits the side of the cottage and bangs shut but then bounces open again. I watch as she nearly loses her footing on a loose board. “You should have that fixed before someone breaks an ankle!” she shouts as she stalks across the gravel driveway.

“Maybe you should consider wearing different shoes!” I call after her. “Or you could stay off my property from now on!”

She bats at the trees as she stomps her way through the bushes. There’s another small cottage-style house beyond the brush, but that isn’t where she goes. Instead she heads for the rusted trailer almost completely hidden by the trees. A few seconds later a door slams shut.

So much for a peaceful vacation in Pearl Lake.

CHAPTER 5

FAMILY BIZ

Dillion

I’ve been working for the family business, a.k.a. Footprint Renovations and Home Maintenance, all weekend, and now it’s Monday. In that time, I’ve discovered how lackadaisical they’ve been about the bookkeeping and contract management. I have my work cut out for me, but I can already see a bunch of ways they can be more organized, reduce costs, and save me time. Starting with their filing system, which seems to be several piles stacked around the office and on top of the cabinets instead of in them.

I’m currently sitting cross-legged on the floor with a stack of file folders in front of me, trying to arrange them in some kind of logical order. What I really want to do is take them down to South Beach and start a bonfire. Especially the file I found citing a dispute between Footprint and a north side client who called some of the charges into question. It looks like it’s been resolved, but it’s something that shouldn’t have happened at all.

“You all right, Darlin’?”

“Totally fine.” I flip the folder open and sift through the contents. The file is fourteen years old. They only need to be kept for seven years, so I move the folder to the shred stack. It’s substantial at this point.

A coffee appears in front of my face, my dad’s thick, scar-riddled, and callused fingers wrapped around it.

“Oh, bless you and the coffee gods. I needed this more than you can know.” I cradle it between my hands and take a tentative sip, humming contentedly. “This is from Boones, isn’t it? Did you get apple fritters too?” I finally lift my gaze to find my dad smiling down at me, a greasy paper bag dangling from his other hand.

I try to snatch the bag, but he lifts it out of reach. “You can only have one if you take a break.”

“Do I look like I have time for a break?” I motion to the mountain of file folders.

“You’ll be more effective if you stop for ten minutes and eat something. You didn’t come in for breakfast this morning, and unless you’re grocery shopping on the sly, the only thing in the trailer fridge is beer.”

I ate half a bag of stale salt-and-vinegar chips this morning, and that was hours ago. We start early, and my neighbor apparently likes to stay up late working on construction projects and listening to music. He also likes to burn crap in Bee’s firepit. The worst part is that the firepit is close to my trailer, so I not only get to listen to his music and his hammering, but everything I own now smells like campfire. The charred aroma is embedded in my hair, so I’ve given up on wearing it down and instead keep it in a ponytail. Even still, every once in a while I get a solid whiff, and it’s highly unpleasant.

My dad is still standing in front of me, waiting. So I give in, partly because he has a point and also because there is nothing more delicious than one of Boones’s apple fritters. I step over the maze of stacked files and follow him into the break room, where my uncle John and one of their employees, Aaron Saunders, are seated around the small table, both cupping take-out coffees. Aaron and my brother were friends in high school, but Aaron disappeared for a few years after graduation. No one knows where he went or why he came back, but when he returned to Pearl Lake, he immediately started working for Footprint.