Ruined By My Stepbrother novel · Chapter 11 of 32

Chapter 11: The Inspection

Barrett had both hands on the cooler handles in the truck bed.

He looked at the inspector's face and went a shade paler under his beard.

"I know her," he said, very quietly, without moving his lips.

"From where?"

"She closed a crab shack in Wildwood two summers ago. I was at the bar that night. She took my name as a witness."

"So?"

"So I wrote about it a week later. She called the magazine about the column."

"Then don't let her see your face," I said.

I unlocked the front door and smiled at the inspector like she'd brought flowers.

"Come on in. Coffee?"

"No, thank you."

Barrett carried the cooler past her with his head down and went straight into the walk-in.

He shut the door behind him.

Frankie arrived at ten, took one look at the clipboard and put on her customer voice.

"Oh, an inspection! How fun. Do you want to see our sanitizer buckets? They're my children."

The inspector didn't smile.

She checked the hand sink temperature.

She checked the dates on every quart container on the line.

She got down on her knees and looked under the fryer with a flashlight.

"Somebody told you we have rats," I said.

"Somebody told me a lot of things," she said. "Rodents, raw chicken over seafood, a cook handling food with an open wound."

An open wound.

The burn on Barrett's wrist, two weeks ago, under a bandage.

Somebody had been watching my line closely.

"We don't serve chicken," Frankie said. "We're a seafood restaurant. It's in the name."

"I'll need to see the walk-in."

Frankie and I didn't look at each other.

The inspector pulled the heavy door open.

The cold rolled out over our feet.

Barrett was at the very back behind the speed rack, with his back to us.

He was stacking cases of corn.

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