I press my fingers to my lips to hide a smile. He’s been thinking about my text, then. Good. “I know what that means. Thanks.”
Beau shifts his attention from me to Talia, and he asks how she likes living in Portland. I tune them out and imagine what Rick has planned for our living situation. I think I’d like living in the lighthouse with him, but I don’t want Talia to live in Old Harbor alone, especially since I’m the one who asked her to move.
Arriving at the construction site stops my daydreaming.
The site is located on the other side of Cedar Hill, and the bleak look of it sombers all of us. Beau parks across the street from a building that’s barely just begun.
“This was supposed to be a hotel?” I ask, climbing out of the backseat. Before leaving, Beau asked if I could change my footwear, and I’m grateful for the black ballet flats instead of my high-heeled boots.
“It was going to be the best in the city. Thirty floors of glamour and luxury. When the city put the land up for sale instead of preserving it for a city park, we jumped on it and bought it right from under Declan Everett’s nose. We only had the advantage because I’d dated the administrative assistant working at City Hall and she kept a soft spot for me. She called the second she heard the city wasn’t going through with their plan and we bought it before it hit the market. Cedar Hill made a killing—we paid a lot more than it was worth, even for a location like this. But we were going to make it back a hundred times over when the project was finished.”
From the back of the SUV, he pulls out three bright yellow hardhats. I busy myself with mine while Beau pulls out Talia’s ponytail and positions the hat over her hair himself. She beams at him, and I rein in my need to caution her. She can be in a healthy relationship and telling Beau about her addiction and outlining her boundaries will be for her to do, not me.
I turn away from them and assess the building. “Rick has more than an MBA.”
“You bet. He also has a bachelor’s in architecture and a BS in construction management. He can do it all. This accident shouldn’t have happened.”
Majoring in journalism with a minor in English kept me plenty busy. “He’s smart.”
“Smart enough to hook up with you,” Beau says, pulling a set of keys out of his jacket pocket and looking at me over his shoulder.
“Don’t wink,” I warn. “You’re charming, but it can turn creepy real quick.”
He scowls. “You know, you’re the first to have objections.”
“Then luckily for you, I’m already taken.”
We cross the street, and Beau unlocks a huge padlock that’s holding a thick chain together, keeping a door in the chain-linked fence closed. With a jiggle and a squeal, he pulls the door open, and I step onto the site.
I make a sweeping gesture at Talia. “Smarm away.”
As I step away from them, Beau mutters, “You don’t think I’m smarmy, do you?”
“Maybe a little,” she says, and I cover my mouth to muffle a laugh.
Shifting my attention to the hotel, I try, but I can’t figure out what has already been built. The foundation, of course, but what they had been working on is a mystery to me. “What is this part supposed to be?” I ask Beau as he and Talia come up behind me.
He points toward the front. “This would have been the lobby, then the sleeping rooms, west wing, east wing, set in a V. In the middle, we’d planned a giant ballroom. We’d just completed what would have been the fourth floor. We’d barely started. As you can see, we had months yet before it would even resemble a hotel. Which is a good thing for us, otherwise when the crane tipped over, even more damage could have been done.”
I need all my willpower not to snap at him. I understand where he’s coming from, and if Rick hadn’t gotten injured, besides the two men who lost their lives and the injured crane operator, he very well could have kept the construction on schedule.
After Beau explains what I’m looking at, the floors are clear now, the metal skeleton raw and abandoned in the snow. It would be interesting to see the art of what the completed hotel was supposed to look like. Closing my eyes, I can hear the laughter and the music. How many wedding receptions would have taken place here, how many parties? Is it odd to hear the murmur of voices from guests who haven’t yet stayed here?
“It haunts me too, every time I have to come out. It would have been magnificent.”
“Why doesn’t he want to finish it?”
“You’d have to ask him that. I suppose a lot of it has to do with Renata. They were going to renew their vows here. Their party was going to be the first in the ballroom to bring us good luck.”
I meet Talia’s eyes, but she shakes her head. I know what she’s thinking. The past is the past. You can’t live in it. She can’t, or she would always live with her addiction. I can’t either, or I would still mourn my job at the Times and where my career would be right now had I been able to expose Stevie, or better yet, had never pursued her at all and found my claim to journalism fame investigating something else.
“Do you want to see the inside?”
Talia agrees, but I decline. Holding her hand, he helps her cross the site and they step into what will be the ground floor. One day Rick will finish it, but I’m not so arrogant as to think I’ll be the one to help him forget about her.
I pull a little notebook and pen out of my purse. The snow that fell in Old Harbor didn’t come this way, and there’s only a light dusting over the equipment and ground, the hem of my pants dragging across the frozen mud. The tipped crane is easily discernible, and I note my impressions as I pick my way along the site. It hasn’t been completely abandoned; at some point, cleanup had taken place, if only to make the site as safe as it can be. Homeless people, bored kids, gangs, and dealers all gravitate toward construction sites like this. Beau must have more going on than with only the receptionist at City Hall for them to let Rick leave the property this way. Not only is it an eyesore in one of the most upscale parts of Cedar Hill, but it’s dangerous, and one day, someone is going to kill themselves or find themselves at the wrong place at the wrong time.
I take pictures of the poor crane tipped on its side. It resembles a dead dinosaur, and feeling sorry for the inanimate object, I rub the cold metal. I note the company name on the side and the model of the truck. Rick must have purchased it for it to remain here. So much wasted time and money on this land. So much pain. I step back and take a picture of the entire thing. The boom is still attached, the arm lying on the ground.