Chapter 17
Two days later, Cole spread a handful of county records across the coffee table in his living room.
He’d driven to Kalispell that morning and requested copies of every complaint filed against the resort development.
He’d hoped the county staff would be able to tell him who’d filed the papers, but that information was protected under the state’s anonymous complaint provision.
He understood it in principle but found it maddening in practice.
In front of him lay seven documents, each one timed to land at exactly the wrong moment in the permitting process.
A drainage assessment had been stalled for three weeks, an access review cost them two weeks of meetings, and a bird habitat evaluation had taken a month and a second environmental consultant he hadn’t budgeted for.
Picking up one of the documents, he read through it again. Whoever had written it understood the specific issues of developing a site so close to a lake. Terms like riparian corridor integrity and secondary hydrological impact weren’t phrases everyone used, especially in a small rural community.
His phone lit up on the table. He frowned as he read the reminder for his cardiology appointment. With everything that was happening, it was the last thing he needed. Without thinking too much about what lay ahead, Cole deleted the message and returned to the table.
As he picked up another complaint, someone knocked on his front door. Cole glanced at his watch. Julie had said she’d try and get here within the hour. If her baking class had finished on time, this should be her.
He couldn’t help smiling when he opened the door. Julie stood on the porch with her shoulder bag already sliding off one arm. With a dark blue wooly hat pulled low on her head, and an orange scarf around her neck, she looked cute and happy. Two things that always brightened his day.
Her eyes widened when she glanced past him at the papers spread across the table. “You got them?”
Cole nodded. “Come inside. It’s cold out here.” He closed the door and gestured toward the table. “The county still can’t give me any indication of who’d filed them.”
Julie frowned. “Even after the vandalism and the fire?”
“Their hands are tied by legislation. I thought I might have missed a clue to whoever had written them, but nothing stood out.”
Julie placed her bag on the nearest chair and took the document he handed her. Halfway through reading the first page, she looked up at him. “The person who wrote this must have had access to your internal assessments.”
Cole handed her another document. “That’s what concerned us when we read that complaint. It references drainage calculations we’d submitted them to the county, but they weren’t available publicly until after the review period closed.”
Julie turned to the next page. “The only way they’d know any of this is if they’d paid for their own engineers or had a contact at the county office.”
“I don’t know why they’re so upset,” Cole said.
“We’re doing everything we can to minimize the impact on the environment.
” He studied the complaints that had been made against the development.
“Sheriff Thompson called me yesterday. They’re following up on the information Maria gave them about the two men she saw in the café.
I don’t know if we’ll find out who they were. ”
Julie pulled out the small leather notebook she carried everywhere.
“If Maria remembers what the logo on the man’s jacket looks like, it will help.
” She turned to a page halfway through the notebook.
“Do you know Pete Sawyer?” she asked Cole.
“He owns a parcel of land adjacent to your northern boundary. When I spoke to Mabel, she said he’d been vocal at a planning commission meeting last fall, before the resort application was even formally submitted.
He was arguing that any large-scale waterfront development would compromise the wetland buffer on his property’s eastern edge. ”
Cole moved to a shelf where he’d stored the site map.
The Sawyer property sat at an angle that overlooked the resort’s planned event pavilion.
And, more significantly, to the drainage corridor that fed into the lower wetland.
If the development altered the hydrology even marginally, Pete’s eastern boundary would feel it.
“I spoke to Pete early on in our consultation phase,” Cole said to Julie. “He’d prefer us not to be building there, but he’s happy that the things we’ve put in place will mitigate any potential issues. Having said that, he has a significant interest in what happens on the site.”
Julie arranged the complaints in chronological order along the edge of the table. “If he had a contact at the county office, the language in these complaints starts to make sense.”
Cole crossed his arms and looked at the row of documents.
Julie was right, but Pete seemed like a reasonable person.
And reasonable people didn’t light fires or sabotage expensive equipment.
“We need the county to tell us whether the complaints were submitted in person or electronically,” he said.
“And whether the filer left any contact information.”
Julie closed her notebook. “I could go back tomorrow morning and ask. They also have a database that contains all the submissions it’s received on different projects. If the person has complained about anything else, the county will have a record of it.”
Cole folded the map and returned it to the shelf. “I didn’t think of looking at other people’s proposals. If you could do that, I’d appreciate it. I didn’t have a lot of time when I collected these papers.”
He’d managed projects on three continents, negotiated in four languages, brought crews through weather and material shortages and permit disputes that would have ended lesser developments. But he’d never felt as uncertain about an outcome as he did today.
He also hadn’t, in any of those years, had someone beside him who could read a paper trail the way Julie Harrison could.
“I know this isn’t what you thought you’d be doing when you moved to Sapphire Bay,” Cole told her. “But I’m grateful for your help.”
Julie smiled. “I’m enjoying helping you. I just wish I had more information. At the moment, everything is still circumstantial.”
“But it’s something.”
Julie picked up her bag. “As frustrating as it sounds, it is. I don’t want to take up too much of your time. I’ll let you know what I find at the county offices.”
Before Julie could leave, Cole asked her, “What are your plans for this evening?”
“I don’t have anything planned. Beth lent me a book she enjoyed. I’ll probably have dinner, catch up with some emails, and then spend some time reading.”
Cole swallowed the lump of nerves in his throat.
He liked Julie. More than liked her. But he didn’t want her to think he was stepping beyond the boundaries of their friendship.
“I thought I’d have dinner at the Lakeside Grill tonight.
Paul has halibut on the menu. He only does it when the quality’s right, and apparently this week it is.
” Cole kept his tone easy. “I was going to try it out. You’re welcome to join me, if the reading can wait. ”
There was something in Julie’s expression that wasn’t quite surprise or hesitation. It was the brief, unguarded look of someone adjusting to an invitation they hadn’t expected.
After a moment of silence, Julie nodded. “The reading can wait. I still need to go home, though. I’m expecting a call from someone about Derek Anderson, the person you employed a couple of months ago.”
Cole picked up Julie’s jacket. “That’s okay. We don’t have to leave for the restaurant now. I could pick you up at seven o’clock, if that sounds okay?”
“It’s perfect,” Julie told him as she pulled on her jacket. “I’ll let you know what Derek’s previous employer says about him.”
Cole held the front door open, and they walked out together. “For such a small town, there’s a lot going on beneath the surface.”
Julie glanced at him. “You aren’t regretting wanting to build the resort, are you?”
He thought about her question. He’d chosen Finley Point because of what it was, not in spite of it. He’d wanted to build something that celebrated family, friendship, and the strength of community. But the cost of creating the resort was a lot higher than he thought.
“I don’t regret it,” he said. “Not for a second.”
“That’s good,” Julie said. “Because it will be amazing once it’s built.”
Cole hoped so. At times, it felt as though the whole world was against him. As Julie pulled away from the curb, he waved and stood on the sidewalk for longer than he needed to.
One day, he’d look back and shrug off the uncertainty that was part of everything he did.
He might even smile about the evening he’d asked Julie to dinner—and tried to pretend it was nothing more than two people sharing a meal.