by Amelia Wilde
“Thank you so much, Michelle,” I say, trying to keep my voice level. “I know how important this is.”
She beams down at me, like she’s just given me a lifetime achievement award. “I don’t have to tell you that this is a coup for our firm.” Then she glances around and lowers her voice. “Especially because of the potential for further contracts.”
“They have other properties in Lockton?”
“Edison Calley, the owner of the plant—you know him.” It’s a statement, not a question. She’s assuming that I know him because Lockton is a small town, but it’s not like the upper crust ever spent much time schmoozing with firm members of the middle class like my parents, or my sister and I.
“I know of him.”
“He’s really…” She purses her lips, choosing her words carefully. “Maximized his fortune in recent years. He’s got production facilities all over the country.” Michelle gives me a meaningful look. She doesn’t have to say any more.
“Got it. When do I leave?” I’m looking at her, but I’m not really seeing her. Thinking of home makes me think of…him. And everything that happened. His voice cuts into my thoughts. Oh, my God, Sam, what’s happening—can you stop it?
“You’ll head up on Friday for a meet and greet.” She cocks her head to the side. “At maximum, I’d say you’ll be back here next Thursday.” Then she pats my shoulder and steps away, turning her head to say one last thing over her shoulder. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” I say, lamely.
Less than a week.
I should be able to survive this.
Chapter Two
Beckett
“Jacobs! What the hell are you doing in there?”
I pound on the door to the bathroom stall where I know the newest guy on my team is hiding out. The asshole was supposed to be out here ten minutes ago, and everybody’s waiting on him to turn in his lock-out card. We had to stop production late last night and clean off two of the lines, and now they’re back on, the high-pitched whine permeating the entire building. It’s nothing compared to the low, incessant rumble of the kiln. I hear that shit even when I’m not at the plant. Even when I’m fucking dreaming.
He comes out of the stall so fast that he runs into me, stepping toward the sink like a man possessed.
“Jacobs, what the fuck? Did you—”
I catch a glimpse of his face in the mirror, and it’s white as a damn sheet. The water runs, he twists his hands under the stream, and then he rips a length of paper towel from the closest dispenser.
“Are you…deaf?”
He turns around, and the asshole grin dies from my face. Something is seriously wrong with this guy.
“I left my lock-out card up on the catwalk.” The words don’t come easy, and his pale eyes dart from one side of the room to the other. He’s trying his damnedest to look at me, but the only thing he can do is look for an escape route.
“Shit, Jacobs, it’s not the end of the damn world.”
He swallows hard, and that’s when I notice that his hands are trembling around the paper towel. “I can’t go back up there.”
Well, shit.
Dave Jacobs isn’t the kind of guy I would take to be afraid of heights. He’s about my size—he’s just transferring in from the plant downstate—but something has him spooked out of his mind.
I open my mouth to tell him to get over himself, but that look in his eyes stops me.
Right—his wife just had a baby a couple weeks ago. Three weeks, maybe. That’s why he’s here in the first place, because her mom is here and can help out. Looks like he’s been up all night anyway. I might be the world’s worst human being, but I can’t kick him when he’s down.
“Look.” I glance at the clock on the wall and bounce my company-issued ear muffs against my knee. “Stay in here. I’ll get the fucking thing. Which catwalk?”
He looks me in the eye, a faint trace of color returning to his cheeks. “Red.”
“Okay. I’ll be right back.”
I don’t have time to be running up to the red line catwalk for Jacobs, but what the fuck other choice do I have? It’s that or wait for him to get his nerve back, and that’s not going to happen without a stiff drink or five. Which would be highly against regulations. Then again, so is leaving your lock-out card anywhere but on your person.
I put the ear muffs back on and head back over to the elevators, hauling ass to the catwalk access.
“Hey!” The shout comes from behind me and sounds vaguely like the foreman, Ward, but I ignore it. He tries one more time before I’m gone. “Taylor!”
When I started here three years ago, my steel-toed boots dragged me the hell down climbing these stairs. I’d thought I was in shape from the time I’d spent in the gym when I worked a less taxing job, but the first week kicked my ass. I broke a sweat just walking around in the boots and the heavy clothes. If I was up all night with a baby, like Jacobs, it would probably feel like the same damn thing. Add in a fear of heights you usually try to ignore, and it’s a recipe for puking your guts out in the bathroom and forgetting shit you’re never supposed to forget.
My boots clank against the metal stairs with every step, but the sound is muffled by the two layers of ear protection and the constant racket of the preheated rock, crushed and tumbling, through the kiln. Up at the top, I plant my feet in the center of the catwalk and look down its length.
There’s no lockout card up here, and it would be damn obvious.
I take a few steps, scanning more closely. Did Jacobs clip it to something? If so, what the hell did he clip it to? Why did he unclip it from his belt in the first place?
There’s no fucking point in answering any of these questions, so I just go back to looking. Below me, between the catwalks, the conveyor belt hums as it carries rubble toward the preheat tower.
I take one last look. I guess Jacobs was mistaken, which means I’ve hauled myself up here for nothing.
I’m turning around to leave when I see it. It is right in the middle of a catwalk—but it’s the catwalk for the blue line, which is at least eight feet away from where I’m standing.
