I thought back to the last night as I wandered back into the kitchen. Went over the events involving my uncle’s desk, as I put on more coffee and threw together a big, hearty breakfast.
Was Travis really trying to get me to find his journal? It seemed almost like he was. Thinking back over his last days, it did seem like he wanted to tell me more and more. He whispered a great deal of stuff into my ear, but I always figured his throat hurt, or he just couldn’t speak.
A
nd now…
Now it seemed he’d been hunting for something big. It hurt a little that he hadn’t shared this knowledge with me, but there could’ve also been a thousand reasons why he hadn’t.
I found myself wishing I could go back in time. Grab hold of my uncle and make him tell me everything he knew or suspected. Instead I served breakfast out at the gatehouse, and a big lunch right outside in the bailey. The guys wolfed down both meals, then went straight back to work like they were on some kind of a mission… which of course they were.
Bit by bit, things were getting done. The curtain wall was finished, the mill tower reinforced. The courtyard had been leveled, and Julian had finished fabricating and setting a new keystone, as required on the latest round of bullshit paperwork from the bullshit inspector’s office.
I thought about this in the late afternoon, on my way back from town with dinner. After my errands, I hadn’t felt like cooking. Instead I’d stopped for a Mediterranean pizza, which was woefully short of American pizza, but still about as close as we were ever getting.
As I pulled through the castle gate I noticed two things right away. One, both Julian and Noah’s trucks were inexplicably gone. And two…
There was a stranger standing at my front door.
I felt uncertain, then frightened, then angry. If this was someone from the inspector’s office showing up a few weeks early, a boot was going up someone’s ass.
“Hi! Miss… Lockhart?” the man said cheerfully.
He was a short, wispy-haired trespasser in a button-down shirt. He looked like a banker, or maybe a lawyer. Some poor, unfortunate bastard whose job required them to wear a tie in middle of summer.
I stomped straight past the stranger, and slid the big key into my front door. I was in no mood at all.
“Miss Lockhart, my name is Jonathan, from the—
“What is it that you want, Jonathan?” I demanded, once I’d stepped inside. I held the heavy door in one hand, ready to swing it shut. “I’m busy.”
“It’s not so much what I want as what I can do for you,” he said pleasantly. “In fact—”
“Spit it out,” I snapped. “One sentence. That’s all you get.”
The man on the other side of my door straightened his collar. “Alright,” he said, trying and failing to sound a bit hurt. “I want to buy your property.”
“What property?”
“Why, this property,” he said, suppressing a chuckle. “Westgate Castle. I want to buy it.”
“It’s not for sale.”
The man tilted his head. “Well, ultimately everything’s for sale,” he said glibly. “Right?”
“Wrong.”
“Ms. Lockhart, might I remind you you don’t actually own the property. At least not at the moment.” He paused dramatically. “And you most likely won’t own it, the way things are going.”
Anger wasn’t strong enough to describe my mood. It was closer to rage.
“And where’d you hear all this?”
“A little bird told me.”
“A little bird can go fuck itself,” I snarled.
“Let’s just say I have friends at various county offices,” the man said calmly. “I know you’ll never meet the renovation deadlines. The property is on the verge of defaulting, at which point we both know it goes back to auction.”