by D. R. Mather
“Not this time honey, you stay here and keep my newspaper warm.”
Within a few moments she was standing outside, watching him drive away. She turned, her head hanging, and went back in.
***
Kevin parked the truck out of sight after he reached a Variety store just on the outskirts of town. He sat in a dark area at the side of the store, near the back and waited. He saw the car as it arrived at the store and parked a distance away. As he watched, two men got out and entered the store but Kevin noticed that neither of them were the driver. Behind the wheel of the car sat a young lady of fifteen or sixteen tops. He'd have to figure out how to deal with her before entering the store. He got out of his truck and circled around to the back of the car, trying to look though her outside mirror so that he could see what she was up to inside. She never saw him because he was invisible at that moment, but he knew he'd have to make himself visible in order to interact with her. Because of the store’s large windows he would clearly be visible from inside, meaning that the two men could possibly see him. Kevin decided to try a different tactic; he approached the back of the car and crouched down, then lightly tapped on the trunk. The young lady didn't seem to notice at first so he tapped a bit harder. She suddenly looked up and then turned her head to the back of the car. She could hear something coming from the trunk. She got out and slowly, carefully walked to the back where Kevin was waiting. He stood only slightly and became visible to her, but at the same time placed his hand on her shoulder and pulled her down to his level.
"You really don't want to be here. I would suggest you leave and do it quickly." She started to stand but Kevin pulled her back down;
"Take the car and do it now!"
She stood and returned to the car, got in and drove off as Kevin side-stepped the car. He ran over to the side of the entrance to the store and went up against the wall. He didn't have to wait long as both men came running out to see why their ride had left. Kevin saw his chance and acted. He saw the handgun in the right hand of the man nearest to him so he reached out and grabbed it, yanked it from the man’s hand, threw it to the ground behind him and grabbed the man’s neck, if only to hold him while he dealt with his partner. Kevin soon wished he'd stood on the other side of the store’s entrance because as he was grabbing the second man, the man’s gun went off, slicing a path across the side of Kevin's temple. He didn't feel it but quickly grabbed the man by the neck, lifted him off the ground and twisted his neck to one side. As the dead man dropped from Kevin's grasp he turned to the one he had by the neck in his other hand. He looked him in the eyes and then snapped the man’s neck, killing him instantly. Kevin never took the time to look into the man’s soul to see if he was supposed to be saved, he was far to pissed about being shot. He never checked on anyone in the store, he merely turned and walked back to his truck, got in and drove away.
When Kevin returned to the Inn, Judy was the first to see him when he walked through the main doors. She let out a squeal as she placed her hands to her mouth. The side of Kevin's neck was covered with blood from the gun shot. Judy ran to him and checked his head out.
"Honey, is it bad?"
"Not really, I got grazed and it stings but it didn't go in, just across."
Kevin noticed that Judy was amazingly calm, all things considered. Beth and April bandaged him up and Judy, well Judy pampered him for the rest of the night. Kevin noted that this was actually his first very close call and he would have to think this over so that he wasn't placed in the same position again. Within three days the bandage was already off but Kevin would always have a small scar that went from just under his ear to about two inches back from that point.
Two weeks before Will and Barb were returning home, Steve was in the living room. He saw Kevin outside and ran to catch up with him. As he came out past the drop-off area he called Kevin in.
“Well, what do you think?” Steve asked Kevin once they were both in the living room. He was pointing to the removable panels that separated the living room from the ballroom.
“What do I think about what?”
Steve called over to a worker standing behind the desk, “Let her go.”
There was the sound of motors whirring and clicking as slowly, the panels began to pull away to the sides. Kevin could see them starting to stack behind each other. In about a minute, the entire ballroom was open to the living room. There was a click and a wooden panel covered the hidden boxed wall where the panels now hid, then silence.
“That, Steve, is perfect, absolutely perfect.” Kevin and Steve checked the whole system out. “If they don’t love this, I’ll put a bullet in my own skull.”
“Geeez Kevin, let’s hope they love it then, shall we?”
They both laughed and turned to watch the man buffing over the tile, preparing it for a sealer.
“You’re going to keep everyone out of here for me tomorrow right, Kevin?”
“Oh, good thing you said that.” He turned and headed upstairs. Everyone soon knew not to go into the ballroom for the next two days. When Kevin came back down, Steve was behind the desk, closing the panels again. Kevin watched from the entrance to the living room; as the system finished, there was another ‘click’, then silence.
“Perfect Steve, your guys did a wonderful job, it doesn’t look any different than before the mechanism was installed.”
“We aim to please.” Steve opened the door to head outside, “Oh, we took a ground temperature reading around the cleared land. I’m figuring another few days with this nice weather and we can pour the concrete. The only problem will be if they’ll make it for us, as it’s kinda early in the year for that.”
“No problem Steve, I’ll go talk to them tomorrow morning.”
Steve was learning a lot about Kevin and he was pretty sure there wasn’t going to be a problem. It turned out he was right. A few days later and the concrete was poured and curing.
