This olive branch, she could at least understand. Daniella took the peace offering and smoked it once. She tried to hand it back to Rinn.

But Rinn shook her head. “We’re bonding, right? I had to try something.”

Imogen and Daniella laughed.

Rinn waved their laughter off with a flutter of her hand. She got up and dusted off her pleated skirt so that it held no wrinkles or debris from the asphalt. “All right, ladies. There are two things on the agenda. The first is I think we should go and tell Jo what an asshole Brock Harvey is.”

“Ugh,” said Daniella. Rinn was right, of course, but that didn’t mean Daniella had to like it.

“Definitely,” said Imogen, with a nod. She’d put the disposable vape back down on the ground where they’d found it. Like the last two hits were to be passed along to the next person who stumbled across the alleyway and needed them.

“And the next item on the agenda?” Daniella did her best to make a Very Serious Face, but she cracked in the end and puffed out a laugh instead.

Rinn simply straightened her shoulders in response. Daniella felt her resentment for Little Miss Sunshine shift. Bloom outward from her chest into another feeling altogether. Something almost like respect and startlingly close to admiration.

“The next item on the agenda,” said Rinn, “is that I think that Archer Hunt Junior has been tanking this store. For at least a year. If not more. But I have no idea how. You two have got to know what he’s been doing. All I know is why.”

“What?” asked Imogen.

“No, not what. Why,” said Rinn.

“Oh my God. That would explain the inventory orders going down,” said Daniella. “I noticed the inventory orders were down when I checked on Eli’s Air Jordan purchase this morning. Sales are down, but sales are only down because inventory is down, and we’re not even honoring any of our special orders.”

“Systematic mismanagement,” said Imogen. “That’s what it is. Nothing is shelved right, and there are guns out in the open of the store, and the customers are being deliberately pissed off. No wonder we’re getting fewer and fewer sellers at the sales counter. The special orders not being honored—God, that makes so much sense. I kept wondering why nothing I was notating in the inventory was ever there the next week. But why?”

“Because he can’t sell the place unless it’s no longer viable as a bookstore.” Rinn gestured wide, her arm trying to convey the whole space of the store.

“How do you know that?” asked Imogen.

“It’s what Jo said. On the tour. When she hired me,” said Rinn.

“You remember your employee tour with Jo?” Daniella stared.

Rinn smoothed out her skirt again. “Yes, I do.”