Page 27 of Sunset Tides
He had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. “It’s public knowledge. I can go home and look at it.”
“Does that mean you haven’t looked at it yet?”
He shook his head. “No. I told you, I’m not interested in that stuff.”
She eyed him for a moment before leaning down and pulling a paper from her purse. She unfolded it to reveal a short list with handwritten notes in the margins.
“Don’t read that,” she said, covering the left corner with her hand.
She still didn’t trust him. That was fine. He didn’t need her trust. He needed her help.
He leaned forward and studied the list. They weren’t auctioning the land, which was nothing short of a miracle. If the land were up for grabs, it would’ve turned into a wild bidding war between developers and hedge funds. That would’ve been ugly.
The rest of this stuff, though? It was peanuts.
He saw Lucy had listed the price to replace each piece of equipment, as well as what similar items had gone for in recent auctions. The total was over a million dollars.
“It looks like you’ve got some decisions to make,” he finally said.
“Not helpful,” she hissed, pulling the paper back. “What do we do? Rescue the first few items at whatever the cost? Wait until the end and hope we win something?”
“I’d recommend the former option,” he said. “You’ve got money to spend. Set your limits, but try to get your wins in early. Get as much equipment as you can, then figure out the rest.”
“Easy for you to say.”
He shrugged. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s not ideal, but that’s the reality of the situation.”
Lucy let out a sigh and finished her last bit of fish. Like all of the pieces before, she covered it with an obscene amount of tartar sauce. It looked like each bite had more sauce than fish. Even the fries were more of a shovel for ketchup than anything else.
He couldn’t stop staring. It was mesmerizing, in a way, watching how she ate.
“I’ll figure something out,” she said, squirting out what had to be at least a quarter cup of ketchup onto her plate. “Now what did you want from me in exchange for all that great advice?”
Rob wiped his hands on his napkin and pushed the rest of his meal aside. The salad was good, but a bit too lively for his stomach right now. “I need help looking around.”
“For what?”
“Like I said, another business to revive.”
The cashier stopped by and dropped off a refill for Lucy. She smiled and thanked him.
It was the first time he’d seen her actually smile. He thought on this a moment too long before lifting his water glass to request a refill, but the cashier was gone.
“Do you have a list of targets?” she asked.
He shook his head. He wasn’t going to fall for that. She would warn all the business to steer clear of him. “I don’t have a list,”he lied. “I thought maybe I would just drive around and look at things.”
“That’s your plan? To drive around?”
He leaned forward. “I’m not pretending to be a mastermind here. I’m desperate.”
She thought on this for a moment before answering. “Fine. Where should we start?”
What he was most interested in was that hotel, but there was a chance something nearby would work and be less of a hassle. “How about the east side of the island? Something near the park would be a big selling point.”
She shrugged. “All right. Let’s go.”
He offered to drive and she didn’t protest. They drove around for an hour, with Rob carefully avoiding The Grand Madrona Hotel while poking around all of the properties nearby.
