The Restoration of Celia Fairchild - Marie Bostwick Page 0,40
another solution. I’d tell them that there was so much that could go wrong here that it just wasn’t worth the risk.
My problem, of course, was that it was worth the risk. There was a baby at stake and the only chance I had of making it mine was to gamble on a recently released ex-con.
“Forget about it,” Trey said. “It’s a bad idea. We’ll find someone else.”
But we wouldn’t. I’d already called every contractor within a hundred miles and they’d all said no.
“Is he clean?”
“As far as I know. He checks in with his probation officer every week and has to undergo random drug testing.” Trey paused. “Celia, are you sure about this?”
I wasn’t.
“What’s your brother’s phone number?”
Do as I say, not as I do.
Chapter Thirteen
Apart from Rupert, the meth-dealing biker whom I interviewed during my brief and ill-fated career as a serious journalist, I’ve never knowingly had coffee with a felon. So I was a little anxious about meeting Lorne Holcomb. I was also desperate.
Lorne was my Plan A. There was no Plan B. Assuming he didn’t pull a knife on me or show up to the meeting high and with a swastika tattooed on his face, I was absolutely going to offer him the job. But after we sat down and started to talk, I began to think that this might be the one time in my life when an act of desperation turned out to be a good idea.
He looked enough like Trey that if I’d seen them walking down the street together, I’d have known at a glance that they were brothers. The eyes were different; Trey’s were a darker brown and more serious, his gaze more direct. But they had the same color hair, wavy and black, and even the same way of walking, their long arms and long legs swinging opposite in a steady, unhurried gait of a metronome set to largo. But Lorne was clean-shaven instead of bearded, downright clean-cut, and gave every indication of being a nice guy.
We met at Bitty and Beau’s Coffee in the French Quarter. Like every other city, Charleston has fancy coffee spots on practically every corner, most all of them good, so it wasn’t surprising that I’d never heard of this one. But Bitty and Beau’s has something special going for it: most of the employees are people with intellectual disabilities. Lorne seemed to be a regular. He exchanged high fives with a tall, portly man with a ready smile and close-trimmed beard whom Lorne introduced as Teddy. After shaking my hand and welcoming me to Bitty and Beau’s yet again, Teddy took our orders and handed Lorne a nine of diamonds playing card. A few minutes later, when a woman with short blond hair called out, “Nine of diamonds!” and handed our coffee and muffins across the counter, Lorne asked how her dad was doing after his hip replacement.
Definitely a nice guy. And surprisingly honest.
In his former life, Lorne Holcomb had been a liar, cheat, and thief. He’d also injected numerous illegal substances into his body. There was no miscarriage of justice here, no mishandled evidence or overeager prosecutors. I know this because he told me so himself.
“Guilty as charged. On all counts,” Lorne said when we sat down to talk. “Everything that happened to me was my own fault. But I’ll tell you something true: getting caught probably saved my life. It was only a matter of time until I ODed. Going to prison gave me lots of time to dry out and take a long look at my life. Wasn’t pretty,” he said, before taking a sip of coffee.
“Look, Miss Fairchild, I’m not kidding myself. If you hire me, I know you’ll only be doing it as a last resort; Trey told me what you’re up against. But I can do the job. I’ll work hard. I’ll stay sober. I’ll do everything I can to bring the project in on time and under budget. Not to blow my own horn, but I’m one helluva carpenter,” he said in a drawl that was thicker and mellower than Trey’s, a voice like amber sap seeping from a tree trunk. “When I’m not high as a kite, that is.”
He let out a laugh and I mentally gave him five points—two for humor and three for self-awareness. Then his grin faded away and he looked at me with eyes that were, if not quite as nice as his elder brother’s, every bit as serious.