Page 23 of Shattered By the Currents

“I can. BecauseIam the manager. Not you.” Raven held out her hand. “Give it to me.”

“What?”

“Give me the key.Now.” Raven was mildly aware of the new silence in the other room. But she was far past the point of feeling any kind of capacity to pull back.

Lottie’s cheeks bloomed. “I will do no such thing.”

“Oh really? So you don’t mind me calling our town mayor and letting him know you took his key and kept it? Because I know that’s how you got it and you broke the law. I could call Ward too. Should we see what he thinks?” Would the lazy sheriff care? She had no idea. But if the fear in Lottie’s eyes was anything to go by, she didn’t like the threat.

Lottie’s gaze flickered behind Raven before meeting hers again. Then she pulled a single key from her pocket and pushed it into Raven’s hand. “Here.”

“Good. Stop undermining me. This ismyjob. And you need to let me do it.”

With a huff, Lottie stormed around her, and it was only when Raven turned that she noticed the group of women now stood by the door. They’d all heard their argument—including Maureen, the self-proclaimed town psychic.

Strangely, she didn’t care. Theyshouldhear. This was Raven’s life, and she was tired of Lottie and Nathaniel and Xander all trying to bully her into submission.

The center cleared out pretty quickly after that. It wasn’t until she was finally alone that the flickers of doubt started to slip in. Maybe she should have gone easier on Lottie. Maybe yelling at her in front of a bunch of locals wasn’t the best idea.

Dammit.

As the day progressed, the series of unfortunate events just piled on top of each other. One-by-one, people started withdrawing from activities. Sunday yoga. Friday night bingo. Even the new paint-and-sip class she had coming up soon.

When she went for a walk at lunch, she felt eyes on her. Two older women stared as she crossed the road. Another whispered to her husband outside of Bloom. Had word really gotten around about her argument with Lottiethatquickly?

By the time she was done for the day, she was exhausted. Need-to-drop-into-bed, pull-the-sheets-over-her-head, sleep-for-a-decade kind of exhausted. And to make everything worse, she still hadn’t been able to get in touch with her PI.

Had something happened to him? Or had he just taken her money and blocked her?

Panic tried to settle inside her belly, but she forced it away. Hewouldcall her back. She’d paid him, and he ran a business. He was probably just knee-deep in finding incriminating information on her ex.

She pulled up to her apartment and tried to slip her key into the lock…only to find it didn’t fit.

What the hell?

She tried again. Same thing. Did she have the wrong door?

She glanced up at the number. Apartment three. No. Right apartment.

She tried for the third time. “Come on.”

When it still didn’t work, she pulled out her cell and called her landlord.

Dale answered immediately. “Raven. I’ve been waiting for your call.”

“There’s something wrong with my key. It’s?—”

“I changed the locks.”

She froze. “What? You can’t do that. And you have to give me three days’ notice.”

“Too bad. Should have paid your rent on time. I have a new tenant moving in later this week.”

Panic crawled up her chest. She shook her head. “You said I had until the end of the day, Dale. That was our agreement.”

“Yeah, but then I talked to my sister.”

She frowned. “Your sister?”