Amounting to Nothing

by Karis Walsh

  Table of Contents

  Synopsis

  By the Author

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  About the Author

  Books Available from Bold Strokes Books

  Amounting to Nothing

  Mounted police officer Billie Mitchell has come back from the memories of war to a place of peace: a job she loves, partners she trusts, and a new home in Tacoma’s rough and neglected Hilltop Area. But when a businessman is murdered and one of her neighbors becomes a suspect, her calm shatters yet again.

  Heiress Merissa Karr has earned her own fortune working in urban renewal. After she witnesses her boss’s murder, she becomes the next likely target, and for once, money can’t buy her out of trouble. She needs to rely on Billie and other Hilltop residents—people who amount to nothing in her social circles—for her very survival.

  On pristine polo fields and run-down city blocks, two worlds collide. Can hearts and minds open wide enough for acceptance and friendship to expand into love?

  Amounting to Nothing

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  Amounting to Nothing

  © 2017 By Karis Walsh. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-62639-729-3

  This electronic book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.,

  New York, USA

  First Edition: February 2017

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Ruth Sternglantz

  Production Design: Susan Ramundo

  Cover design by Sheri (graphicartist2020@hotmail.com)

  By the Author

  Harmony

  Worth the Risk

  Sea Glass Inn

  Improvisation

  Mounting Danger

  Wingspan

  Blindsided

  Mounting Evidence

  Love on Tap

  Tales from Sea Glass Inn

  Amounting to Nothing

  Chapter One

  Merissa Karr dropped a handful of index cards on the floor of the car when Dennis Morgan accelerated to pass a semi on I-5. She kept her head up and her eyes fixed on the sun setting on the horizon as she groped for the cards, fighting off a wave of nausea. Her stomach lurched along with the sporty little BMW as he slid back into the right lane.

  “Sorry,” Dennis said with a rueful grin in her direction. “I’m trying to tone it down for you.”

  She waved off his apology. She’d driven with her boss and mentor often enough to know that he really was making an effort to smooth out his driving for her. She’d experienced his speed and sharp turns plenty of times before she’d been comfortable enough to tell him she was prone to motion sickness. She had been queasy during most of her internship with his firm. Damned inconvenient affliction. She focused on the city sprawled on her right and kept her breathing deep and even until she felt her stomach settle.

  The view of the city wasn’t attractive enough to distract her mind, but her vision of its future was. The approach to Tacoma from Interstate 5 wasn’t pretty from either direction. From the south, the town snuck up on you in an increasing jumble of strip malls and cheap hotels, culminating in a large indoor mall. From the north, driving down from Seattle like she and Dennis were doing today, the city’s innards seemed exposed to view. The industrial Tideflats, with its pulp and paper mill and oil refineries, sprawled along the edge of Commencement Bay, spewing steam and God knew what else into the air and contributing to what was called—indulgently by locals and sneeringly by everyone else—the Aroma of Tacoma.

  The nickname was a call to action for Merissa, and she wanted nothing more than to replace it with something more positive and beautiful. She stared at the downtown area where it climbed the hill rising steeply from the bay. From here, she could see buildings and houses, but the details weren’t obvious, especially as night descended and the streetlights were bright. The city’s efforts at improvement—from the museums and boutique shops to the Chihuly Bridge of Glass—blended in with the vacant, graffiti-covered buildings and run-down homes. The possibilities seemed endless from this vantage point.

  “It looks like a blank slate from here, doesn’t it?” Dennis asked, as if reading her mind. He took the City Center exit and braked suddenly to avoid hitting the cars stopped at the light in front of him.

  Merissa braced her hand on the dash. “Sometimes I wish we could wipe it clean and start from scratch,” she said. The idea of reinventing her city and making it a place more citizens would be proud to call home filled her with a sense of purpose she’d never felt before she came to the Morgan Consulting Group. She’d grown up in a world of big business and big money, but it had always seemed pointless to her. Her first tentative forays into urban planning after graduate school had been fulfilling, but she hadn’t even dreamed of the epic possibilities for change she now saw.

  Of course, business always required compromise. She was slowly learning how to deal with investors and builders by watching Dennis whenever she got a chance. He had a natural ability to adapt and change his vision during negotiations, and she doubted she’d ever be as flexible. She’d have to figure out how to stay true to her vision while acknowledging the ideas proposed by other people who were involved in her renovation projects. She hadn’t seen his bargaining skills in action since he usually pitched ideas on his own, but she’d pieced together some sense of the concessions he’d made by comparing the ideas he seemed to particularly like during the firm’s weekly brainstorming meetings with the finalized specs he created before he met with his contractor. In her mind, the two versions of the same plan—what she and the other employees contributed and what he eventually created—were often very different, and she hadn’t been with the firm long enough to see the actualized concept after the third draft, when the contractor and investors gave their input. She figured the more money involved, the more say the investors had, but even when she factored in the necessary compromises, the potential for growth and positive change with this firm was still astounding and exciting to her. She had toured plenty of the spaces D.M. had designed and built before she came to work with him, and she was thrilled to be part of the firm’s future.

