Footsteps(43)

Now that a deal had been struck, there was nothing to do but wait. The Uncles had taken on the task of freeing Sabina, and there was no checking in, no querying, no handling things otherwise. They had to trust that the deal would be honored, and Carlo would hear from them when it was done. He had quite purposely only stated what he wanted for Sabina and not put any bounds on how it got done. He didn’t give a fuck whether Auberon lived or died.





They would wait, and Carlo would try to keep his hands to himself. As much as possible. It might be a good idea to limit their time together. But even as he thought that, he was lamenting that he still did not have a number at which he could reach her.





He lay in his bed in his childhood room and listened to the hardwood floors creak as Carlo Sr. moved from bedroom to bathroom, then down the hall, down the stairs. Elsa, who slept in Trey’s room here, padded after him, the tags on her collar jingling. He heard the squeak—faint from upstairs—of the kitchen door opening, and knew that the dog had been put out in the yard to take care of her morning business.





For as long as he’d worked, Carlo Sr. was up for the day by four-thirty every morning. Since he’d started the company, he was always at his office by six o’clock. He didn’t take on day laborers—every job in the company was filled by a full-time employee with benefits, and job crews were therefore stable teams. It made for more overhead, more paperwork, but Carlo Sr. had felt that people who worked together consistently worked together better, and that had proved to be true. Pagano & Sons was known for quality work and conscientious workers.





Job sites opened at seven—unless they were in a location with neighbors who didn’t like that, in which case the jobs started at eight or nine. Carlo Sr. hated those lost hours. Though Luca was his chief supervisor and traveled every day to check in at every job site, their father got restless indoors and spent some of most days at a few—generally the more complex, high-profile sites.





Their most high-profile job right now was a small beachfront cottage development—fifteen units and a main house, with four different layouts. Carlo was especially interested in that project because he had designed it. For only the second time so far, his career as an architect had dovetailed with his family’s company. And this was the first time that he’d been working independently when it happened. Pagano-Cabot was the design firm of record.





Quiet Cove’s town council was persnickety about large developments. The town was known for its quirky, intimate, small-town charm, and there were no big hotels or resorts on the beaches within its borders. There might never be. The developer (not James Auberon) had fired its first design team after more than a year of fights with the council over environmental footprint and architectural compatibility. When the new requests for proposals went out, Carlo and Peter, still unpacking their new office, had put together a proposal that leaned heavily on Carlo’s intimate knowledge of the town. What they’d proposed, and what he’d ultimately designed, were cottages that looked like they might have been erected hundreds of years ago, but had the highest-end appointments. The buildings were nestled in natural space, designed by yet another Pagano, and had the perfect balance of charm, history, luxury, and privacy.





This project was the first time Carlo and Carmen had gotten to work together. It was going well; he hoped they would be a regular team.





The project had been delayed by a long, ferocious winter, and they were a little more than a month behind schedule, with a new grand opening projected for the Independence Day weekend. Despite the delay, the project was now humming, and his part in it was largely done. Still, he thought he might take Trey out to that site today and poke around.





He needed to fill his damn day and keep himself occupied so he didn’t do anything stupid.





But for now, he turned onto his side, pulled a pillow over his head, and tried to get at least a nap’s worth of sleep before Trey woke.





~oOo~





After breakfast and a long trip to the park with Elsa, Carlo asked Trey if he wanted to have lunch with Pop-Pop at work. Trey shouted “YEAH!” and ran off, up to his room, and came running downstairs with his little, bright red hardhat on his head and his tool belt, with its plastic tools, in his hands. Laughing, Carlo helped him buckle the belt, then went to the pantry and pulled out three black metal lunchboxes—there was a whole shelf of them in there—and packed lunches for his father, Trey, and himself.





He’d made a calculated guess that his father would be at the cottage job site, and he’d been right. Carlo pulled up near his big, red Dodge Ram. He hadn’t figured on his brother being around as well, but Luca’s matte black H3 was parked nearby, too. Oh, well. No lunch for Luca. Served him right for getting Bina drunk the night before.