“I want a full list of everyone who accessed the scaffold in the past seventy-two hours,” Carmen said. “And the name of whoever signed off on the last safety inspection.”
Gus cleared his throat. “That would be me. But no one flagged anything unusual. It was fine when I checked Friday afternoon after the crew left.”
“No one was here over the weekend,” Finn cut in. “We have security cameras covering every entry point.”
“Who was the last person on it?” Carmen asked.
Gus thought for a minute. “Dean Jacobs. But I signed off after he was down. Nothing unusual.”
Carmen pursed her lips and turned her full attention to Gus. “Well, either you missed something, or someone found a way to get in,” she said.
“Are you implying this was our fault?” asked Lainey. “We don’t know if it was equipment failure or…”
“Or sabotage,” Finn said, stepping forward.
“Unless you have proof of that, Ms. Harper is responsible for site safety, and this could’ve killed somebody.”
“But it didn’t, thank goodness,” Finn replied. “This site is tight. Tighter than most I’ve worked.”
Carmen raised an eyebrow. “Not for me to decide. The council may see it differently. I’ll be filing my report. Expect a hearing.”
She handed Lainey the citation.
Lainey stood frozen for a moment as she took the piece of paper in her trembling hands. Her stomach churned as she walked back to her office.
She wanted to scream. Or cry. Or throw something. But none of that would help. Not when vultures were already circling, waiting for the opportunity to take this project away from her.
Tears threatened to flow down her cheeks, but she swallowed hard.Show no weakness. Be strong.
Damn it. She worked too hard for it to unravel over a piece of paper.
But her mind was already racing.
Would the council close the site down? Issue a temporary stop order? That would mean anywhere from seventy-two hours to a couple of weeks. And she guaranteed the crews’ salaries on the premise that they’d be working, not sitting at home or worse, looking for another job.
Oh God. Did she even have enough money to cover that?
Either way, her reputation was on the line again.
By the time Lainey pushed open her office door and sat at her desk, the weight of it all crashed down on her shoulders.
It wasn’t just the collapse. It was everything all over again. The whispers behind her back. The rumors. The people who thought she couldn’t handle this just because she was young.
Her throat tightened.
Just when she thought her life was back on track, shit happened, and Finn was here to see it.
Perfect timing. Kick the woman when she was down.
Between that and the secrets she buried for ten years, her stress level was maxed out.
What would he say if he knew? What would he do? Would he walk away? Or worse, would he stay and look at her as if she betrayed him all over again?
CHAPTER 31
Thankfully,she had a reprieve. The council met quickly and placed her on formal notice. She had ten days to resolve security and operational issues or they would reassign the project to someone else. While it wasn’t technically a reprieve, at least they hadn’t permanently closed her down. The site was off-limits to the workers and the public until the issue was resolved. Finn had pulled strings to get the Brotherhood Alliance conditional access for security improvements.
Still, it felt like one wrong move and everything would come crumbling down. Hell, everythingwastumbling down, but she was still standing, and that’s all that counted.
