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  He doesn’t have a problem maintaining an impassive expression at work, but here with the last of the sun warming his shoulders, it’s hard to keep from grinning. It’s a good stretch for his cheeks after wearing a professionally blank mask all day long. “So, this tomato plant of mine… what do you think I need to tell it?”

  “Not it, Jonathan. Her. Tell her that she’s lovely, just like any girl you hope will put out.”

  His bark of surprised laughter echoes across the backyard.

  “Tell her she’s the prettiest tomato plant of them all and that you really, truly love her.”

  “Or him.”

  It slips out because he’s relaxed. He’s not about to take back his words, but Peggy’s part of another generation who might not—

  “Or him,” she quietly agrees, and then she leans closer and speaks to the plant. “Grow strong, little man. Jonathan will take care of you. He’ll protect you and make sure cutworms and blight don’t get you.”

  “Blight…?” He remembers hearing that word, and he trawls his memory until he recalls green leaves turned dark and ugly and his mother’s frustration. He holds his plant closer. “You get a lot of that here?”

  Peggy nods and watches as he transfers his plant carefully to a bigger pot. “All the rain we get? We have the perfect climate for it.”

  The plant looks healthy enough, Jon decides, already flowering and strong. Still, he glances at the greenhouse door. “We putting them inside?”

  “If you like.” Peggy watches as he carefully carries each pot inside, but at least she doesn’t comment when he makes sure his plant gets extra fertilizer. Then she sits as he crouches to check the spigot outside that still leaks. “It’s getting worse,” she confesses.

  “Probably just needs a new rubber washer.” His gaze follows the old irrigation system that snakes around the raised beds. “And some new tubing if the old ones are ruined.” He could get to a hardware store if he leaves now, but Peggy reaches out and touches his shoulder in gentle restraint when he offers.

  “It can wait.” She pats the seat next to her. It’s comfortable but weathered and old, just like in the photo that lured him here in the first place, and perfectly positioned to catch the sun’s last rays. “Talk to me about your day.”

  He’d rather not, if he’s honest. “How about you tell me about Tyler’s ex?” Hearing that she was responsible for leaving the apartment a wreck had piqued Jon’s interest. “She still around?”

  “How about you ask Tyler yourself? I’m sure he’d explain if you asked.”

  Jon’s not so certain.

  “Let’s talk about you instead,” she persists. “What is it exactly that you do?”

  That’s a whole lot easier to answer. “Property development firms hire consultants from my company to analyze how they do business.”

  “They don’t know how they do business?” Her incredulity isn’t unusual.

  “You’d be surprised what organizations think their people are doing compared to where they truly invest their time.”

  “Oh,” Peggy ponders. “So you’re one of those time and motion people? You watch out for where they waste time?”

  It’s not a bad guess. “Kinda, only I’m meant to crunch their numbers as well as watch their people. I write a final report that they can act on or not, and then I’m supposed to move on to the next job.”

  “And that pays well?” She asks like she’s worried whether he’ll be able to make rent. Her gaze even skitters toward the apartment.

  He bites back saying that it pays a hell of a lot better than Tyler can possibly make occasionally waiting tables or by sleeping away his days. Instead he watches the bumbling flight of a bee laden heavily with pollen, its hum of determined industry quietly soothing to him. “It pays just fine.” Really well, in fact, which is why he’d set aside his doubts and taken it when offered. “I’ll have to move around a whole lot, but I guess that’s not a bad thing if I want to climb the corporate ladder. It’s the best job any new business graduate in my field could hope for on the entire Eastern Seaboard.” Especially one who had planned to pay back every penny his mom had invested in him. Making her life easy, for once, had been his sole motivator.

  Peggy’s brow wrinkles like she’s not sure she agrees his job is all that.

  “People fight every year to make Bettman & Company’s shortlist,” he insists. “It’s the number one fast-track program in my field in the US. Scoring a spot is how people know you really made it. I could make junior partner.” It still kills him to know his mom won’t benefit from that outcome.

