Page 54 of Rough
I clicked my tongue. “Sally.” I shook my head regretfully and gave her a half-smile. “I thought that we just agreed to be honest with each other. Did we not?”
“We did.” She nodded, her voice squeaking.
“Then why are you lying to me?” I asked.
“I’m… not.” She frowned.
“Are you really trying to tell me that you got out of your warm and cozy bed to skirt all the way across town, at night, in the cold dark, to come here and bicker with Garret about his club kitchen?”
I had reached the monumental moment.
Sally’s guilt came pouring out. She shook her head and sniffed, still looking down. “No. I didn’t do it all on my own.”
“Who put you up to it, then?” I pressed.
She looked up at me with a somber expression and pitiful eyes. “The mayor.”
“The… mayor?” I asked. “Mayor Beech?”
“Yes.” Sally’s cheeks flushed. “But you didn’t hear it from me.” Her eyes danced with pleading.
“Okay.” I nodded, appeasing her. “That’s fair. You told me what I needed to know. I suppose I owe you a return favor. My lips are sealed on that front.”
Sally exhaled a deep breath of relief. Her eyes shimmered with gratitude. “Thank you, so much.”
“So, to clarify, Mayor Beech personally asked you to come out here and look for code violations at this time of night, correct?” I stared at her expectantly.
Sally nodded. “Yes, that’s correct.” She squirmed with anxiety.
I released a long sigh and shook my head. “And you took the bait.”
Sally refused to make eye contact with me. “He might have pressed me to invent reasons to close the club. He wanted me to find reasons to shut it down, so I did.”
“You invented reasons to shut down the club,” I countered.
“Not exactly.” She peered up at me with a coy expression.
“You just said that the mayor told you to invent reasons to shut down operations,” I argued.
“He told me to look for reasons to close the club,” she contested.
I rolled my eyes. She was back to being stubborn again, and my frustration returned.
“Sally, you are craftier than you are making yourself out to be. I know a conniving vixen when I see one.”
Sally’s mouth dropped and she gasped. Her cheeks flushed red. “How dare you—”
“I’m just calling it as I see it,” I stated with a casual shrug. “If you won’t blatantly admit that you invented a reason to close us down just because the mayor told you to, then unfortunately, Garret isn’t going to take that news very well.”
My manipulation tactic worked. I knew that Sally didn’t want to be blackmailed, but if she wanted to keep her job, then she probably should work to be a little more accommodating. Needless to say, if she was willing to bend the truth, so was I. I had absolutely all intentions of informing Garret of exactly what she had told me. If anything, we could just tell the mayor that we figured things out on our own.
“Are you willing to compromise?” I asked. “Even a little?”
Sally shifted her weight and sighed. “I suppose that I would be willing to allow Mr. Olsen to reopen his club tomorrow as long as he is willing to fix the fryer issue while I’m still here and witnessing the job to completion.”
She was being petty, but I had to take what I could get. “That sounds like a suitable plan to me,” I affirmed.
I walked just outside the kitchen where the chef was waiting and called him back inside. He switched out the oil in the fryers and cleaned them out with warm soap and water with Sally present and watching. He placed them back into their containers and gave Sally a glare.