Well, screw this.
I should go all the way back down to the other access point and climb all the way back up, but I’ve got Jacobs waiting in the bathroom, Ward probably on his way up here to find out what the hell I’m doing, and somewhere Jacobs’ wife is waiting for him to get home. I’m never going to know what that’s like, but I bet it’s pretty fucking pressing for him right now.
So instead of doing the right thing, according to regulations, I go to one of the gaps in the catwalk. There’s a matching one across from it on the blue catwalk. I don’t even think about it. I step to the edge, twenty feet above a running conveyor belt, and jump.
A two-second flight through the air, and my boots land solidly in the middle of the blue catwalk. My heart thuds once against my rib cage, then it settles back into its regular rhythm.
Five steps, and I’ve snatched up Jacobs’ lock-out card.
I’m at the threshold when Ward bursts onto the red catwalk. His eyes go wide, then they narrow, and by the time he turns all the way around, I’m already gone.
The leap, the heights…it doesn’t make any fucking impression, because it’s moments like this that I know.
I’ve known ever since she left me. Or I left her. Or we both turned our backs and left each other.
I have nothing left to lose.
Chapter Three
Samantha
It’s high noon on Friday when I pull onto the access road for Cerberus Cement. I wasn’t here for the site visit, but it’s a long road by the lakeshore and I’ve driven here before. Anybody who learned to drive in Lockton has driven this dirt road a million times.
It’s not going to be a dirt road for long. Cerberus, in tandem with the planning going on at the firm, has worked out a deal with the township to have the whole thing paved as part of the landscaping project.
At the e
nd of the road, there’s a little guard station with a gate, and I pull up next to it and climb out. The guy inside looks familiar, but I can’t place him.
“Hi.” He looks out at me through the open window, smiling. It’s a mild day toward the end of September—gorgeous, actually—but my stomach is in knots just from driving through town. It’s not even like he lives here. I don’t know where he lives, but it’s probably not here. Why would he stay?
“I’m Samantha—”
“Sam Kennedy!” Guard Man says, a wide grin stretching across his face. “I thought that was you.”
“I’m sorry, I—” The smile on my face has to be the most awkward expression ever to have graced the planet.
“It’s me, Eddie.” He gives his own chest a good-natured pat. “Eddie Morrison.”
My brain finally computes the years since high school and Eddie’s face, and it clicks into place. “Oh, Eddie. Jesus. I didn’t recognize you!” Eddie Morrison is the younger brother of Jessica, a girl I went to high school with. “How’s Jess doing these days? I haven’t heard from her in…” I can’t remember the last time I heard from her, aside from keeping up with her on social media. I’m drawing a complete blank on her last post, her last picture…
“She’s in London.” Eddie nods. “Into fashion. I don’t get it, but—”
“That’s right.” Jessica was always obsessed with the big cities on the coast, the annual fashion weeks, the designers. It makes perfect sense that she went into the fashion industry, and perfect sense that she doesn’t have time to post every detail of her life on social media. I run a hand over my hair, smoothing out a few flyaway strands that must have escaped on the drive. “Hey, Eddie, I’m here for a meeting with Mr. Calley. The woman from the front office told me I should check in with you for a temporary gate card.”
“Got it right here.” Eddie lifts up a yellow plastic card on a lanyard and hands it over to me with a grin. “Now, all I need from you is a signature.”
He passes a clipboard with a sign-in list on it through the window, and I write my name down along with the date and time. “Do I need to sign this every time I visit?”
“Just this once.” He takes the clipboard back and puts it on the desk. “Nice to see you, Sam.”
“I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other a lot over the next week.” Great. That doesn’t sound like I’m hitting on him or anything. “I didn’t mean—”
He shakes his head. “I know what you meant. You have to get to your meeting—I’ll raise the gate this time to let you through.”
Back in the safety of my car, I feel free to roll my eyes at myself. It’s like being in Lockton has stripped away all my usual professionalism.
Once I’ve pulled in and parked in the parking lot, I pull out a little bag of makeup from my purse for a quick touch-up of my face. I take in a deep breath, smile in the rearview mirror to make sure I don't have any lipstick on my teeth, and then grab my purse and scoot out of the driver's seat. I shut the door behind me and take a moment to smooth my black slacks and straighten the sapphire blue top that brings out the brilliance in my eyes to make them look damn amazing. A quick glance at my watch lets me know I have ten minutes to spare before the start of my meeting.
I spend five of them checking my phone, hastily answering a few emails, and then it’s time to go in and meet Mr. Calley.
Inside the main building, there’s a lobby area with six seats and what looks like a wide new desk, behind which sits a middle-aged woman with dark curly hair. Her face lights up when she sees me come in. They must not get many visitors, or else she really likes being the public face of Cerberus Cement.
“Well, hi there.” Her voice is bubbly but strong. “You must be Samantha Kennedy, with Ryder & Bloom.”
“That’s me.” I can’t help returning her smile, but she doesn’t stop there. Before I’m even at the desk, she’s bustling out from behind it and extending her hand to shake mine. I do. “And you must be—”
“Brenda.”