***
On the Friday before Will and Barb’s return, the Inn saw the biggest equipment delivery so far, with massive trucks coming and going, all of them carrying Kevin’s quarry order. The trucks were loaded down with blocks of black granite. They were shipped from all over the northern US and had been sitting at a holding area outside of town, just waiting for the okay to send them up. There were three cranes parked behind the old garages that were waiting to help set stones on the edges of the slab to the lodge. There were two huge machines that apparently cut stone to fit. This was way out of Kevin’s league; he’d never had a job like this one. Steve admitted he was as well, but it didn’t seem to stop him from barking out orders all day long. The masons knew what they were doing, that was good enough for Kevin.
Kevin came inside the Inn and asked, “Who here would like to take a chopper ride?”
Judy instantly assumed her bunny hop dance, Roland passed on the idea, Cindy couldn’t because of the twins, Beth snuck out to the kitchen as she was scared to death of planes and helicopters, and Alex and April gave it thumbs up.
“Okay, short notice then, I have to get my truck out before the next loads show up and block us in.”
Everyone scrambled to the coats and stared back at Kevin, who was still in the same spot.
“Coming?” asked Judy.
“Ya, right, moving now!”
An hour and a half later and they were all flying over the Inn, circling back and forth. Kevin had his first real feel for the layout.
“Hey, did you guys know there was a massive clearing only a few hundred yards behind the pool?”
No one knew. Kevin’s mind starts to whirl; everyone was looking out at one thing or another.
“Can you take me over that clearing behind the pool and do a few slow circles?” Kevin asked the pilot. The pilot agreed and moved the chopper over the area.
Kevin surveyed the land. There were small rolling hills, a few deeper areas and a few higher spots.
“Why, there’s got to be over two hundred acres already cleared here.”
Everyone changed sides to look at what Kevin was looking at. The chopper tipped to one side and the pilot told them to return to their places and not to do it again.
Kevin looked at them. “There’s enough land there that if I have him do another few circles, you can all see.”
Kevin signaled the pilot to do two more slow circles and then head back. He nodded and did his thing. On the way back, Kevin said, “That, my dear loved ones, is a major sized golf course just waiting to be born. It would be fantastic for summer tourism.”
The snow stayed away, which helped the roofers finish quickly, and all the windows were in for the new garage. Kevin and Steve walked through each bay. There were no garage doors yet, so they were weaving in and out of each one.
“When do the doors come in Steve?”
“Tomorrow morning. ‘Landry’s Garage Doors’ is going to have six men here. He figures two men to a door at about two hours for each door, so tomorrow should start and complete it, providing there’s no mishaps.”
“Great. Then we can transfer all the cars over here tomorrow night?”
“Well, let’s see, my guys will be insulating with the drywall crew following right behind them. We aren’t going to be doing joint compounding, so yeah, tomorrow night should work.”
“Good, then after tomorrow, we can start removing the old garages.”
“Looks that way Kevin, things are flying right along.”
They headed out behind the old garages to see what had been done for the day. The lodge had its entire first floor of stone set and the heavy iron lintels were in place.
“Tomorrow the masons plan to have the second floor stones up, then we can throw the roof framing together. As you can see, the beams came in, so it’s just a matter of framing it up. The exterior should be done by Friday evening and then we go to work on the interior; set the second floor stairs and so on.”
“Nice work Steve. It’s kind of a shame I’m not still in the business, as you’d be working for me full time doing exactly what you’re doing now.”
“Kevin, why don’t you get back into it?”
“You know what Steve, I don’t know, I really don’t.” He gave Steve a ‘buddy slap’ on the back and Steve headed home for the night.
As Kevin walked back to the Inn, he thought of the influence he’d been using on all the suppliers. He was pretty sure he’d have to have that ability for the rest of his life if he wanted things to go as smoothly as this on every job.
The day before Will and Barb’s return was a very busy day indeed. The rooms on the third floor were done; the floor guys had sanded and re-finished the beautiful hard wood floors back to their original luster. All of the wood on the knee walls for every room and the hall were cleaned and oiled. The third floor plumbing was either replaced or tested to make sure it all worked. The third floor was, simply put, beautiful.
The attic was now finished. The new layout was complete and all the rooms smelled of paint. Kevin had filters going from room to room to help get rid of the smell. It had just about done the job, and there wasn’t much paint odor left. All the floors were new, hard wood, and finished. True, the walls weren’t fancy like the rest of the house, but that could be easily done if Will or Barb decided it was needed. A new large shed dormer adorned every exterior room across the whole attic, as well as large windows on the gable end walls.
The second floor had been completely redone, room by room. There was a lot of room-jumping going on by everyone in order to get them finished, but it did get done. Sadly, Judy’s pink wall had to go; she resisted at first, but she knew it had to be done and she knew her time there was limited.
