If Preston had been packing, Marina was fairly certain he would have shot them all right there. His face was so red and his body so tense that she wondered if he might just have a heart attack on the spot. He’d never been in a situation he couldn’t control and he was having a huge problem admitting defeat.

“What do you say, counselor?” Luke said. “Either we all put this behind us or we all move forward and let the chips fall. You want to roll those dice?”

“Fine!” Preston spat out. “I’ll have the charges against Avery dropped.”

Marina nodded. “As long as that happens and remains the case, I won’t press charges against Chastity. But I will be requesting a restraining order. Fair is fair, right?”

“Whatever,” Preston said, and stormed out.

“I still want to give my statement,” Marina said to Sheriff Owen. “I don’t trust him and quite frankly, I don’t trust you either. So this will all be by the book. The two of you aren’t going to sweep things under the rug this time.”

Sheriff Owen had the decency to look embarrassed. “I’ll take your statement now. Do you want your lawyer present?”

Marina looked over at Luke and smiled. “No. I want my date present.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“I still can’t believe this,” Halcyon said as she dabbed Marina’s backside with peroxide.

Marina jumped at the sting. “I know. It’s sorta out there.”

“‘Sorta out there’ describes your entire life lately. How can someone who has gone overboard trying to keep her life on the down low have so much drama in such a small amount of time?”

“Beats me. It’s not like I asked for any of this.”

“Oh, honey, I’m not blaming you. I’m just dumbfounded by it all. I mean, if outrageous things happened to me, no one would bat an eye. But you’ve always been the straitlaced one. The nice one.”

“I’m still the nice one. To people I like, anyway.”

“Yeah. How long is that list?”

“Not very and getting shorter by the day.”

Halcyon laughed. “I can’t believe Adelaide posted video on YouTube.”

“We don’t know for sure it was her.”

“Really? The YouTube handle is KissMyOldButtPrestonLeDoux. Who else would it be?”

“I’m just glad she did it. Now Preston has no choice but to drop everything against Avery or he’s going to watch his precious go down the same path he was trying to send Avery down.”

Halcyon shook her head. “Quite a night. Okay, I’m done with the peroxide. None of these are deep, but I can put Neosporin on them if you’d like.”

“No, thanks. They’ll be okay. Will probably itch like crazy more than anything.”

Halcyon sat on the barstool next to Marina and took a sip of the wine she’d poured them earlier. “I hate to bring this up given everything else that happened, but did you find out anything on the ring front?”

“No. I even got Dottie to wrangle Janice into giving us a tour of the house.”