“You saw her coming.”
“What’s the matter with you?” Kit Kat asked, getting my attention back. “Your top fall off again?”
My mouth, which I hadn’t realized was open, snapped shut.
“Glad you’re home,” she added, not overly concerned with my reactions. “Hey, have you seen Tweety? The old bat’s starting to wander, and the beer tent’s opening in ten minutes.”
“Um.” My eyes flashed to Freddie’s. He shook his head in a quick no.
Kit Kat’s face suddenly dropped as her eyes landed on the ambulance.
I grabbed her arm. “No. No. It’s not Tweety,” I said quickly, realizing what she must be thinking. “It’s Mr. Masterson, but Tweety—”
“A beer! You need a beer, Erica! Go! Have fun,” he said, pushing me in the direction of the tent. “If I see Tweety, I’ll send her along.”
“What’s the matter with you, Ng?” Kit Kat jumped in. “All that polyester you wearing getting to your brain? I don’t need Erica to take me to the beer tent.”
“Erica, can I speak to you for a second?” Freddie asked, scratching the side of his face. Before I could answer, he yanked me by the arm and dragged me over to a water gun racing game. “You need to do this for me.”
“Freddie, I really think you’re blowing this whole thing way out of proportion.”
“Mrs. Masterson is going to be here any second, and Grady is going to have to tell her that not only is her husband dead, but he was on a pleasure trip with—”
“Two bucks a race,” a man above us interrupted.
“We’re not playing,” Freddie said quickly without looking up. “We’re having an official conversation. As I was saying—”
“Then do it somewhere else,” the man pressed. Both Freddie and I looked up this time. The man had a really remarkable handlebar mustache on his overly tanned face, and by the fading tag on his shirt, his name was Rex. “You’re scaring away the customers.”
Freddie stepped back, cocked his head, and hiked his pants up by the belt. “Um,” he said before licking his lips, “I don’t think you understand. Do you see this uniform?”
The man sharply puffed some air out of his lips, making his body jump.
Freddie literally staggered back a step, grabbing my arm for support.
“Freddie,” I said, with as much calm warning as I could muster. “Take it easy—”
“I will have you know,” Freddie snapped, stepping up to the counter, “that you are speaking to the CEO of Otter Lake Security, and that I have been specially tasked by the sheriff of this town to—”
The man put up his hands and waved them out in mock-fear.
“That’s it.” Freddie lunged for the water pistol anchored to the game table, aimed it up at the man, and squeezed the trigger. A few drops came out the end.
“It doesn’t work until I turn it on.” The man picked up a pistol and pressed a pedal on the floor with his boot; a spray of water shot out directly at Freddie’s chest. “See?”
Water splattered all over the front of Freddie’s shirt. I gasped and jumped in front of him to take the rest of the shot. I then planted one hand on Freddie’s chest to push him back while using the other hand to viciously point my candy apple at the man. “Not cool, buddy! Not cool!” I then turned my attention around. “Freddie? Freddie? Focus on me,” I said, patting my chest. “Calm down now. Your eyes, they’re showing too much white. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
His gaze moved to mine. It took everything in me not to step back from it.
“He sprayed me with his gun.” Freddie said each word very carefully.
“I know. I know,” I said, nodding. “But … you did try to spray him first.”
Freddie’s eyes, unbelievably, grew even wider.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. You had the law on your side,” I said, trying to pin his eyes with my own—they were wandering back to Rex. “But you have a job to do. You were saying something about me getting Kit Kat out of here?”
Freddie’s brow furrowed. Then he blinked a few times. “I was, and don’t think that I don’t know you are manipulating me right now.” He slid his head sideways to look at the Water Pistol Cowboy and mouthed the words, This isn’t over, before sliding his face back in front of mine. “Just get Kit Kat out of here. Believe me, I’ve been really patient with Grady and his problems with sharing authority, not to mention all his jealousy issues over the boat situation—”
“Boat situation?”
“But it’s all starting to get annoying. I just want to get past all that and have him accept me as a brother in uniform.”
I closed my eyes. I had been home what? Half an hour? “I can’t do it, Freddie. Kit Kat will kill me. She’s going to find out I took her from the scene. And she will kill me. They’re twins.”
“Please?”
Nope. This was not at all what I had imagined coming home would be like. Just then a woman accidentally bumped my shoulder, making me drop my candy apple to the dirt.
“Sorry,” she called out with a whoopsie face.
I waved her off and turned back to Freddie. “Fine, but you owe me.”
“Whatever,” Freddie said, picking up my apple and tossing it in the trash. “Just go!”
I turned on my heel back to face Kit Kat … when I suddenly found myself saying, “Freddie, tell me that is not Kit Kat pushing up her sleeves like she’s about to fight someone.”
Freddie didn’t have time to answer before Kit Kat shouted, “You did not just call my sister that!”
Freddie hiked up his belt. “And here we go.”