  “People, Jonathan?” She shrugs, and her smile is apologetic. “I feel silly that I never heard of it, but you could write what I know about business on the back of the envelopes I use to budget.” She laughs, rueful, and pulls one from the front pocket of the dirt-smudged apron she wears. “See?” She holds it out, worn and crumpled at its corners, with one word written on its front.

  “Seeds,” Jon reads and then lifts the flap. “Whoa. You planning on restocking the entire garden?” It holds several hundred dollars in twenties and tens. “You should deposit that in the bank, Peggy, rather than keep it in an apron pocket.”

  “In the bank?” She takes the envelope back and peers inside. “Huh. I thought I had fifteen dollars in there.” She shrugs and settles back in her seat, the last of the sun casting her in pink and gold shades. She extends an arm, and he follows its arc. “Where do you think I should spend it, Jonathan?”

  A couple of hundred dollars is a drop in the ocean compared to the repairs this place needs. He almost says so aloud, only its beauty silences him before he can point out its faults. Yes the uneven paving needs replacing and the raised beds are falling apart, but leaves in every shade of green spill from their confines in a truly glorious disaster.

  It’s far too much work for one person.

  He could tend it for a whole year, only to start over from the beginning at the end of the growing season. The work would be never-ending, but Peggy sums that up in a sentence that leaves Jon silent.

  “It’s not high powered like your work, but it’s hard to believe that any job in the world could be as rewarding. What career could even come close?”

  Jon doesn’t respond.

  There’s nothing to add when he’s asked himself the same question lately.

  Chapter 8

  JON SPENDS the next week visiting other departments. Eric makes a point to hunt him down once a day at least, happily abandoning his interns, who seem content enough bringing Anthony’s team endless cups of coffee. Jon stops sending Eric away and lets him tag along like a puppy. He asks so many questions that by Friday afternoon, Jon gives up on telling and shows him what he’s doing instead.

  He sits him down in the breakroom with his laptop and runs through the raw data he’s gathered.

  “Whoa.” Eric pulls the laptop closer. “I only saw headline stats for the whole company before. Where’d you get all these figures?”

  “Bettman always demands full access. No point in coming up with recommendations based on half the story. Since getting here, I’ve been drilling down even further. Then I slide all the stats into a report and send them to my boss with my findings so far.” He glances at his watch. “I have to get this done by six, so how about you let me finish?”

  “Listen, I interned in the accounting department right before I graduated,” Eric insists. “These aren’t anything like the breakdowns I saw.”

  Jon’s noticed the same thing already. For a business based in a brand-new building, some of the accounting procedures are…. Well, they beg a whole lot of questions. He takes a more diplomatic stance when he answers Eric’s question. “It’s too early to tell exactly why there’s a lag in their figures.”

  Eric lowers his voice. “Do you mean the acquisitions department might not be the real problem around here?” His gaze skitters around the empty breakroom before he breaks out a fist-pump and hisses a low-pitched “Yes! I told the big guy
he had nothing to worry about.” His smile is bright and happy before it slips. “Wait. You think someone’s seriously fucking up in the accounting department bad enough to get fired?”

  Jon quickly shakes his head. “Nope. That’s not what I’m saying at all.” He adds more detail when Eric’s brow furrows. “I’ll work my way through the whole company before I make any judgments. From what I’ve seen so far, the various accounting teams report on what’s already happened and budget for more of the same after factoring in some assumed growth.” He taps a few keys and looks up. Eric stares back, rapt, like Jon’s about to drop some kind of truth bomb. His face falls when Jon says, “And there’s nothing unusual about that.”

  “Oh.”

  “Listen.” He resists the urge to tag on the word kid. Eric’s only a few years younger than him, even if it feels like more than a hundred right now. “I’m not sure why you think I’m some kind of corporate James Bond, but I’m not.” He really wasn’t. “My work isn’t half as exciting.” And after weeks of voices hushing each time he walks into rooms and grown men like Carl Snyder bluntly turning away whenever their paths cross, he’s liking it even less.

