How bad can it be?”
He shrugged. “Hard to say.”
“Great. You forgot to ask Fletcher about being an elf.”
“Let’s save that for dinner and you can ask him and the General yourself.”
“You want me to do it?”
“They could turn me down, but you? One shot of those big green eyes and they won’t be able to climb into their costumes fast enough.”
“Oh, please.”
“What do you mean? It worked on me, didn’t it?” He couldn’t wait to see it happen. Way more fun than shooting rubber bands.
THE NEXT MORNING, Sylvie was pretty darn happy. She was more or less in charge of the mall. Chase had promised to support her and she could hire an assistant to fill in the gaps. She’d bet it wouldn’t be long before Chase stepped out of the picture altogether and she’d have what she wanted after all, just a little later than she’d expected.
Maybe it was better to have to fight for the job. A battle made the reward sweeter. That could only make her a better manager, right? Oh, she was feeling good this morning.
Parking her sturdy Volvo, she climbed out, clicked the key to lock it, then turned for the mall.
And stopped dead, staring with horror. All up and down one of the gold-painted turrets were the words F**K this mall. Over and over and over.
Again. It had happened again. Someone hated Starlight Desert enough to vandalize it twice.
Dread poured through her like ice water, followed by hot waves of anger. She fisted her hands, wanting to punch whoever had done this. She could hardly breathe.
Randolph and Betty rounded the corner with Chase, who was putting away his phone. Sylvie marched to meet them at the damaged columns, decorative pebbles crunching beneath each step.
“Looks like we’ll need that graffiti buster again, Betty,” she said.
“Not until the police see this,” Chase said. “I called them out here so we can make a report. Maybe there are vandals working the area they know about.”
“It’s those delinquents at Free Arts,” Randolph said. “They have too much time on their hands and plenty of art supplies.”
“They’re not allowed aerosol paints,” Sylvie said. “And they love the mall. Whoever did this has a grudge against us.”
“We did what we could with the manpower we have,” Randolph said. “Leo and his crew doubled their rounds and changed up the schedule. We need more guards to catch these creeps.”
Sylvie surveyed the damage more closely. “This looks different than the first message. It’s all capital letters and they used the F word. No toilet paper or dumped trash, either.”
“Different kid on the trigger is all,” Randolph said, “and they ran out of time to toss trash. Maybe they saw Leo coming.”
Chase joined her at the wall, studying the letters. “There are lots of blots and drips here.”
“I had that problem when I stenciled the umbrellas. It takes a while to get the spray right.”
“So maybe they’re new to graffiti?”
Chase bent down to the nearby hedge and pushed back the branches. “Looks like they left something.” It was a spray-paint can and when Sylvie got closer she noticed black thumbprints forming a perfect heart on the yellow label. She gasped. “I think that’s my can.”
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