Rodney walked up, Addie beside him, and they both took a look.
“Looks to me like you’ve got some questionable material down here,” Tucker said. “Probably filled with gasoline or some kind of retardant and then lit on fire from this point. And it makes sense if you look at where the burn pattern is.”
“Wow,” Rodney said, looking from the floor underneath to the dog. “Do you think she’d recognize that scent again?”
“Well, she would,” he said. “I just don’t know if I can help her to understand what I need from her.”
“And that’s always the problem, isn’t it? But the animals know and are trying to tell us.” Addie smiled at Bernie. “Good girl.” Bernie leaned against her leg, her tail wagging cheerfully.
“I do think they keep trying to tell us,” Tucker said. “I don’t think we understand them very well.”
Heavy footsteps and voices approached at the front.
“And who’s that?” Tucker asked, ordering Bernie back to his side. She was still an unknown quality.
“Likely the insurance adjuster and my foreman,” Rodney said.
“Keep them inside, please.”
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t want them knowing about the dog.”
With that, Tucker hooked up the leash to Bernie, and, pulling Addie closer to him, he led the two of them across the floor to one of the back exits.
“Should we be leaving?” she asked quietly. “Don’t you think Bernie should have a chance to sniff everybody?”
“I think Rodney has an idea of who the problem is, but he doesn’t quite understand how to prove it.”
“Ah, so then he was hoping the dog might give him some ammunition toward that?”
“Again I haven’t spoken with him, but that sounds like a likely scenario, yes.”
“Right,” she said, “so then we’ll just have to watch and see. What if the arsonist doesn’t even work here?”
“Rodney’s paying a lot of people to keep them on this project, so he doesn’t lose them.” At that, they heard several vehicles drive up to the site.
“Wow,” she said, “that’s a lot of new visitors all of a sudden.”
“Well, could be a shift coming on. That’s possible, if they’ve gotten some okay to carry on in the unaffected portions,” he said. “It’s also fairly late in the afternoon, so I’m not sure. Maybe it’s a meeting as much as anything?”
“Or another protest,” she murmured.
He nodded slowly. “And that’s possible too.”
“Other than the loss of the pristine land out here, I never thought people would care about a building like this. Especially out here. Wouldn’t it bring with it more jobs to this area?”
“And more vehicles, so more air pollution. More people, so more water pollution.” Tucker shrugged. “I think it’s just that everybody is upset the economy is not what it’s supposed to be, and people are suffering. This is just another example of what’s wrong in their world.”
“It’s just condos,” she said.
“But, like you said earlier, it probably used to be a place where they grew up and could wander as children quite happily,” he reminded her.
He walked her around the building, and she saw how far along the building project had gotten everywhere else. “So why do they start at one end and just kind of develop as they go?”
“Every builder has a different system. Sometimes with condo complexes, they take a whole unit and bring it up to the finish point, so they can rent it. Then they go complete the next unit. Other times they run through and do all the plumbing, all the wiring, and then all the interior walls, et cetera, layers after layers,” he said. “It just depends on what they’re comfortable with and what their time frame is.”
“Okay,” she said, studying it. “I don’t have any experience with construction at all.”
“Your father never built a house?”
“No,” she said, “he’s not an outdoor person at all. No, he’s a doctor. So hopefully that’s where his specialty is.”
“Obviously, yes,” he said.
She stared around. “I like this area. I wouldn’t mind buying a place like this myself.”
“But then where would you work?” he asked her. “It’s a long commute.”
“I know,” she said. “I was thinking it might be time to change locations anyway, but I don’t know where yet. I’m not a great one for making changes.”
“Sometimes we get in a rut,” he said, “and it’s easier to not change. However, when we do make a change,” he said, “it’s often the best thing we could have done.”
“I get that,” she said. “I really do, but change can be scary.”
“Sure it can be, and often it just makes life that much better afterward. If it’s something you’re afraid to do, you need to push yourself and get past that.”
“Argh,” she said, “more of those life lessons.”
“I think they’re great,” he said with a bright smile.
She shook her head. “I don’t know about that.”
By the time they continued their walk, discussing the various design elements, she was surprised that they had already come all the way around.
“He does nice work,” she said. “These should sell for a nice penny.”
“Which is, of course, the problem,” he said. “When you think about it, probably the locals themselves can’t afford these.”
“But they should be that much cheaper, being farther out, like he said.”
“Yet, if you look at the area, it’s not terribly wealthy. So likely still out of their price range.”
“Hadn’t considered that,” she said. “And nobody likes change. Nobody likes progress. So I guess I sound just like the people around here.”
“And that’s where the problem comes in.”
She nodded. “Interesting,” she said, as she pointed out a half-dozen vehicles.
“Could be just people coming in to talk to Rodney. It could also be a new shift. It could be people trying to figure out when they’re coming back to work. Maybe he called them in to discuss what they’ll do about the burn area,” he said with a shrug.
“Did he really offer you a job?”
“Yes,” he said, “and it’s something I certainly could do. The question is, is it something I want to do?”
“Nice to know you have so many skills,” she said.
“But, like you in the ER, it doesn’t mean that I necessarily want to utilize those skills,” he murmured.
She winced. “I know. Sometimes it’s easier to take a different path.”
“But you can’t feel guilty about that because we must do what makes us happy, not to just get through the days but to thrive,” he said. “You’ve not had the easiest of upbringings, so you need to find something in life that makes you smile.”
“And I thought that was doing the ER work,” she said, “but I did find it extremely stressful. Changing that was hard, but it was the right thing to do.”