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Something ticked in my brain. An awareness—that strange feeling I’d had when Fred had asked me to take a look at the resort. “You’re not building a resort in Jewel Lakes, are you?” I said.

“No…” Charles had said. “I’m here to make an offer on this resort. Between you and me, the organizational structure here has gone completely mushroom-shaped. Did you notice there’s no one actually doing the renos?”

“Yeah, they were fired,” I said, my mind still reeling over the implications of what Charles said.

His eyebrows, dark black slashes compared to the full silver of his hair, went up. “Is that right?”

Shit, I probably wasn’t supposed to say that. Eli hadn’t exactly told us to keep it under wraps last night but… we were all a little preoccupied.

“Fred’s not going to like that,” he said.

“Why’s that?”

“It’s his company doing the renos!” Charles said, sounding surprised I didn’t know.

Consolidated Holdings. The same company proposing the development in Jewel Lakes.

What was Fred doing? Getting town approvals on a project while an elected official—mayor of said town, was not just a conflict of interest, it was illegal. It violated several statutory acts in the town’s charter, and even if it wasn’t, it was unethical as hell.

Heat rose up my throat. He was getting me involved, unwittingly, not just because he hoped I might make the approvals if I were elected, but because he wanted to implicate me in his scheme.

That way I’d be forced to push the project through.

“So, you were never intending to purchase property to do a development like this?” I asked, wanting to make sure I was crystal clear. This was something I couldn’t accuse Fred of lightly. This would impact his seat in office, and that would just be the beginning of it.

“Oh, I certainly thought about it. When Eli told me about his folks’ place a couple of years ago, I thought it sounded great. Don’t you?”

“In theory.”

“Right. But I couldn’t figure out a place to put it. With the golf course and all. Anyhow, I kind of put the idea on the back burner, and now, with this place being all gone to hell with Eli’s mom—the matriarch—having just passed, well, maybe it’s time to diversify, you know? Start expanding out of state.”

As I peered out my dad’s window now, I tried to muster that same anger I’d felt standing there talking to Charles for Fred. Back at the resort, the only thing that had stopped me from throwing Fred under the bus right there was wanting to make sure I had my facts straight. I knew I had to get back to the office to know for certain, but I was pretty confident that there’d be an election a lot sooner than Fred anticipated.

But now, even though it wasn’t, it felt insignificant. I was on the brink of losing my dad, and all I had to show for our relationship was the burning coals of resentment. All the anger I’d felt at Fred funneled into the bigger, roaring fury that burned inside of me over my dad.

He was going to die, and I’d never get to say my piece with him.

I’d never get to forgive him, either. Or myself, for keeping it going so long.

The last words I’d said to him were cruel. Thoughtless.

I was his kid, alright. Maybe I was able to move past the fear of falling in love again, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to shake that feeling.

“Will?”

Michelle’s voice, the sweetest sound in the world, cut through the thundercloud of my thoughts like a rainbow.

At some point she’d finished with the closet, and had tried the space under Dad’s bed. She’d pulled out a shoebox and was kneeling before it.

“Let me guess,” I said, “more model cars. No—car parts.”

“Just come and see,” she said softly. The box was the kind where the lid folded open, and it was up, so I couldn’t see what was inside.

She stood up and placed it on his neatly made bed.

I went over to the box. Inside were stacks of paper—it looked like a mix of newsprint and printouts, with some objects I couldn’t really see stuffed in around the edges.

I picked up the paper on top. My heart felt like it had stopped beating. For a moment, I heard nothing but the sound of my own breathing.