  “Well there’s got to be something good about your job, or why would so many graduates want in on Bettman’s program?” There’s no malice in Eric’s question or in his follow-up, either. “What is it that you get out of it?”

  It’s not a trick question. There’s nothing complicated about it. But for a long, extended moment, Jon can’t come up with a single answer.

  What does he get out of the deal? He huffs out a laugh that’s strangled. He gets to work for the next thirty plus years surrounded by people who will, for the most part, fear for their jobs around him.

  “Mr. Fournier?”

  “What do I get out of it?” He’s gruff until he clears his throat. “I get to work for the best and do what I’m good at.” There’s truth in the next part at least. “I like making plans.”

  “What kinda plans?”

  “Plans for the future. Financial ones that make businesses stronger.” He opens another program. “Look.” He taps a few keys as he talks. “Mr. Hallquist wants me to focus on Acquisitions, and I will.” If his first solo project taught him anything, it was to always do what the client asks, no matter how flawed their thinking. “But that department sits in a bigger framework.”

  “Which includes the accounting department.”

  “You got it. So if I want to help Mr. Hallquist plan for a more efficient future, I need to ignore where the business has been and only focus on what’s next. I cleanse the data so inefficiencies jump right out, and that could be located anywhere, not only in one department.”

  “Inefficiencies?” Eric’s tone is doubtful. “But that’s what the accountants are for, surely? If there’s money being wasted, wouldn’t they be all over it already?”

  “That’s where you’re wrong.” Jon takes a moment to be clear. “I’m not talking about anyone being bad at their job. The accountants can only work within their purview, right? No one’s ever asked them to predict the future beyond the next quarter or two. They do that just fine. But there’s a world of difference between being good bookkeepers and being strategic. Forget the figures for a minute.” Jon opens another program. The screen fills with a diagram resembling a blueprint. It sprawls, so top-heavy it’s obvious. “This is the organizational structure right now.”

  “Cool.”

  It could be a whole lot more impressive. Jon clicks again and a different projection appears. It’s a significantly slimmer model.

  Eric leans closer. “Wait… do you mean…?” He almost touches the screen, only pulling his finger back at the last moment. “Is this still Hallquist Holdings?”

  Jon nods as he snaps the laptop shut, gathers his files, and slips it all into his bag. He understands Eric’s surprise. It’s staggering how inefficient the business looks when contrasted to his leaner model. There’s no doubt that it’s bloated right now. He starts to explain how that likely happened as they walk back to his office.

  He stops in front of a photomontage in the reception area. Jon points to an old Polaroid of Stan Hallquist at its center, blown up like a poster. He looks a whole lot younger, his hardhat barely containing wild curls matching those of the toddler perched on his hip. “This business started with one person.” Make that two, if he includes Carl’s early input. “Now it employs hundreds and subcontracts way more.” The next photo he points to shows a dilapidated home midway through renovation. Stan and Carl sit side-by-side on its roof, both of them holding hammers over their heads like trophies. “It’s come a long way since the 80s, and there’s a lot more than simple construction crews on the payroll these days. But some of the early company structure has stuck around, even though it’s housed right here in a brand-new building. I’m guessing that’s why there are three managers in the accounting department, all basically doing the same thing, only with slightly different titles.”

  “I know why it’s structured that way.” Eric tilts his head toward another image of men standing next to a mud-splashed backhoe. “That photo was taken when they broke ground right here for the new head office. Before then there was an office up in Northgate that Mr. Hallquist worked out of and another based in Delmont where the big guy had his workshop. But,” he quickly adds, before Jon can speak. “The accountants from those offices don’t do exactly the same thing. One of them reports on commercial projects. The other sticks to residential, like in the old days.”

  “So why the need for a third?”

