Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
The woman hums in agreement. “That one’s been off for a day or two, I’d wager. Gonna need a hose.”
The husband grunts. “You can borrow ours. Look just ‘round the corner. To your left from where you’re standin’.”
I nod. “Thank you.” As I climb the steep lawn toward the house, I ask. “Did you happen to see who did this?”
“Nope,” the man says so quickly that I know it’s a lie. “Just got out a few minutes ago. Was havin’ our supper.”
“Ayuh. Just came out after supper,” the woman seconds. “Seems like a lot of work, though, if you ask me. Totin’ all that chowdah up from some restaurant down on Main. Probably a few hundred pounds of it, don’t you think, Bran?”
I can’t see the man’s face—I’m already unwinding their neatly-stored hose and turning on the water—but I hear his grunt of agreement.
“Maybe more. You’d need a big truck to carry a load like that.” As I reappear around the side of the house, he adds in a more pointed tone “If you start looking for suspects, you should start with somebody who drives a big truck.”
“Thank you,” I say with a tight smile, “but I don’t plan on being in town long enough to bother.”
It’s the woman’s turn to grunt this time. “But you ain’t from away, Weaver Tripp. You belong here as much as anyone else, no matter how things have been with your brother and father in charge.”
I look up, a little shocked that she recognized me. I haven’t been in Sea Breeze since I was a very young man.
“Condolences on your loss,” she adds, her dark eyes now barely visible in the dense shadows on the porch. “We would’ve come to give our respects, but we don’t get around the way we used to.”
“Thank you,” I say, turning on the water and directing the spray at the hood of the rental.
The hose has excellent pressure. In just a few minutes, I have most of the soup off the car and the chunky parts guided into a storm drain. I’m sure old chowder isn’t the best thing to send into the ocean a few blocks away, but it’s better than leaving the mess on the road to draw animals and stink up the street.
By the time I turn off the water, the car is fine to drive. There’s still a hazy gray cloud on the windows, but this will work until I can locate glass cleaner and a rag.
I return the hose to its holder and start back down the steep yard, intending to offer the couple payment for the use of their water. But when I reach the front of the home, they’ve vanished. The laugh track of some thirty-minute comedy echoes loudly from behind their closed doors, making it clear calling out to them would be pointless.
And unwelcome.
I know when I’ve been dismissed.
But they were kind first, a gift I’m not sure I deserve. No, I’m not my father or my brother, but I doubt they’ll like my plans for the Tripp fleet any more than the way Rodger ran things. I intend to increase pay for anyone operating under the Tripp banner, but I can’t disband the entire operation.
At least not right away. Too many families depend on things staying the way they are.
I’ve already been approached by several cousins concerned about losing their health insurance. There are sick kids and wives on the verge of giving birth to think about. And Rodger handled a lot of the red tape. He did so to keep our relatives dependent on him and continuing to cut him in on their profits without a fuss, but it will take time to educate them enough to see the benefit in taking control of those aspects of their lives themselves.
In the meantime, I’ll be expected to keep greasing politicians’ and regulators’ palms to keep them from cracking down on our monopoly.
Dismantling any system is a difficult thing, but one this deeply entrenched has the power to suck us all up in its gravitational pull. The old ways might prove too difficult to change without a certain degree of pain for everyone involved.
And without my presence in Sea Breeze…
My firm has already made it clear they’re open to me working remotely—I’m their top mergers and acquisitions advisor and would be difficult to replace—but I can’t stay here. I can already feel my hometown sinking its claws into me, doing its best to twist me back into the person I was before.
Sea Breeze will never allow me to be the man I truly am. Here, I’m an avatar, a storybook villain twirling his moustache or a prince on a stolen throne. I’m someone who inspires fear, awe, and contempt, but never just Weaver, a man who’s created his own success, his own life.