“Let me go speak with Charlie,” Jack said finally. “I need a few minutes to clear my head.”
“We’ll figure out how to get this sorted,” Holly assured him, though she had no idea how they would actually accomplish that miracle.
Jack nodded and left the room, his shoulders bowed under the weight of everything. Holly watched him go, her heart aching. He looked like one more problem would break him completely.
After Jack’s footsteps faded down the stairs, Logan turned to Holly with a thoughtful expression.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Logan asked ina hushed tone.
“That Victor or my ex…” Holly used air quotes around the word, “bribed that inspector?”
Her brow furrowed as another thought occurred to her. “Did Jack call George? Or did he call Jack?”
“I don’t know,” Logan said, his expression growing more concerned. “I just remember Jack telling me that George would be coming to do another inspection of the inn and he’d paid him to assess rooms 9, 10, and 11 to help us move more quickly.”
“So you’re thinking this is sabotage,” Holly said, not quite making it a question.
“Oh, absolutely.” Logan nodded. “But I didn’t want to say it out loud to Jack. I know that’s what he’s thinking too, but he has enough on his plate right now.”
Holly felt anger and helplessness war inside her. If this was deliberate sabotage, if Victor had sent a fake inspector to give them a false sense of security while knowing these rooms were damaged...
“We need to come up with a plan,” Logan said, pulling her from her dark thoughts. “We don’t have enough hands to get this done in the time we have. Even if we called in every contractor in St. Augustine, it’s two days before Christmas. No one’s available.”
“We can help with that.” Gabe’s voice came from the doorway, making both Holly and Logan turn in surprise.
Holly’s breath caught as she saw not just her son, but a crowd of people behind him. Christopher stood there with Isabella. Jane was next to Gabe, with Trinity and Maddy flanking them. Behind them stood what looked like most of the inn’s staff—waiters, kitchen workers, the groundskeeper, the housekeepers.
Tears sprang to Holly’s eyes. She glanced at Logan and saw his eyes had gone dark with emotion as well.
“First, we have to determine if this is actually termites,” Logan said, his voice rough. “Or if it’s something else. Because the treatment and timeline will be completely different depending on?—”
“I can tell you that.” A young man stepped forward from the back of the group. He was perhaps in his mid-twenties, with dark hair and an Italian accent. Holly recognized him as Marco, one of the kitchen dishwashers.
“I was a pest controller in Italy before I moved here,” Marco explained with a shy smile. “My family owns an extermination business in Rome. I used to love bugs when I was a boy. I drove my mother crazy.”
He laughed, and a few people in the group chuckled with him.
“Let me look at the damage,” Marco said, moving into the room. “I can tell you if it’s termites, what kind, how extensive, and what needs to be done.”
He pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight, kneeling down to examine the floor damage closely. Everyone watched in silence as Marco inspected the wood, occasionallypressing his fingers against the soft spots or peering into the tunnels with his light.
After a few minutes, he moved to Room Ten and examined the window frames and floor damage there. Then Room Eleven.
Finally, Marco returned to where Holly and Logan waited anxiously.
“Good news and bad news,” Marco said. “The good news is that this is not an active termite infestation.”
Holly felt relief flood through her. “It’s not?”
“No,” Marco confirmed. “Termites leave very specific signs when they’re actively feeding. Like mud tubes, live insects, and fresh frass. I don’t see any of that here. This damage is old. Very old. Probably ten, maybe fifteen years.”
“But the wood is crumbling,” Logan said. “How is that good news?”
“Because it means we don’t have to evacuate the building or fumigate,” Marco explained. “The termites that did this damage are long gone. What you have now is the aftermath, such as weakened wood that was never properly repaired.”
“So we can fix it?” Holly asked hopefully.
“Yes,” Marco nodded. “You’ll need to replace the damaged boards and window frames. It’s not a small job, but it’s doable. And you won’t have to deal with pest control regulations or evacuation orders.”
