“Six thousand dollars!” Gus heard the shriek coming out of his mouth before he could close it. “That’s not possible.”

“For that much money, you should just get a new one,” Shawn said.

“That’s a company car, Shawn. Do you have any idea what that means?”

“That you don’t even own it, so we shouldn’t care if it gets crushed?”

“Not exactly,” Gus said. “It means I’ve been entrusted with the responsibility to take care of a valuable piece of equipment owned by Central Coast Pharmaceuticals for use on my sales route. And that it’s my sworn obligation to return it to them in exactly the shape I received it, aside from routine wear and tear.” He turned back to the potatoes. “There must be some kind of mistake.”

“Yeah, and you made it eighty-seven times,” the potatoes said. “Parked in front of a hydrant at the corner of Anacapa and Cruzon.”

Gus pulled the laptop across the counter and stared at the screen.

“That’s where that coffee place is,” he said. “But I never park on the street when I go there. Why would I when there’s a huge lot right down the street?”

“Because you hate cold coffee,” Shawn said. “And when you’ve got to drive it all the way back to the office, every second of cooling counts.”

Gus turned to him, realization, then rage, boiling up inside him. “You did this!”

“Only because I care about your health,” Shawn said. “Once a cup of coffee drops below a hundred fifty degrees, all sorts of bacteria start growing in there. I couldn’t take a chance on giving you food poisoning.”

Gus pointed at the screen. “You parked there an average of twenty-seven minutes each time.”

“Do you think I just pulled that hundred-fifty-degree number out of the air? I was consulting with top coffee professionals.”

“You were flirting with the waitress!”

“Yes, but…” Shawn stopped. “You know, I’ve got no way of justifying that one.”