Chapter 3 - The Boardroom and the Brick
By eight o’clock on Thursday morning, the rain had turned into a thick, clinging mist that settled over Briar Hill.
Inside Briar House, Hannah was already on her knees in the pantry, working with a flashlight and a pair of rusty pliers to adjust the pressure valve on the main water line. Her fingers were smeared with dark grease, her knees ached from the hard floor, and her hair was tied back in a messy, chaotic bun that was slowly coming undone.
"You’re going to break your back before you turn forty," Evelyn’s voice called out from the doorway.
Hannah wiped her forehead with the back of her forearm, leaving a dark streak across her skin. "The pressure gauge was rising. If I don't bleed the valve now, the second-floor pipe is going to blow before the afternoon tutoring session."
"The Mercer man came back," Evelyn said casually.
Hannah froze, the pliers slipping off the brass nut with a loud CLANG. She scrambled out of the pantry, dropping her tools into her toolbox. "Where?"
"Front porch," Evelyn said, leaning against the doorframe with her arms folded. "He’s been standing out there in the drizzle for twenty minutes, staring at the brickwork like he expects the building to tell him a secret."
Hannah brushed off her pants and walked quickly toward the front entrance. She pushed open the heavy oak door and stepped onto the covered porch.
The morning air was crisp and biting. Grant Mercer was standing near the bottom of the wooden steps, his collar turned up against the damp cold. He wasn't wearing his expensive gray coat today; instead, he wore a dark wax-canvas jacket, heavy work boots, and a grey knitted cap pulled low over his forehead. He held a high-powered digital camera in his hand, pointing it at the mortar joints between the ancient red bricks.
"Looking for more structural flaws to add to your execution list?" Hannah called out, her voice cutting through the quiet morning mist.
Grant lowered the camera and turned around. His dark eyes swept over her—taking in her grease-stained face, her oversized flannel shirt, and the defiant set of her jaw.
"The brickwork isn't failing," Grant said, his voice flat and analytical. "It’s hand-pressed clay from the old Monongahela kilns. Built in nineteen-twelve. The mortar was repointed twenty years ago with high-lime cement."
Hannah paused on the top step, surprised once again by his observations. "My grandfather helped repoint it. Nineteen ninety-eight."
Grant walked slowly up the steps, stopping two feet below her so they were nearly at eye level. "He did good work. The shell of this building is stronger than the engineering report claimed."
"Then why did your engineers say it was structurally compromised?"
"Because they looked at the surface damage on the east plaster wall and assumed the load-bearing timber behind it was rotted," Grant explained, raising his camera to show her a close-up photograph on the small digital screen. "I pulled the exterior drainboard half an hour ago. The timber is solid white oak. It’s bone dry."
Hannah stared at the image on the screen, her heart giving a strange, sudden leap. "Which means?"
"Which means the structural rehabilitation estimate in the board dossier is inflated by at least four hundred thousand dollars," Grant said softly.
Hannah looked up from the camera into his dark eyes. "Are you going to tell them that tomorrow?"
"I have to present an accurate assessment," he replied smoothly. "That’s my job."
"Your job," she echoed, her voice softening slightly as she studied his face. "Is that all this is to you, Grant? A job?"
Grant looked past her into the warm, yellow light glowing inside the foyer of Briar House. Through the glass panels of the door, he could see Sophie setting out wooden chairs, while Evelyn unlocked the coffee station.
"Ten years ago," Grant said quietly, turning back to Hannah, "my father ran Mercer Vale like an absolute dictatorship. He built three major commercial plazas downtown. He was brilliant, ruthless, and entirely focused on the bottom line. When he had his stroke six years ago and I took over as CEO, the board expected me to be the exact same man."
"And are you?"
"I thought I was," Grant confessed, his voice dropping into a low, intimate register that made the space between them feel impossibly small. "I’ve spent six years approving acquisitions, signing demolition permits, and keeping our profit margins above twelve percent. It’s clean. It’s logical. It doesn't require you to care about who sits in the chairs or who drinks the coffee."
"Until yesterday," Hannah whispered.
Grant didn't answer immediately. He looked at her small, ink-stained hands resting on the porch railing, at the fierce determination burning in her hazel eyes, and at the unmistakable exhaustion etched into the fine lines around her mouth.
"Until yesterday," he admitted softly.
A loud, abrupt horn honked from the street below. A sleek black town car pulled up to the curb, its hazard lights blinking in the gray mist. The rear door opened, and a young man in a tailored blue suit stepped out holding an umbrella and an iPad.
"Mr. Mercer!" the young man called out, stepping carefully over a puddle on the pavement. "The pre-board briefing with the senior partners was moved to nine-thirty. We need to be back downtown in twenty minutes."
Grant closed his camera and slipped it into his jacket pocket. The executive mask returned instantly, his shoulders straightening as he prepared to step back into his world.
"I have to go," he said to Hannah.
"Grant," she called out before he could turn around.
He stopped on the wooden steps, looking back at her over his shoulder.
"Thank you," she said softly. "For checking the timber."
Grant gave her a single, firm nod. "Get some real coffee, Hannah. You look like you haven't slept in three days."
May you like
"I haven't," she replied with a faint, sudden smile that lit up her entire face. "I run a building that's emotionally overwhelmed."
Grant stared at her smile for a long, quiet second, as if storing the image away in his memory, before turning and descending the steps toward his waiting car.
