“Be obliged and be shocked,” he returned. “To start with, it’d be a first. Clients are nosy but I get that. But also, I’d be curious as all hell to see how this place shapes up.”
He was right. I was going to be curious.
But I preferred to get it done.
I looked beyond him to the buildings and saw the studio no longer had shingles on the roof.
The rest of it looked just like it had before.
“How are things going?” I asked.
“Doing the roofs now from worst to best,” he told me, glancing behind him. He looked back at me. “That was a hard call so we kinda flipped a coin.”
I smiled at him.
“Studio is being done now, as you can see. We’ll move to the garage next then the generator building,” he shared.
I nodded.
“Stuff you can’t see from here, everything’s gutted and it’s been hauled away,” he reported. “Clean slate now. So when we get the roofs on, we’ll be able to dig in. As we decided before you left, we’ll be doing the studio first since it won’t take as much to get it sorted out so you’ll have a place to stay while we work.” He tipped his sun-bleached blond head and asked, “You wanna come up and see?”
I most assuredly wanted to come up and see.
“Sure,” I replied.
His gaze turned to my rental car. “You wanna drive that up?”
I shook my head. “I’ll walk.”
“Suit yourself,” he murmured, stepped out of the opening of the gate, and after I made my way through, he closed it right behind me.
I studied him curiously.
“To say we got interest in what we’re doing is an understatement,” he explained. “Good those signs came in. I couldn’t get them up fast enough.”
“So they’re working,” I remarked.
He nodded, starting to walk so I fell in step beside him.
“Still got folks taking photos, but they don’t park in the way like they used to, so my boys and suppliers can get through. One of my men gets caught by someone while he’s opening the gates, they might ask questions, but that’s about all. Before, they just jumped the fence or pushed open the gate. So I’d say the fence works too.”
“Do you think I need to have signs made to be put up along the perimeter?” I asked, hoping I wouldn’t. They would muddle the clean look of the fence not to mention be unfriendly.
I didn’t want people jumping the fence and knocking on my door, but I was of a mind a fence was a fence. The statement was made by its very existence. In other words, you didn’t jump it. So I hoped it and the signs at all the entry points to the property would work.
“We’ll keep an eye on things, see if we have any troubles. But so far, since the fence went up, no jumping, and since the signs went up, no one has pushed through the gate,” Walt replied.
That was good.
We sallied forth with the tour and he had not lied. Everything was gutted in every building. No rotting furniture. No terrifying kitchens. No catastrophic bathrooms.
It wasn’t clean but it wouldn’t need to be. Not yet.
What it was, was gutted.
“Windows have been ordered, the ones on the outbuildings are standard and have been delivered, so those’ll go in soon,” he shared when we’d made it to our final destination, gone to the top and then retreated down the stairs and were on the bottom floor of the lighthouse. “Got men coming in to do the foundation work on the outbuildings starting next week. Paige says her people are good to send the stuff you guys decided on for the studio when we’re ready. I’m thinking that’ll be the week after. We’re finding some rot under the shingles as I expected, but a goodly amount of it, something I didn’t expect. So the roofs are gonna take longer than I thought. But only a couple of days.”
“I imagine you run into a lot of that,” I observed.
“We do, though don’t run into a lot of clients who get it,” he said, and I looked up at him.
“I want it done right, Walt, not in a hurry. If I could snap my fingers and have it all as I want it, I would have done that two months ago. Alas, that’s not in my power.”
He laughed again but sobered and said, “We’re taking pictures, Cady. Not doing you dirty. We’ll show you what we run into and if it gets hairy and things are gonna get outta hand or jack up cost, we’ll share with you and get your go ahead.”
“That’s appreciated,” I replied, looking around and fitting ideas Paige was sending me to the space in my head.
“Oh, almost forgot, the sheriff came by,” Walt said casually.
My vision went blurry, the blood in my veins stopped moving and the functionality of my lungs ceased.
I could do nothing but stare at him, watching him pull out a wallet that, if I had any ability to think in that moment, I would have guessed his wife was in denial about its existence because it was stuffed full at the same time falling apart.
“He gave me his card to give to you,” he muttered.
“The sheriff?” I couldn’t help it. It came out as a squeak.
Walt stopped rifling through his wallet and looked at me.
“I know. I was surprised too. We don’t get a lot of work in this county, contractor here underbids every job we quote on. We just have to come in sometimes to fix stuff he cuts corners on. You get what you pay for, but whatever. So I don’t know the guy, never met him, never had any dealings with him. Or the sheriff in my county as a matter of fact. Not sure what the sheriff’s business was but he seemed pretty laidback. Not like he had an issue. Just asked if you were around, and when I said you weren’t, he asked me to give you his number.”
“He asked for me,” I cleared my throat, “by name?”
Walt nodded, going back to his wallet. “I figured you’d want to find out what that was about so I gave him your number. From your response to this news, he didn’t call.”
No.
Coert didn’t call.
He had my number but he didn’t call.
And it was worth it to repeat he had my number.
And he knew I was here.
So he’d come to the lighthouse to speak to me.
God, I wasn’t ready for this. Not even close.
“Here it is,” Walt said, pulling out a card and offering it to me.
I didn’t want to take it. I didn’t even want to look at it.
But so as not to give anything away, I took it.
I wanted to ask a million questions. Walt said he’d seemed “pretty laidback” but I wanted more on his demeanor, what he said, how long he was there, did he seem keen to see me in a good way or did he act like he might shoot me on sight.
The only thing I allowed myself to ask was, “Did he give you any idea why he was looking for me?”
“Nope, I asked though. He just gave me his card and told me to tell you to call him. That’s it. He wasn’t here but, say, five minutes, if that. Maybe he just gives his time to welcoming folks to town.” He gave a tilt to his head to indicate the space we were in. “But I figure it isn’t like this is just some house in a neighborhood. Maybe just wants to introduce himself, make sure you’re good at the same time you got things covered.”
That wasn’t what he wanted.
“Maybe,” I mumbled.
“And also, one of Boston Stone’s people stopped by.”
I hadn’t come close to recovering from Coert visiting my new home, I couldn’t move to a different subject.
“Of Stone Incorporated,” Walt prompted when I said nothing.
“I, uh . . . don’t know of that.”
He shook his head. “Local developer. Big muckity-muck. Wasn’t him that showed personally, one of his minions.”
“I . . .” I shook my head too. “Why?”
Walt shrugged. “No clue. She said she’d come back but she hasn’t yet. Though I don’t do a lot of work in this county, I do know of that guy and he sticks his nose in with a lot of stuff. Especially if there are hammers, drills and money to be made.”
“This is a family dwelling, he can’t send a minion to every family dwelling that needs some updating.”