Page 55 of Finding Home

Beth’s smile was wide and filled with confidence. “Thank you. I’ll call you to let you know where they’re holding the meeting.”

“You do that.” Julie waved goodbye to her friend as Beth unlocked her truck.

As she walked across the parking lot, Julie turned her collar up against the cold. The gravel was hard and dry underfoot, and the cold breeze off the lake was like ice.

She’d told Daniel and Meg she was sorry for the time she’d spent away from home when she could have been with them. But it had taken losing her job to see that she was more than an employee number.

Beth was sixty-one. She had a daughter about to start her own life, a brother who surveyed the land around a resort that would hopefully be built, and a community that called her their own.

And she was scared to say yes to something that was already, in almost every visible way, hers to accept.

Beth was good at what she did. She just hadn’t figured that out yet. And Julie knew better than most how much time and energy working it out could cost you.

She got in the truck and sat for a moment before starting the engine. Through the windshield, she could see Beth’s car pulling out onto Main Street.

Next week, Julie would go to the meeting, learn more about the arts center, and convince Beth that she was perfect for the job.

Chapter 34

On Thursday afternoon, Julie was sitting at the kitchen table. Her laptop was open and she was halfway through the third article for the Beacon.

Unfortunately, she was stuck on a paragraph about Pete Sawyer.

No matter how she worded it, the text about him kept coming out either too thin or too heavy. The cursor blinked at the end of an unfinished sentence. She’d been looking at it for ten minutes.

Her cell phone rang. “Hi, Griffin. I’ll get the final copy of my story to you soon.”

“I’m not calling about that,” he said quickly. “I have news. The police department has filed fraud charges against Harmon and his subsidiary groups. Harmon’s lawyer will have to prove that his client had nothing to do with the sabotage or fire. There’s no way he’ll get off the charges.”

Julie was writing on the notepad beside the laptop. “What about Pete Sawyer?”

Griffin’s pause was shorter this time. “He agreed to cooperate. The prosecutors are offering consideration on the arson charges in exchange for his full account of Harmon’s involvement.”

She put down the pen.

Pete Sawyer had lived at Finley Point for most of his life. His family worked locally. They contributed to all the community events, they were part of the church, and were good people.

“What was Harmon holding over him?” Julie asked.

“A loan,” Griffin said. “Sawyer borrowed money from a holding company that turned out to be part of the Sargeson Group’s network. He didn’t know the connection when he borrowed it. By the time he understood who he owed, the leverage was already in place. Harmon agreed to waive the loan if Sawyer cooperated with him.” Another pause. “And that cooperation meant sabotaging the equipment and setting fire to the shed at Finley Point.”

Julie didn’t say anything. She was thinking about what it would mean to be in that position. A loan that seemed reasonable when you were struggling, and then slowly becoming a chain you couldn’t see until it was already fastened. Pete Sawyer hadn’t walked into this looking for a way to destroy something. He’d walked into it trying to save what was his.

That didn’t change what had happened. It didn’t give back the time the project had lost, erase the damage the fire had done, or untangle the fear Cole had carried during the worst of it. The Finley Point fire had consequences for real people, and Pete Sawyer had lit the match.

But Julie had been a journalist long enough to know that most stories about ordinary people doing terrible things were not really stories about villainy. They were stories about pressure, and timing, and what a person does when the exit they thought they had turns out to be a wall.

“When are the charges being formally announced?” she asked.

“Tomorrow morning. Eleven o’clock, county offices in Kalispell.” Griffin paused again. “Your third article should run the same day, if you can have it filed tonight.”

“I can have it filed tonight,” she said.

After she hung up, Julie sat at the table without touching the laptop.

Then she pulled the cursor back to the unfinished sentence and kept going.

Four hours later, Julie stretched her arms above her head. She knew sitting at the computer for most of the day wasn’t a good idea, but she’d wanted to get this story right.