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next twelve hours she would be tracking down old wrecks and cheap repo jobs in the R3 Recovery tow truck. She considered herself lucky if she picked up a few parking violations for the day. They were cut and dry and she was always lucky to never encounter the deviant who had not fed the meter or left their car in a private parking lot. She managed to ride her bike for twenty minutes in the morning to the office, and another twenty at night returning to her small apartment. She loathed dismounting it these days; the former meant another day in the stinking truck, and the latter was a near fall as she was so exhausted, uneven able to ride for pleasure.
    When she pulled up to the office building, the sunshine streaming murderously in her eyes nearly made her plow directly into the window of the barbershop next door. The barber, a man with an impressive afro and handlebar moustache by the name of Jonas glared at Riley as her front wheel left a mark on his window, but without anger. He rolled his eyes, and she gave a wan smile of apology.
    Inside R3 Recovery’s office, Roberta was already at work and had busied herself with brewing coffee. Her face was as thunderous as it had ever been, and this had been the same story of the day for the majority of the week. Riley was merely happy that her ire was not directed at her, but every time she looked at Roberta’s face her own resentful feelings bubbled up to the surface of her mind. Damn, she had almost forgotten them again. The atmosphere in the office had been so sour of late she thought she might have choked on it. Roberta smiled good morning, without humour.
    “Coffee?” Roberta said, “It’s fresh.”
    “Sure. Bobby, can we take a few minutes not being sour?” Riley said. Her blunt words were tempered with the most placatory smile she could manage. There was no good in starting a second front of the great Vaughan civil war, oh-fourteen edition. Fortunately Roberta saw what Riley was getting at, and shook her head for a moment, clearing her thoughts.
    “Sorry. It’s been on my mind since Tuesday. How can she say that, when I’m out bringing home bacon and she… damn it, I’m sorry. I’m doing it again, aren’t I?” Roberta laughed. “I can’t even stop! I must be going mad. Did you sleep all right?”
    Riley appreciated the change of topic, but shook her head.
    “I’m not even sure if I sleep anymore, I mean, there’s this strange period every night where I close my eyes for a few seconds, and then I wake up and I’m on my bike coming back here. My joints are really aching lately too; do you think I’m coming down with R3-itis? Get it? Arthritis? Huh?”
    Riley elbowed her sister at her joke, causing Roberta to wobble as she tried not to spill her coffee. She did laugh along, at least, and that made Riley feel warmth at last. There was nothing like a good family brawl to really put the Georgia summer on ice.
    “Very funny, David Letterman. You could have just said no!”
    “I’ll have you know, I turned Letterman down; he said I was too edgy for a prime time audience to handle.”
    Riley nodded wisely. Roberta’s mood picked up for at least the fifteen minutes following, until Ricki arrived and the tension between them returned with a vengeance. The cause of the issue was never far when all three sisters were in the same room. The root cause, of course, was the impending financial apocalypse of their business. The subsequent effect and exacerbating symptoms of this terminal illness was that human nature came into play. Of course, Ricki was doing her best, but it was Riley and Roberta who were out every day hunting people and cars down for peanuts. It took only a few minutes before Roberta had sniped once too often, which was to say, once, and Ricki figuratively exploded.
    “Enough! I get it! You knew what you were getting into, both of you when we took this on, you know private investigative work is the long game and that’s why I’m stuck in here