Connor pulled up the three design sketches, right on cue.
Doug Fenton cleared his throat. “I can confirm that Acacia’s work on Phase One has been excellent. The Alastair is the best house I’ve built in twenty years. And for the record, the timeline delays Vance mentioned were caused by a permitting backlog at the county level, not by design revisions.”
The room was quiet.
“Thank you, Doug.” Meredith paused, let the silence hold for one beat, then two. “However, there is a concern I need to bring to this group’s attention. It’s not about Acacia’s performance. It’s about the subcontractor pipeline.”
She watched Vance’s face. The first glint of something—not alarm, not yet, but the vague flicker of concern.
“Over the past several weeks, our team has identified a pattern in subcontractor selection that raises financial questions for Pippin Lake.” She nodded to Connor, who advanced to the next slide—a spreadsheet showing the three contractors, their bid history, and the budget allocations they’d tracked against.
“Three companies have received the majority of subcontract work across Phase One: Bayside Mechanical, Hawke Brothers Framing, and Gulf Breeze Electric. These three companies are registered to the same business address—a commercial mailbox suite in Fort Walton Beach—and share the same registered agent.”
The room temperature dropped so hard and so fast, it gave her chills. Or maybe that was the way the color drained from Vance’s smug features.
“Additionally, the bids submitted by these companies have consistently fallen within two to three percent of Pippin Lake’s internal budget allocations—numbers that are not shared with contractors during the bidding process.” She let that settle for a moment, then took a breath. “This pattern suggests that budget information may have been communicated to these vendors prior to bid submission.”
Greg Hollister’s face had gone very still. He was looking at the screen with focused attention.
“Finally,” Meredith said, “during a routine inspection of the Alastair model last week, we discovered that the HVAC ductwork installed by Bayside Mechanical is twenty-four-gauge galvanized steel. The architectural specifications call for twenty gauge. The difference represents a significant cost reduction in materials—cheaper, thinner ductwork billed at the higher-spec rate.”
Connor pulled up the photograph—the gauge stamp on the ductwork, clear and undeniable, next to the specification page from the architectural plans.
“In addition, we found sub-quality materials in five other places.” She tipped her head and Connor snapped five slides of electrical wires, drywall, framing, and a truss that was clearly lower grade than specified and budgeted for.
Greg Hollister turned to Vance. “What do you make of this?”
Vance’s face was now the color of old concrete. His hands were flat on the table, and Meredith watched him cycle through options—denial, deflection, outrage—and arrive at the only destination available to a man whose scheme had just been laid out in high-definition on a conference room screen.
“I don’t trust a rookie and a dental student to do the math.”
Greg gave a soft choke. “Well, the math they’ve done is based on your bids and your contractors and it adds up. Or doesn’t, depending on your point of view.”
Vance’s eyes shuttered and he gave a death stare to Meredith. “With all due respect,” he dragged out the words so that they held not one molecule of respect, “I believe you’re in a little over your head. All this does is confirm that we need a back-up architectural firm and I have one that would work nicely.”
Once again, Greg scoffed. “Oh, I bet you do,” he said under his breath, then exhaled with palpable frustration.
In that moment, Meredith could taste the win.
“I’d like to review the full documentation from Acacia,” Greg added, his voice controlled but with an edge that hadn’t been there five minutes ago. “Will it take long to compile this for me?”
“It’s done.” Connor pulled a printed and bound copy from his bag—a product he had to have produced sometime between two a.m. and seven forty-five.
And inthatmoment, Meredith might have fallen in love.
“Right here, sir,” he said, standing to carry the professionally Velo-bound booklet to the head of the table. “All receipts, bids, payments, and whatever we could find about the vendors in question is right here.”
Greg looked up at him. “Who are you again? Her assistant?”
“My project coordinator,” Meredith replied, glancing at Connor as he returned to his seat. “A valued member of the team who first noticed the discrepancies while filing paperwork.”
Vance let out a half groan, half sigh. “This is ridiculous,” he muttered.
The room went dead silent as Greg opened the report, scanned the first three pages, and closed it. He looked at Vance with an expression that could have frozen the Gulf.
“I’m going to ask you to step out while we discuss this.”
It wasn’t a request.
