Page 59 of Rhodes

It's the Stone in me, the part that hears a problem and starts reaching for tools. Money, lawyers, Ridge, who knows somebody in every city that's got a port and half the ones that don't. There's always a call to make, a number to move, a lever to pull. My whole family runs on it. Fix it, handle it, make it go away before it can touch her again.

I say nothing.

I keep my hands on her, and not on the problem, and the wanting to fix it keeps roaring under the quiet.

SIXTEEN

Tilly

The Nomination: To get a New Orleans building listed, someone has to prove its significance in writing, with survey data, photographs, and dates. However much a family loves the place, love is not admissible. The file takes evidence and nothing else.

I'm at the counter before six, staring at coffee I haven't touched, when Rhodes comes in.

He stops when he sees me and studies my face for about half a second. I look like hell, and I know it. I slept maybe two hours and gave up on the rest.

"You're up early," he says.

"Couldn't sleep."

He gets a glass of water instead of coffee and leans against the far counter. I can see him working up to something, and I already have a feeling I know what it is.

"I've been thinking about Oak Moss."

That makes two of us.

"If they're doing this because the land's worth more developed," he says, "that's a number. Numbers move. I can buy it. Or the family makes an offer big enough that it stops making sense to build on it."

"That's ridiculous, Rhodes. Plus, it's not for sale. The point is, I want to keep it in our family, just the way it is. They did this without saying a word until it was locked and loaded. It's all so fucked up."

He nods slowly and moves on.

"Then there's a legal angle. Somebody who can put a hold on clearing. Fight the permits."

"My dad's been developing for over a decade in Charleston. If he's got the equipment out there, it's already done." I finally pick up the coffee. "There's nothing for a lawyer to grab onto, I'm sure of it."

He doesn't come back at me.

"Ridge, then. He knows people. Land, deals, attorneys. Half the state owes him something. He could at least find out where the leverage is."

"Grandbank holds the property and the leases. My father's developing his own family's land. Nobody's breaking a contract, nobody's stealing a parcel you can wrestle back." I put the mug down too hard. "There's nothing for Ridge to swoop in and fix, Rhodes. This isn't a shipping route."

He goes still, not the cold still but the other kind, where I can almost see the gears hunting a path that isn't there.

"Okay," he says.

He's stopped pitching, but I can see it slide back behind his eyes, tucked somewhere for later, a problem he still believes has an answer he just hasn't found yet.

I pick up my mug and my phone.

"I've got work to do," I say, and I take Oak Moss back to my room, where his money and his lawyers and his brother can't do my thinking for me.

Before I open a single notebook, I text my sponsor, because the one thing I know for a fact about a morning like this one is that I'm not supposed to sit in a room alone with it.

Helen - bad news from home. Not about my mom. I'm okay and I'm not going anywhere, I just didn't want to be the only one who knew.

She writes back within a minute.

Do you want to talk?