“I mean, you stopped a criminal operation and saved them hundreds, maybe thousands. Any lawyer would take 50%. You let it be known in certain circles that you and your app are available for a small fee, you’ve got your own sideline. Coming up with a phone bank to counter a phone bank might be truly...”
Roark snorted. “I got an AI almost done. I can do one scammer at a time with a robot talking. Why you tellin’ me this?”
“Because I need all the help I can get to keep Evie from trouble.”
Roark laughed. “You askin’ the impossible, dude, but I’m all in. Give me work. Whatcha need?”
“To start with—bugging a boardroom while I research the legality of your new app.”
* * *
Evie returned from church alone,leaving her family and Loretta to brunch with Larraine and take a tour of the mayoral candidate’s designer clothing factory. She changed into a pair of frayed cargo shorts and a bulky work shirt she’d bought at the thrift store when she’d painted Loretta’s room. Then stuffing flyers into her tote, she trotted happily down to the Subaru, hoping to steal a few hours of ghost talk with Marlene.
Reuben was leaning against the car. She’d lost track of him in the mob of family, but of course he had no interest in touring a factory he probably saw nightly.
“You goin’ somewhere without me?” he asked with all semblance of nonchalance.
“Any reason I should take you? You can’t talk to Marlene.”
“You’re gonna hurt my feelings, girl. Get in the van and pretend we’re a team, okay?” He opened the passenger door of his utility vehicle.
“Jax told you to back off,” she countered warily.
She’d really wanted to test her new car, but she supposed he had a point. The Subaru wasn’t equipped the way the van was. “I just want to chat up a few old people. You know you hate that sort of thing.” Glowering, she buckled into the van’s passenger seat.
“Yeah, but I got to collect those cameras, remember? And now I’ve sent those messages you had me set up, Sunshine won’t be so sunny. You need bugs in their offices. You were planning on visiting more offices, weren’t you?” He took the highway toward the interstate but pulled off onto Ariel’s side road.
“Are we picking up Roark too? I thought we weren’t taking the van out there.”
Roark stepped out of the woods and flagged them down. Reuben did a neat three-point turn in the middle of the empty road and halted so Roark could climb in back.
“Ca va, bébé?” he called as he settled in with the equipment.
“I have your seat,” Evie grumbled.
“Nah, Reuben’s got that. You got his. It works out.” He began rummaging through drawers.
“Do I ever get to drive my car?” Resigned, she settled back and tried to plot how she could use the extra help, but plotting wasn’t her expertise.
“If we need to split up, I expect you can drive. But you’re talking to Mrs. Gump, and we’re taking out cameras, and it’s all one place, right? We need you as our cover. Ain’t no one letting us in looking like we do.” Reuben glanced at her outfit. “Although you ain’t looking particularly professional today.”
“That’s because I wasn’t planning on going in the front door.” She crossed her arms and tried to reconfigure her thinking to take in these two over-protective clowns.
“Back door, even better!” Roark crowed. “It’s got a keypad. I can do dat.”
Evie wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of askinghow.For all she knew, there was an app for that.
“How’d Sunday go-to-meeting go?” Roark asked in amusement as he rattled around in the van’s drawers.
Reuben just chortled.
Evie poked his shoulder. “It went just fine. Reverend Roberts is a broad-minded man. He welcomed Larraine and let her speak at the coffee afterward. His brother-in-law, the deacon, is less accepting.”
“The deacon told Mavis—you had to be there,” Reuben was grinning ear to ear. “The deacon told Mavis he’d never set foot in her shop again. She told him he didn’t have to; his wife ordered his keep-it-up supplements from her website. And if the pills didn’t work anymore, he could guess who was to blame.”
Evie grinned. “It was worth wasting a few hours of my Sunday to see Deacon try to drag his wife out and all the women blocking his path. Then Larraine tapped him on the shoulder...” She giggled, reliving the scene.
“Like I said, man, you shoulda been there. Larraine is a foot taller and twenty years younger and the deacon, he looked like he was about to get swallowed up and dragged off to hell. He dropped his wife’s arm and fled and might never be seen again.”