Behind the desk, he closed his pale blue eyes a moment and pressed his lips together as if he didn’t know what to say or didn’t even want to respond at all, which Libby could easily understand. It was her money, after all, and therefore her problem. And she’d certainly made a mess of it so far.
Then Doug cursed gruffly, something he rarely did, before he curled one hand into a fist and pounded the desktop with it.
“Dammit, Libby. I wish you’d come to me, to both of us right off the bat. I know you meant well making it a surprise, but your aunt Elizabeth and I are way too old for surprises, honey. We like to know what’s what. We need to know. It’s pretty important at our age,” he muttered. “We really need to be kept inside the loop instead of outside in the dark.”
Libby sighed. Doug was absolutely right. She should have informed them. She wished that she had.
“Well, now you know. What’s what is fifty thousand dollars is burning a big hole in my pocket. And now that you know about it, you can help me do this right, Doug, if it’s at all possible.” She narrowed her gaze on his face. “Is it possible? Or is it just a silly and impossible dream? Tell me the truth.”
He leaned back in his chair, then rubbed his hand slowly across his white-whiskered chin before he spoke. “That’s a generous thing you want to do for her, Libby. I think your aunt Elizabeth will be thrilled as all to get-out to see this old dump looking the way it did in the old days. It’s been hard on her, watching the place go to seed the way it has over the years.”
“Oh, I know,” Libby said. “And I so desperately want to change all that. I want to make her really happy.”
“I know you do, sweetie.” Doug sighed. “But fifty thousand dollars, as grand a sum as it is, just isn’t going to cut it. Not with prices like they are today, and not with all the repairs we’re in need of around here. Your fifty thousand dollars, honey, is hardly a drop in the bucket.” He shook his head so very sadly. “I’m afraid it can’t be done, Libby. Not unless you’re a magician or that secret admirer of yours plans to add a million or two to his original gift.”
Libby dragged in her lower lip and bit down on it, trying with all her might not to give way to another flood of tears. What good would they do?
“Unless…” Doug leaned forward in his chair.
“What? Unless what?”
“Ever heard that old expression, Libby, about there being more than one way to skin a cat?”
She nodded, wondering what in the world he was getting at and why he was smiling all of a sudden when everything seemed so horribly, bitterly bleak. He looked like a damned Cheshire cat, and she wanted to skin him at the moment. “What?” she pressed. “What are you thinking?”
“Do you remember the work I did a while back for Father James O’Fallon when he was organizing his halfway house and homeless shelter?”
Again, Libby nodded. She remembered it well. Doug had volunteered his time as an accountant to help the energetic young priest acquire an affordable facility and to properly set up his charitable organization. That had been years ago, but the place—Heaven’s Gate—was still doing wonderful work by providing food and shelter and hope to those who lacked all three.
“Just what are you getting at, Doug?”
“I drive into the city to visit that place pretty often, you know. Mostly just to chew the fat with Father James. He’s a bigger Cardinals’ fan than I am, and that’s saying something.”
“But what does that have to do with Haven View?” she asked. She had absolutely no idea where he was going with this.
“There’s a new program at Heaven’s Gate,” he said. “It just started a couple months ago. They’re training some of their people to work in the trades. Painting, carpentry, plumbing, things like that.”
Now a little bulb started to glow above Libby’s head as she suddenly saw just where he was going. “All the things we need done here,” she said.
Doug nodded. “Yep. We need the work done and I can promise you that Father James needs fifty thousand dollars. What do you think, honey?”
Libby stood up so fast she nearly fell over. “My God! I think you’re a genius, Doug. That is just inspired. Can we drive downtown right now and talk to him?”
The elderly man laughed. “I guess with that Closed sign on the door we can leave any time we want, Libby. Let me just give the good father a call.”
Across the highway, high above it in the penthouse, David was just getting out of bed at eleven-fifteen. He’d gotten up a few hours earlier to see Libby safely off with Jeff, his reliable chauffeur and assistant and then Jeff had immediately returned to see what else the boss needed done.
“I haven’t had time to go through all the Haven View documents yet,” David told him while trying to stifle a yawn. “Anything I should know about the situation right now? Anything about it that can’t wait a couple of hours?”
Jeff shook his head. “I think it’ll keep. I probably shouldn’t say this, Mr. Halstrom, but you look like you could use a few more hours of sleep.”
He usually maintained a fairly stern demeanor with his employees, but David couldn’t help but laugh at the remark. “I’m getting too old for this,” he said.
“Well, perhaps it’s time to settle down, boss. Or at least to think about it.”
The kid rarely, if ever, made personal observations or remarks. A few days ago such comments might’ve earned him a dark, scathing look and a swift verbal reprimand. Today, however, David felt much too mellow and too downright happy to do anything but say, “Maybe you’re right, kid. Maybe you’re right.”
Now, after a few hours of sleep, he felt somewhat restored, but that little thread of giddiness and gladness was still there inside him. Instead of his habitual Grinch demeanor, he felt almost like a little boy on Christmas morning, and that was some kind of first, he decided, because even when he was a little boy, there wasn’t much giddiness or gladness in him. None, if truth be told.
“Libby, Libby,” he muttered into the mirror while he shaved. “What the hell are you doing to me?”
After he showered and dressed, he punched her number into his cell phone. She’d written it down for him before leaving, but now he couldn’t remember if it was her cell or the front desk at the crummy motel. Either way, there was no answer, which made him feel a little sad and lost for a moment, until feeling sad and lost made him feel like a real jerk.
So, he proceeded to call the Halstrom home office in Corpus Christi. Surely there would be somebody there he could yell at in order to drive this sappiness out of his system.
Once Libby and Doug were downtown, she asked him if he’d mind if they stopped at the newspaper’s office for a minute so she could drop off some film for developing. Leave of absence or not, she’d become incredibly spoiled by the paper’s freebies. Most newspapers had gone completely digital these days, but the St. Louis paper, out of nostalgia perhaps or pure laziness, still maintained a small, cramped and cobwebby darkroom.
Inside the building, she didn’t want to waste time so she tried hard to avoid people she knew—and there were so many of them—as she made her way to the northwest corner of the third floor where her good pal, Hannah Corson, was on duty, looking harried and hassled as always. Libby plucked several film cans from her handbag.
“Can you run these for me, Hannah? No rush, but it’d be wonderful to have the prints in two or three days.”
“Sure.