that have grown out of the situation with the first house,” Clive says in measured tones. “The river—”
“Don’t talk to me about the bloody river,” Tom snaps. His decision to redirect that river almost ruined him. And after all that effort, the river is back now, burbling away through the trees as it has done since the last ice age.
Clive looks over Tom’s face—the man looks haggard. His face is drawn. He’s not eating. His eyes are sunken behind his glasses, all the light gone. His hair has more flashes of white than ever before.
“Clive,” Tom says flatly. All the friendliness has gone from his voice. Clive wonders if Tom’s next move is to suggest he go home, step down from the company. “What rumors?”
Clive feels bad, shifts from foot to foot. He hates saying it aloud. “They’re a suspicious bunch, this lot. Some of the men say the site is haunted.”
Tom grins. Hilarious. He leans back in his chair and folds his arms. Haunted? Magic.
“Go on,” he says brightly, suddenly warmed by having to prod Clive to tell him this kind of news.
“They’re scared, Tom. That moose has been on the site six times now.”
“Elk,” Tom corrects. “Moose is the American term.”
“Will you just listen? It keeps wrecking things. It’s a big animal.”
“I know,” Tom groans. This was the other outcome of the river fiasco: apparently every animal in Norway drank out of that damn river, and when he redirected it they all got confused. Or pissed off. The latter is more likely, given that the moose/elk keeps coming to the site and wrecking things. “We’ll get pest control out again.”
Clive double-takes. “Pest control? Tom, it’s a moose. Pest control won’t touch it. Anyway, it’s not just that. The build itself is no picnic. Things keep going missing.”
Tom frowns. “What do you mean, missing? Is someone stealing the equipment?”
“We’re not sure. A couple of things have ended up in the fjord.” He fixes Tom in a stare. “No one knows how they got there.”
Tom leans forward, his lips curled into a sneer. “They’re building on the side of a cliff, you idiot. The wind could have caught them . . .”
You idiot. Clive bites back a sharp retort, grits his teeth. “They didn’t fall off the side of the cliff. They’d have shattered if that were the case. Someone . . . or something . . . had to have carried the stuff down the cliff and placed them in the fjord. And we’re not talking about hammers or small objects, here. The big sheets of glass you ordered for the front façade. Slates. Tiles. These are heavy, highly breakable objects. Removed from the site and found in the water. Do you realize what I’m saying?”
He says this last bit as though he’s talking to a three-year-old. Tom gives him a thousand-yard stare.
“They think the site is haunted. I’m serious. It’s concerning.”
“It’s very concerning,” Tom mumbles. “It’s concerning that we’ve contracted people who believe in ghosts.”
“And there’s another rumor,” Clive adds in a low voice. He’ll need a stiff drink after this conversation. He rubs his chin. “I think this particular rumor has some truth in it.”
“What’s that?”
“That we’re running out of money.”
Tom doesn’t answer. They both know this is only partly true. The real truth is that they ran out of money some time ago.
“We need an injection of cash,” Clive says.
“Who doesn’t?”
“Tom. I need you to be serious for a second.”
Tom gives him a hard look. Clive feels a fresh ripple of anger. He wants to scream in Tom’s face. This doesn’t just affect you, he wants to yell. This is my income, my life. If you go under, you take me with you!
“I hate to ask this . . .” Clive says.
“Just ask it.”
“All right.” He sighs, deeply uncomfortable. “Was there any . . . insurance money?”
Tom stares at him blankly for a few seconds. “Insurance money?”
Clive studies the pattern on the tablecloth. “From Aurelia’s death.”
“For crying out loud!” Tom spits, reeling as though he’s been stabbed.
“I’m only asking,” Clive says, but he can’t look at Tom, and good thing, too, because Tom has a mind to reach across the kitchen table and throttle him.
Clive leans forward. “Do you think I want to ask about this? Do you not think I’m waking up every night in a cold sweat, wondering how we’re going to pay for this house? And the irony is, it’s not even my house! It’s yours!”