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I lead the way from the truck over to the house, where a couple of my main guys, Matt and Johnny, are working up on the roof. They’ve both been with my company for over a decade, and they’re some of the most capable carpenters in the business. The two of them working together can get more done than most crews of five in the same amount of time.
I put my fingers into my lips and whistle from the side of the building as we approach. Johnny covers his eyes to shade them from the sun as he looks down at us.
“How’s it going?” I ask, knowing they really hate when I ask that question. It’s a fluff question, one they’d rather not take the time to answer. That’s probably why I ask it every day. I can’t help but bust their balls.
“Swimmingly, boss,” Matt says with a laugh. He doesn’t look up from checking his measurement against his string line to ensure he’s still level but recognizes my voice all the same.
“Who’s she?” Johnny asks, still looking down the roofline at the two of us. When I glance back at Holley, I see she’s trying her best to make herself disappear behind me.
I bite my lip to stop from laughing.
Ole Matty, though—his ears have perked at the mention of a woman, and he’s no longer enthralled with the body of his work.
I jerk a thumb over my shoulder.
“Oh, her? That’s Holley. Holley Smith. She’s a state inspector,” I fib, looking back to watch her reaction.
Holley’s eyebrows shoot up, but I don’t acknowledge it. At least, not yet. “She’s just here to go over our plans and any upcoming code changes.”
“What happened to Jim?” Johnny asks about our regular inspector.
Matt laughs and smacks Johnny in the chest. “Who the hell cares about Jim?” He smiles down from the roof, charm and flirtation oozing out on us even all the way down here. “Nice to meet you, Holley. Really nice to meet you.”
She clears her throat, spears me with a glare, and shields her eyes as she looks up and into the sun. Matt and Johnny look like nothing more than shadows from our vantage point. “Uh…nice to meet you too.”
“So, Holley, do you need to know the blow count from the beams?” Matt asks. “I wrote it down. I can get it for you.”
“Do I need to know what?” Holley whispers frantically behind me.
I shake my head. My God, Matt has no idea just how fucking hilarious this is. I never even dreamed my giving her an alternate identity could be this fun.
“A blow count,” I repeat for her. “How many times they had to strike the beam with the hammer to get it in the ground.”
“The what?”
I almost snort. “Just ask him if they gave the count to the engineer.”
“Did you…uh…give the count to the engineer?” Holley raises her voice to ask, so painfully unversed in the terminology it’s ridiculous. I can’t believe Detective Sherlock Holmes hasn’t appeared to break this case wide open yet, but I’m going to enjoy it for however long it lasts.
“Yes, ma’am,” Matt responds, and Holley once again turns to me in question.
“Tell him that’s good enough. You can get it from him.”
“That’s good enough,” she repeats after me. “I can, um, get it from him.”
“Good deal,” Matt yells back down, taking his nail gun off his hip while Johnny holds the wood in position and fires off several to secure it in place.
“I get the need for mystery,” Holley suddenly says in my ear, her hand pressing heat through my T-shirt into the skin of my back. “But couldn’t you have chosen something a little less knowledge-intensive?”
I glance over my shoulder with a smirk. “I guess I could have told him you’re an agent of the IRS.”
“Ugh!” she huffs. “No way. No one wants to see someone from the IRS. No one.”
“Okay, then.” I shrug, turning to face her and putting my hands on my hips. To Matt and Johnny, it probably looks like we’re discussing important vectors of the job. It’s almost funny how much we are not. “I could tell them you’re death in human form, that you’ve stolen Holley Fields from the Tribune’s body, and that you just want to know what it’s like to be human before you take me to the afterlife.”
Her eyes narrow. “That’s basically the plot from Meet Joe Black.”
“And?”
“And what are you doing watching Brad Pitt movies?”
“I do have a teenage daughter,” I justify. “Remember?”
The truth is I did a Lifetime Movie Network marathon the last time I had a Saturday to myself, and Meet Joe Black was the main event. It’s a solid three hours long and surprisingly hypnotizing. When Chloe came home at the very end, she asked me who Anthony Hopkins was, and I died a little inside. I planned an Anthony Hopkins movie marathon for the next day in an effort to undo the damage I’d clearly been inflicting on the next generation.
