back and forth.
He dropped his head back and sighed. “Scissors, you idiot.”
Shaking his head at his own stupidity, he walked out of the Gauthier Law Firm’s small conference room and over to office manager Carmen Mitchell’s desk.
“Hey, Carmen, can I borrow a pair of scissors?” Sawyer asked. “I swear they don’t want you to get into this thing.”
“Give me that,” Carmen said. She plucked the package from his hands, poked a hole in the cardboard with a letter opener and sliced it open, then handed it to him.
She snorted, shaking her head. “And to think you were considered one of the smart ones.”
Sawyer couldn’t help but laugh. He’d attended Gauthier High School with the law practice’s longtime secretary. Nice to see she was as smart-mouthed as ever.
“Trust me. Advanced calculus is ten times easier than opening this package,” Sawyer said.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Carmen waved him off. She motioned to the small table in the corner that held a coffeepot. “There’s fresh coffee over there, but it’s decaf.”
“In other words, there’s fresh brown water over there.”
“You sound like Matt,” she said. “And just like I tell him, you can buy one of those nice single-serve coffee machines with the individual coffee pods, or you drink what I make.”
“Or I can just walk across the street to the Jazzy Bean for my caffeine fix,” Sawyer said.
“That, too. But I still want the fancy coffeemaker.” She looked up from her computer and nodded in the direction of the conference room. “You need any help setting up in there?”
“No, thanks. I’ve got it from here.” Sawyer turned back toward the conference room but then pivoted on his heel. “Hey, Carmen. The project manager should have been here already. Can you point him to the conference room whenever he gets in?”
“Sure, but you know the project manager is—” The phone rang. Carmen held up a finger. “Gauthier Law Firm.”
Sawyer held up the pack of adhesive strips and mouthed, “Thanks again,” before returning to the conference room and closing the door behind him so that he wouldn’t disturb Carmen any more than he already had this morning.
The room was on the smallish side. An eight-foot well-worn, but polished, wooden table took up a vast majority of the space. There were two makeshift desks on either side of the room—small folding tables, each with a table lamp and a chair. A two-drawer filing cabinet stood next to the table on the opposite end of the room from the one he’d chosen. His desk sat underneath a window overlooking Heritage Park.
It was one of the perks of being the first to arrive. If P. Jones wanted a say in which desk he would work at for the next four weeks, he should have shown up for work on time.
Someone, probably Carmen, had placed a yellow legal pad, a pack of pens and a box of paper clips on each desk. All in all it was pretty bare-bones, but that wouldn’t last for long. If the past projects he’d worked on were any indication, by the end of the week every surface in this room would be covered with modeling charts, cost estimates and reams of paper covered in specs.
Sawyer unrolled the preliminary diagram of the flood control structure that had been proposed by Bolt-Myer Engineering, the Arkansas-based firm that had won the bid for this project. The company was smart enough to have several Louisiana branches; the state legislature was known for awarding contracts to local companies.
Using the adhesive strips, he tacked the design up to the conference room’s paneled walls.
“Much better,” Sawyer said as he gave each twenty-four-by-thirty-six-inch printout a cursory glance. He would still need at least another day or so to pore over all the documents he’d received from his supervisor at the Army Corps of Engineers, where he’d worked since returning to Louisiana seven months ago.
He had only been assigned to this project this past Thursday, after his former colleague, Raymond Burrell, abruptly left for a more lucrative position in the private sector. Sawyer couldn’t really blame the guy. Ray had a wife and three kids; he had to do what he had to do in order to provide for his family.
Sawyer had missed Friday’s kickoff meeting with the project manager from Bolt-Myer. He’d flown out to Los Angeles to be with his aunt Lydia who’d celebrated her sixtieth birthday with a party at her new home in Chatsworth. Sawyer knew it was something his father would have wanted him to do, but that wasn’t the only reason he’d flown out there to surprise her. Lydia had been somewhat of a surrogate mother to him ever since his own mother had died more than two decades ago, back when he was still in high school.
But now that his family obligations were fulfilled, Sawyer was ready to get to work. He’d wanted on this project from the very beginning, but he’d been too busy finishing the levee surveying study around Lake Pontchartrain. He put his heart and soul into every job he worked on, but this one was different.
This was Gauthier.
Ray’s departure had opened the door for Sawyer to work on something that was close to his heart—saving his hometown from potential disaster.
Once he was done hanging the computer-assisted-design drawings on the walls, he went over to his desk, taking a moment to appreciate the brilliant view of Heritage Park. It was just one of the things he’d missed about Gauthier in the three years that he lived in Chicago.
Sawyer tried not to think about that time for a number of reasons, his ill-fated marriage being only one of them. But of the things he regretted during his short stint in Illinois, the awkward farce of a relationship with Angelique wasn’t even at the top of the list.
That spot was reserved for another disaster, one that Sawyer would not allow to happen here in Gauthier.
His complacency back in his old job had cost business owners their livelihoods. It cost some people their homes. Some even lost their pets. All because he hadn’t spoken up sooner when his gut told him that something wasn’t right.
This was his chance to make up for those past mistakes. He would not remain silent this time.
Would it change what happened in Illinois? No. Nothing would make up for what his inability to speak up had caused, but at least he knew better now. He wouldn’t allow the catastrophe that had happened on his last project to happen here.
This town—the place where his mother was born and raised, the place his father had quickly adopted as his own—meant too much to him to let anything happen to it. He wasn’t doing this just for the people of Gauthier. He was doing it for his mom and dad. He would take care of the town they both loved so much.
He would make sure this P. Jones person understood that from the very beginning. When it came to Gauthier’s flood protection system, there would be no cutting corners.
Sawyer checked his watch—the silver Seiko his father had given him as a gift years ago—and cursed underneath his breath. He’d always considered punctuality to be the most telling sign of a professional. Apparently, he wasn’t dealing with a professional here.
He sat behind his makeshift desk and lifted the plans for the proposed reservoir; then he heard muffled voices