“Yes, Brenda. We spoke on the phone.”
“Yes, we did!” She hustles back around to the other side of the desk and picks up the phone. “I’m going to let him know you’re here.”
She waits for a moment, then says, “Mr. Calley, Samantha Kennedy is here for you.” There’s a pause. “Absolutely. Absolutely.” Then she hangs up the phone.
“He’s going to be just a minute. Can I offer you anything to drink? We have water, Diet Coke, lemonade…”
Normally I would refuse, but my mouth has been dry since I crossed the city limits, and I don’t think it would reflect very well on Ryder & Bloom to have to croak my way through this entire meeting. “A water would be great.”
Brenda reaches down below the desk and there’s a click as she pulls open what has to be some kind of mini-fridge. She hands the chilled bottle of water over to me with a grin, and then she comes back around the desk to usher me to one of the seats. “Make yourself comfortable. That must have been a long drive—four hours, right?”
I uncap the bottle and take a long sip, nodding at her. “Four hours, yes. Today the traffic was a little heavy, so that added about ten minutes, and then with stops it’s—”
I have no idea why I’m telling her this, so it’s almost a relief to be interrupted by a man’s voice booming across the small lobby.
“Ms. Kennedy!”
I stand up, almost losing the bottle to the forces of gravity, but collect myself in time to turn around. “Mr. Calley.”
He’s coming in for a handshake, a short man, salt-and-pepper hair, with a big smile that doesn’t quite seem genuine, and I shake his hand and let go of his grasp as quickly as possible.
“It’s great to finally meet in person,” he says, even though I’m not sure that we’ve communicated by email…or phone…or anything before today.
“It absolutely is.”
He leans in like he’s going to tell me a secret. “I hope you still like me when you find out.”
I raise my eyebrows, keeping the smile on my face. “About what?”
“The plans for the project, Ms. Kennedy. We want to change all of them.”
Chapter Four
Beckett
Thanks to yours truly, nobody had to waste any extra time due to Jacobs’ dumbass move on Tuesday. The only thing worse than somebody getting injured during production is losing time to shit like that.
But I’m pretty sure that’s not why I have to stop at the office to pick up my check.
That only happens when they’re giving out bonuses, and nobody else is heading this way at the end of the Friday afternoon shift.
I head down the hall into the offices of Cerberus Cement, where the noise from the factory proper is nothing but a whisper. In here, you wouldn’t even know that it was happening until it stopped. The space between my shoulders tenses. Who the fuck knows—maybe they’re about to fire me. As far as I know, nobody saw me going against safety regulations and jumping between the catwalks, and I had a pretty damn good excuse.
Jacobs has been out for the last few days, too, which must mean there was something else going on with that guy. I don’t have time to dwell on that, though. I’ve got a full night of drinking planned ahead for me tonight at the bar. Fired or not, it’s still payday.
I steel myself for the sight of Eva, who works the desk in the personnel department.
As soon as she sees me when I enter the office, she greets me with a big smile that puts a funny ache in my chest. Her hair is the same shade as Sam’s. I can’t come in here without her name echoing in my head, without memories of the soft, smooth skin at her waist curving down to her hips taking over my thoughts. “Beck. Right on time.”
Shit. It’s happening again.
“Hey, Eva, how’s it going?”
“Great. I’m so glad it’s Friday, aren’t you?” She’s wearing a cardigan over a sundress, and as she speaks, she leans forward onto the counter between us. “It’s going to be so nice out tonight.”
“Yeah.” I’m not a nice guy. I pick up women in the bar on a regular basis and then conveniently forget their phone numbers after a one-night stand. Messing with Eva like that is not on my agenda, not now, not ever, and the way she’s flirting with me right now puts a cold pit in my stomach. I don’t want a knock-off. I want— “I got a note that I should pick up my check here. Do you have it?”
Eva’s usually the one who holds the checks when they’ve decided not to direct deposit, and even though that usually means a bonus, it strikes me as complete bullshit that they make you walk all the way over here to pick it up.
She frowns. “Actually, I don’t. Mr. Greenfield said that he would be here to meet—oh, here he is!” She smiles over my shoulder, and I turn to see Cliff Greenfield, the manager above Ward. He’s got an indulgent smile on his face that makes me want to roll my eyes out of my damn head, but he’s coming at me with his hand extended to shake, so I don’t really have another option.
“Beckett Taylor,” he says, and thank God, because now we both know what my name is.
“Mr. Greenfield.”
He steps back and looks me up and down, and I’m not sure what the hell that’s for. I need to scrub the fine particles of leftover dust off my face. I need a fucking shower. A real shower, and not with the shit soap they have in the locker room. The sooner we could get this little ceremony over with, the better.
“Well, I wanted to take a minute to congratulate you.” This guy is looking satisfied as hell, and I have no idea why. Then he pulls an envelope out of his pocket and hands it to me. It’s about the size and shape of a paycheck. “On behalf of all of us at Cerberus Cement, we’d like to thank you for your dedication.”
What the—
“You’re…welcome.” I don’t know what the hell else to say, but Greenfield is looking at me like it’s my turn to make a speech. What is this about?