  Eric’s eyes widen. “Well… I… because it oversees the others?” He rubs at his brow like he’s not certain. “I guess it’s not the most efficient set up.”

  “No, it really isn’t—” Jon squints at a fourth photo on the wall. “Wait. Is that you and Carl?”

  “Yeah!” Eric’s clouded expression returns to sunny. “That was after my first internship. I put together a proposal to winterize a local homeless shelter, and Carl helped me price the materials it needed.” He winks. “It was just a project for extra credit. Never thought we’d get to do it for real—you know, actually make life better for people? The big guy does that all the time. It’s why I tried real hard to score a place here after graduating.”

  Carl looks like a different person in the photo, smiling while wearing a tool belt and scuffed work boots. He looks a hundred times more settled in his skin than he does in business attire. One of his arms is slung around Eric’s shoulders, the other around a roll of insulation.

  “He stopped me and my study group from killing each other with power tools,” Eric adds. “And he made sure the work we did would hold up. He fixed our shit every weekend for months. You know, there’s nothing broken that he doesn’t know how to fix. He’s a really great guy.”

  Eric’s got to be one of the only people in the building right now with that high opinion. Jon’s still mentally turning that insight over after sending Eric home for the weekend.

  He heads back to his office.

  Anthony Nelson stops him before he gets there.

  “Jonathan.”

  “Hey.” It’s the first time their paths have crossed beyond exchanging greetings all week. Jon shoulders his laptop bag out of the way and extends his hand. Anthony’s grip is firm. He keeps hold for a few seconds longer than strictly necessary, and his gaze lingers as well, like it did at their last meeting.

  He’s an attractive man, there’s no doubt. Assertive too when he says, “Spare me a couple of minutes?” He guides Jon through a nearby doorway like he already said yes. It takes a second to register that this isn’t Anthony’s office. He’s steered Jon into a windowless room that’s empty, apart from a couple of copiers and a lone workstation.

  “I wanted a moment with you without chance of interruption.”

  It’s an interesting move from someone whose department is under scrutiny. Also, interruptions aren’t exactly likely, given that the building’s been emptying for the weekend the
last hour, but Jon takes a moment to note the way Anthony’s determined to ignore convention. His next words confirm it.

  “Listen,” Anthony starts. “I know I said it before, but I want to make sure you really heard me.” His movements are casual as he pushes the door closed behind him like he’s giving Jon opportunity to stop him. Then he moves forward slightly, still leaving room for Jon to pass, if he wants. His next words are straightforward. “I’m not worried about the report you’re writing.”

  “I did hear you the first time,” Jon agrees. He sets his laptop bag down and perches against the edge of the workstation. “What I’m wondering right now is why you’ve brought me somewhere private only to tell me the same thing.” He’s been warned over and over to watch out for gameplay like this. According to his training, he should trust no one at all. If the script his mentor suggested is right, Anthony’s about to spill dirt on a colleague or offer an incentive so Jon will go easy on his team.

  It’s more than a little disappointing, to be honest. He crosses his arms and says, “Why don’t you cut to the chase?”

  For the first time since getting to Hallquist Holdings, he gets to see Anthony flustered. The way he slips a hand to the back of his neck and bows his head is a sign. It’s fascinating to glimpse someone so smooth suddenly out of his depth. That discomfort seems to pass when Anthony tries to mask it with a low chuckle, but the way he wets his lips real quick, eyes flicking between Jon’s mouth and his eyes, reveal nerves he’s not expecting.

  “I’m telling you again,” he says as he takes one step closer, “because maybe if you know that your report doesn’t concern me one bit, we could….” He wets his lips again, like they’ve had time to dry out, and then straightens his shoulders. His next eye contact is direct. “You want to catch a Mariners game while you’re here?”

  Is Anthony trying to bribe him with free baseball tickets? That would fit the script all right. His disappointment increases. The man truly doesn’t need to take this route; his figures speak for themselves. “I’m not interested, but thanks.” He crosses his arms even tighter.