  “It’d be amazing to begin with an empty space and create a city with intention and good planning, but who will ever have a chance like that? We have to work with what we have and take it one block at a time,” Dennis said, as if they were trying t
o cure the city of an addiction to unattractiveness.

  Merissa took advantage of another stoplight and sorted through her index cards. She and Dennis had spent the afternoon in Seattle, driving around neighborhoods as they searched for ideas for their next renovation project. Sometimes she felt as if she learned more from a day with Dennis—slowly traveling up and down city streets while they talked about the different design elements they noticed—than she had in the two years spent pursuing her master’s degree. McGill’s program had been challenging, but Dennis had knowledge and insight she soaked up like a sponge. Many of their discussions seemed more theoretical than real, because few of the design elements they appreciated in common actually made it onto the plans for residential and business complexes the Morgan Group produced, but she lovingly filed away every structural form and general impression they observed and deliberated over. Once she had proved herself in the lower levels of the company, she hoped she’d be able to put her own flair on the proposals she presented. Until she had that sort of autonomy, she was determined to at least vocalize her ideas, whether or not they were used.

  She looked away from her notes and out the window once they started moving again and pointed at a cement staircase leading up the hillside.

  “I want an entrance like that in the new neighborhood,” she said. The Tacoma branch of the University of Washington was bisected by several series of wide steps and shrub-filled plateaus. Old-fashioned lampposts illuminated the ascending courtyards with a soft yellow glow, inviting pedestrians to walk through the campus instead of bypassing it. “We can line it with boutiques and open-air cafés. Maybe a small park.”

  She imagined the families living in condos she had designed and gathering in the common areas she envisioned, exchanging conversation and sharing stories. “And how about a dog park? There aren’t any nearby, and the local residents could come and bring their pets. It’d be a wonderful way to draw families and people from nearby neighborhoods into the courtyard. They’d likely stay for a cup of coffee or something to eat at one of the cafés, and then window shop while they pass by the stores. They’ll return if they need something from one of the shops…”

  Dennis pulled her out of her daydreams. She was good at picturing ideal neighborhoods and giving them shape in her mind. Dennis was more experienced at giving concepts a physical substance.

  “Where will the condos go if you have so many elements in the center of the block?” he asked. “Will they be in a narrow strip around the outside? You’ll be giving up too much rentable space that way.” The argument was good-natured and familiar to Merissa. Dennis wanted to isolate the blocks they designed, and she wanted to welcome everyone inside. His tendencies were naturally more prevalent in the Group’s projects because he was the boss and sole head of design. Merissa and the other employees were on equal footing with each other, but far below him. She’d noticed his increased interest in the trajectory of her career lately, though, at least on a personal level. He took her on these trips and seemed to enjoy their discussions, and he even had her join him and his wife Karen for dinner at their home. She hoped an opportunity to experiment with her personal designs would follow someday.

  Already, he had been incorporating more of her input than that of any of her peers. Those elements were small, but recognizably hers, and she hoped she was seeing a pattern emerge. Just like she rebuilt Tacoma in her mind, she also rebuilt her position at the firm, picturing a new future and more chances to create real-life versions of what she saw in her imagination.

  “We can add a small central garden in the middle, for the surrounding tenants to use,” he continued. “With a big gate to keep everyone else outside.”

  Merissa laughed. She’d long since learned that even if Dennis didn’t accept one of her ideas, he never minded when she offered suggestions, even if she was blunt. She couldn’t resist being forthright now. “You’re too shortsighted, D.M. People will come here to shop and eat in a relaxing environment. They’ll love it so much that they’ll be waiting in line to buy the next complex we build. Restricting access will limit exposure.”

  “Shortsighted,” he repeated with a snort. “Yeah, that’s the reason we’re the number one consulting firm in the city. Because I can’t see past the nose on my face.”

