Chapter 17
LINDA
Linda let herself into Uncle George’s office just before sunrise and switched on the small green desk lamp.
She hadn’t slept much. The pool. The bills in the locked drawer. The cream envelope with the discreet logo from a development company she’d never heard of. Every time she’d closed her eyes, the worries had stacked themselves up in her mind in a different order and started again from the top.
She poured herself a cup of coffee from the French press Rosa had left on the side table and sat down at the desk. The bay outside the window was the soft pearl color it always took at this hour. A heron stood very still on the rocks at the far end of the small private beach.
She picked up her phone to find two messages from Tom. The first one had come through at almost eleven last night.
Sweetheart, it went well. Better than well. I think Lila and I are in a blossoming relationship.
Linda smiled and read the second one, which had arrived twenty minutes after the first.
Thank you for yesterday. For the talk in the office. For everything.
Linda’s eyes stung. She blinked the small wet sting away and typed back.
See? We all told you it would go well. I’m so happy for you. We’re having a big family dinner when Uncle George is out of the hospital, and we will definitely want our newest family member there.
She set the phone down, took a sip of her coffee, and picked her phone up again when it buzzed a few moments later.
Thank you, sweetheart.
She smiled. She was about to set the phone down again when another message came through.
Oh, by the way. We’re taking the booth at the festival.
Linda’s mouth opened.
She stared at the screen. She read the message again to make sure she’d read it right the first time. The bakery booth at the festival. The booth her mother had run every summer for years. The booth Tom hadn’t taken since two years after her mother’s death.
A knock at the door made her look up.
Martin stepped through and frowned at the look on her face. “Is everything all right?” he asked.
“Look at this,” Linda answered, turning the phone around so he could read the screen.
Martin read it. His eyebrows shot up. “He’s taking the booth?” he asked.
“He’s taking the booth.” Linda nodded, blowing out a breath.
“Isn’t it a bit late to be setting up a booth?” Martin’s brow crinkled.
“He seems to think they can do it.” Linda shrugged.
“Well, good for them,” Martin remarked, and the small warmth in his voice surprised her. He pulled the door closed behind him and set a small stack of leather ledgers down on the desk.
Linda eyed them. “Are you joking?” she asked, pointing to the books.
“What?” Martin looked at her questioningly.
“Why on earth haven’t these been computerized?” She picked one up and winced as she flipped through it.
Martin let out a small laugh. “George doesn’t even have a mobile phone,” he reminded her, pointing to the landline on the corner of the desk. “He still uses that outdated monstrosity.”
“I know.” Linda shook her head in despair.
“Do you know what it took for me, Maggie, and Tom to get him to use a computer at all?” Martin pointed to the computer.
“I can imagine,” Linda sympathized. “But seriously, these need to be on a system. Even just the basic accounting software.”
“Give me the go-ahead, and I’ll do it gladly,” Martin offered.
“Here’s the go-ahead.” Linda gave her permission. “It needs to be done like yesterday.”
“Consider it done,” Martin told her.
She pulled the lower drawer open, hauled out the stack of unpaid bills she’d found two days ago, and pushed them across the desk toward him. The cream envelope from the development company stayed where it was for now. She wasn’t ready to talk about that yet.
“Did you know about these?” she asked.
Martin’s eyes widened in horror as he leafed through the first few.
“No,” he answered slowly. “I suspected, but I didn’t know it had gotten this bad.
” He kept turning pages. “George told us he was managing the cash flow,” he continued.
“He told us the bookings would carry through the off-season. He told us the suppliers were being paid on a rolling basis. None of this is true.”
“I know.” Linda nodded.
“Stubborn old fool.” Martin hissed.
Martin set the bills down and leaned back. His expression showed Linda that he was trying very hard to stay neutral about something that was making him very angry.
Linda drew a deep breath. “Be honest with me,” she said. “How bad is it really?”
Martin let the question sit for a moment. Then he leaned forward and folded his hands on the desk.
“Bad,” he replied. “George has mortgaged the hotel to the hilt over the last three years. The first mortgage was reasonable. The second was less so. The third was taken out last winter and was a mistake on every level.”
“A third mortgage,” Linda gasped.
“A third mortgage. He told me at the time that the bank was offering favorable terms.” Martin’s jaw clenched, and anger flared in his eyes.
“The terms were not favorable. The interest rate is well above the market. The personal guarantee is unusually heavy. The repayment schedule front-loads almost all the principal into the first five years. It was structured for someone who could afford to make very large monthly payments, and your uncle could not afford them then, and he certainly cannot afford them now.”
Linda’s stomach turned slow and cold. “Why would the bank give him terms like that?”
“Because the manager at the local branch is not the man your uncle thinks he is,” Martin answered.
“I had my reservations about him from the first conversation he and your uncle had together. He’s the sort who recognizes a desperate client and structures the deal to favor the bank as heavily as he can within the law.
He earns a percentage commission on every loan he closes.
I’m assembling a complaint to take to the regional office.
I have not had the time to file it yet.”
“Then file it, Martin.” Linda’s own anger ignited. How dare someone take advantage of her uncle like that?
“I will. The day this hotel is back on its feet, I will.” Martin assured her. “Right now, I don’t want to do anything that could jeopardize our precarious position.”
“And the suppliers?” Linda asked him. “How far behind are we with them? Do you know?”
“Two months behind on the linen company. Three months behind on the food supplier. Six weeks behind on the cleaning chemicals. We’re still in the window where they will keep delivering.
Past that, and we start running short on basics, which is not a window we want to enter.
” Martin gave her a quick rundown of the situation.
Linda pressed both hands flat to her cheeks. “And the staff?”
“The staff are being paid out of Tom and Maggie’s pockets at this point.
They have been for the better part of a year.
Both of them have insisted several times that they consider it a loan to the hotel, not a gift.
I have been keeping that ledger separately.
Your uncle does not know.” Martin pursed his lips.
“And honestly. I don’t think Maggie and Tom are logging what they’re actually paying. ”
Her eyes filled, and she did not bother to wipe them. “And now we have the added problem with the pool,” she sighed.
“And now the pool.” Martin nodded.
There was a long quiet.
“Martin,” Linda ventured. “Do you think it’s salvageable?”
“Everything is salvageable. But this is going to require a great deal of capital that your uncle does not have and cannot raise on his own,” Martin warned her.
“Give me a plan that’s workable. A real one. One that pulls us out of this. Can you do that?” Linda asked him.
“I can,” Martin answered. “I’ve been working on one quietly for the last eighteen months.”
She lifted her head.”You have?”
“I have. So have Tom and Maggie. The three of us have been telling your uncle for two years that we will put up the capital. Let us invest in the hotel. Let us own a small piece of it. Bring in two or three trusted partners who love this town and want this hotel to survive,” Martin told her.
“And what did he say?” Linda watched Martin.
“That he’d think about it,” Martin told her.
“And let me guess, he’s still thinking about it.” Linda shook her head in frustration.”Why does he have to be so darn stubborn?”
“Because it isn’t just a hotel to him. It’s your grandfather’s hotel.
It’s his late brother’s legacy. It’s what he intends to leave to you and Michael, and to Sophia and Jake and Lily and the rest. He will not have his family name on a property he doesn’t own outright.
He believes accepting investment would mean breaking that promise,” