Page 17 of Sunset Tides
Yet she probably needed to tell everyone else what was going on. Chip had done a terrible job. She’d keep it simple. She pulled up her group text with Marty, Lillian, and Rose and typed out a message.
“Chip just called. Claire isn’t feeling well. Needed stitches for some reason? I guess she fell. Doctor thought she might be having a stroke. Being flown to the mainland now. I’m on my way. I’ll let you know what else I find out.”
There. That was the way to do it.
She tucked her phone away and returned to her car. Time had continued at warp speed, and the ferry would soon dock in Anacortes.
Lucy could keep it together as long as she had some sort of tangible task in front of her. Right now, it was driving to that hospital. Her GPS said it was an hour away.
Surely it wouldn’t take that long.
Chapter Ten
Carriageway was basically in the bag and Rob was on cloud nine. He’d known it would work out in the end, but the chase was always tense.
Still, Rob enjoyed everything about the chase – the push and pull, the charm, the outwitting and outsmarting. A rockier course meant a more satisfying reward, and this had been the biggest deal of his career. It would set him up not just at OSS, but for life.
Carriageway was having their lawyers look over the paperwork now, and if all went well, the deal would be signed by the end of the week.
The end of theweek!
Rob was on top of the world. If only he could see Lucy’s face when she found out…
Oh well. Can’t have everything. He decided to use his spare time to go the extra mile for their future partner: driving around the island and making note of the different amenities Grippy could talk up to their employees.
There wouldn’t be as much as they were used to in Silicon Valley, so Rob needed to play up the rugged, peaceful aspect of Orcas. That’s what they were coming for, right?
Of course, that’s what they’d say, but they wouldn’t mean it. They wanted to feel like they were somewhere different without sacrificing anything. The fact that there wasn’t a single Starbucks on the island could start a riot. They wanted remote, but still entirely connected. Distant, yet not inconvenienced.
That was impossible, of course, but Rob was happy to play along with the fantasy. Maybe some things could be built into the Grippy campus to make them feel more at home – yoga studios, or restaurants that rotated cuisines. The island had a variety of places to eat – not that Rob could ever get a table – but it wouldn’t be enough to keep the Grippy staff happy.
Not only were there no Starbucks, but there were not enough coffee shops in general. Grippy had over a thousand employees. How many would flood onto the island? Five hundred? A thousand, if they brought their families?
That was a lot of coffees. The island had a population of under five thousand right now, and an influx of people might make things tight, but that wasn’t his problem. His role was to deliver the land Grippy needed, something no other company had managed to do before.
Rob could see why it had taken so long. The island wasn’t open to development. There were a lot of family farms, little homes, and sentimental small business.
It had charm, sure, but it wasn’t maximized for profit. It was maximized for something else, something intangible and irrelevant, really.
It took him a few hours to explore and comb through the west side of the island. He hoped the east side would go more quickly, but he was sorely mistaken.
He was first slowed down by the state park. The main road went right through it, forcing him to slow down behind bikers and hikers and other people who should have been at work.
This could potentially be sold as slowing down to enjoy the views. Not that Rob ever had time to enjoy views, and he didn’t expect the people at Grippy did, either.
It was a nice idea, but in any real business, slowing down was a fantasy. Maybe that’s what this compound would be? A great fantasy surrounded by the sea.
Once he got past the park, he drove around the town of Olga, looping along the bottom of the island and then back north.
The properties here had a fascinating variability. There were a few businesses on this side of the island, ranging from high-end restaurants to low-key eateries.
Most interestingly, interspersed between expensive restaurants and art galleries were properties that looked like complete and total dumps. There could be a multimillion-dollar house butting up to four acres of overgrown grass with a rundown trailer plopped in the middle.
Some of the homes looked like they hadn’t been updated in decades, others looked completely abandoned. Then, only a hundred feet down the road, would stand a verifiable compound with an ocean view.
It boggled the mind. Why hadn’t all of this been bought up already? Why hadn’t it all been developed?
There were luxury offerings. One of the tour companies had a gorgeous, pirate-looking ship which hosted sunset cruises and wildlife watching. Surely that’d be a favorite? The Grippy employees might even like the park – paddle boarding or hiking, whatever it was they did with their little free time.