  Merissa glanced at Dennis before answering. He was grinning, the wrinkles around his light blue eyes proving he spent more time smiling than not, and he looked perfectly at ease in his beige cashmere turtleneck and brown suede jacket. He was prone to understatement in his words as well as his clothes, making his point more effectively because of it. Morgan Consulting was more than the top firm in Tacoma. It was the highest grossing one in the Northwest, and growing every year. Most of the credit for its success was due to the handsome gray-haired man sitting next to her, but for more reasons than his personal talent and drive. He oozed charisma and the promise of wealth through his bearing and his outward appearance, and he had the skill and instincts to back up his promises. Merissa doubted those traits alone would have made the Morgan Group what it was today if he hadn’t been the type to hire and encourage employees who saw the world in different ways than he did. He rewarded original thinking, even if—especially if, Merissa amended in her mind—the thinker didn’t agree with him. Merissa had grown up around the yes-men and sycophants her grandfather had hired, as well as the groupies who followed her globe-trotting parents wherever their whims took them. She’d never known a world where original thought and dissension were seen in a positive way. Right now most of her positive feedback from him was in the form of praise and validation, not necessarily in concrete buildings and blocks, but she was patient. She’d wait and learn and store away her designs in her mind. Once she had paid her dues and had moved up in the company, she would be ready to make the real changes she wanted to see.

  Until then, she was thriving in her relationship with Dennis. She’d learned long ago to be suspicious of people who blindly agreed with anything she said. He spoke his mind and expected her to do the same, and she never had to look for hidden agendas or subtle manipulation in his interactions with her. She trusted Dennis more than anyone else, and he seemed more like family to her than her own.

  She looked forward again, mentally cataloging the ages and styles of the houses they passed. Postwar Craftsmans, stately Victorians, early twentieth-century brick homes. Even though she wanted to revitalize the city, her visions were often based on older styles, and she liked the idea of keeping some of the higher quality and well-structured original homes and buildings. Yet another difference between her and Dennis. Restored and preserved, those old homes would make stunning shops and restaurants. Residential space, packed tight in the downtown area, would expand upward to newly constructed condos and apartments. “The city is changing,” she said. “The more blocks we transform, the more we’ll want to encourage movement and a flow of commerce between them. If we close them off now, they’ll be too isolated. We’ll have designed a series of tiny neighborhoods instead of a connected city.”

  Dennis didn’t respond right away, and when she looked at him expectantly he was staring in his rearview mirror with a slight frown. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Hm, nothing. I just thought I recognized someone, but I must have been mistaken,” he said, turning left and heading up the hill, away from busy Pacific Avenue and toward their target block. He continued their conversation, a smile back on his face. “You’ll eventually learn, dear Merissa, that exclusion, not inclusion, is the key to making people line up for a chance to live in the neighborhoods you create. The more you look like you’re trying to keep people out, the more desperately they want in.”

  “Cynic,” she said with a shake of her head.

  “Idealist,” he countered.

  Merissa smiled and pushed her dark blond hair behind her ear. They were each a little of both, she thought. Maybe that’s why they got along so well. He had been born and raised in Tacoma and he had seen both growth and decline over six de
cades here. She had been raised mostly in Europe with her jet-setting parents, and she still carried a slightly idealized image in her mind of beautiful cities where life was lived on the sidewalks and in the cafés. Places where it didn’t matter if you felt lonely behind closed doors, because once you stepped outside, everyone was family and friend. Her years in Montreal for university and grad school had cemented her belief that public spaces where citizens congregated and shared information, beliefs, and philosophies made for stronger communities in a general sense, and less isolation and loneliness on a personal level.

  She wouldn’t let Dennis talk her out of her vision of the city as a walking-friendly one where neighbors and consumers lived more on the streets and less hidden away inside buildings. He, likewise, wouldn’t likely give up his goal of self-contained, exclusive—and expensive—complexes where select people lived and worked together. Their shared goal was a beautiful and safe Tacoma.

  Dennis turned again and slowed even more. In some ways, the area around their target neighborhood didn’t look either safe or beautiful right now. Most of the stores had bars on their windows, and a lot of the cars looked like they needed to be towed if they were going anywhere besides where they were parked at the moment. Dennis gestured around them.

  “You can see why insular is the way to go,” he said. “Tenants want to feel secure, and an enclosed environment is the only way to make them feel at home here.”

  Merissa shook her head with emphasis and had to tuck her hair back again. “If we only look at what’s here before us, I’d have to agree with you. But we have to look into the future and see what this city can become.”

  “Here we are,” Dennis said instead of commenting on her words as he started to circle the block they wanted to develop. Merissa watched through the passenger window as they passed a variety of structures. A derelict strip of medical offices, most vacant and for rent. Three short and squat apartment buildings, complete with peeling paint, balconies crowded with toys and plastic furniture, and weedy parking lots. A miniscule grocery store with displays of fruit and cases of beer in front. A smattering of single-family homes, including two that were abandoned and had graffiti-covered plywood over their doors and windows. Like stop-motion photography, in Merissa’s mind she saw all of it torn down piece by piece and her new vision erected in its place.