The first floor was complete as well. The new kitchen was up and running thanks mostly to Cindy, who understood the workings of everything. They even managed to save Barb’s old woodwork bench and incorporate it into the design. They sanded the top and put layers of ‘food safe’ oil on it, which Cindy had personally hand rubbed deep into the wood.
The dining room was complete; everything needed for food service was in place as well as all the linens for the tables. The multitude of drawers in the buffet came in very useful for such things as table linen, napkins, and dinnerware.
The entrance area was complete, with the new registration desk, mail slots, and file cabinets, as well as the new computer for registering guests, payments, records and such.
The living room got what Kevin called ‘spruced up’, with oil on the wall panels as well as fresh paint and buffed floors.
The ballroom got a complete cleaning and all of the wood, including the beautiful ceiling beams, looked like they were brand new. The floor simply shined.
The left side hall was divided up as needed with plenty of room for firewood in the winter. The electricians rewired and upgraded the entire mansion. After testing the system, they had discovered the third generator never started, it wasn’t needed to power the house. So with Kevin’s approval, they made a hole in the left side wall and dug a four foot deep trench from the third generator over to the new lodge. The wires were now through the new concrete slab in the front corner, waiting for the wiring to begin in the lodge. They wired in the new system to comply with power outages. This was also finished.
Outside of the Inn, the new covered walkway from the drop-off area was finished. Six freshly cleaned and sealed marble seats adorned the path to the doors; three on either side.
The new garages were done and everyone even had their vehicles parked in them. The old garages were torn down and disposed of. It should be noted that a very large bucket loader was used during the transfer of the wrecked garage debris to the dumpsters. The bucket loader held so much at one time that Ray’s body was scooped up and dropped in a dumpster without anyone ever noticing. Sadly, Ray’s final resting place was very deep in the building debris section of the local land fill.
From where Kevin stood now, he could see the massive lodge; it was all together on the outside, but still empty on the inside. Its footing covered was massive. This was where the crews were now and would be for the next two months, dividing spaces, making the second floor rooms, bathrooms, the grand lodge sitting room, the ski rental area, light food dining area and such. Kevin had been afraid the building might sour the whole look of the Inn but once the garages were gone, it turned out to compliment it, mostly because of the angle and the fact that the stone and roof matched the Inn. Setting up parking with the stones that matched the existing driveway would have to wait until full thaw.
The designs for the ski lifts were still on paper, waiting again, for a full ground thaw. According to local ski area design experts, there would be three lifts: one to the mountain on the left, one to the right, and one very long one running to the center of the third mountain on the left. The fourth mountain was far too sheer to use for skiing. At the end of the ski lodge would be a gondola for sightseeing.
Kevin walked out to where the pool was and saw Steve standing at the door to the massive pool house.
“Steve, I’m glad you’re there, we need to talk about this building.”
“No problem Kevin, I was just about to visit it myself, come on.”
As he entered the building, there was a set of stairs directly in front of them. To the right of them was one single open room, measuring forty feet by twenty-five feet.
“You know Steve, if this was a pool house, I just don’t get it; there doesn’t seem to be any trace of walls that were maybe torn down at one time. It’s all just one open room.”
“Well, it won’t be for long. I’m thinking a golf pro shop taking up the far fifteen feet and going all the way down from front to back?”
Kevin smiled, “Sounds good. Put in one access door to this area for employees, then make the rest changing rooms and showers.”
“Easy enough Kevin, it needs a finished inside first though, it’s only got exposed stone here.”
“Steve, come up with me.” They headed upstairs and the entire second floor was also one big room.
“Yup, what’s your thinking?”
“Add a few more between the existing ones and I can set Will up with a complete wood shop here. He’d have everything he’d ever need to take care of the place.”
“Nice, nice, we can do that, no problem.”
“Good, keep it until last though, I don’t want it to make us fall behind schedule.”
“No problem Kevin, you draw up some plans and I’ll file them in line.”
As they headed off in different directions, Kevin got a sudden ‘head call’.
“Kevin, would you ask Judy to join you in a meeting with us?”
“Ah, sure, when?”
“Now would be good if you can manage it.”
“I’ll go get her. See you soon.”
The voice went away.
Within minutes, Kevin and Judy were in the library. Beth was guarding them with Alex as back up.
“Ready honey?” Kevin asked Judy.
“Aha.”
They put the halves of the amulet together.
The hall was the same location as the other visits. As Kevin and Judy looked at the walls he heard the voice of the female and then the ‘voice’ approaching. He couldn’t make out what they were saying but it didn’t really matter at this point.
“Ah, welcome Kevin, welcome Judy, could you please follow us?”
They obliged and ended up in an empty room, standing with the ‘beings’ behind them.
Kevin had a question right away, “Is this going to hurt tomorrow, the Coburn’s are supposed to be picked up at the airport by me.”
“No Kevin, as much as we do not like to manipulate time, we understand that things at the Inn require you to be there. As such, for this one time, we shall – as you would say – ‘mess with things’. This should only take a few of your earth hours away.”
“Good, so what is it we can do for you?”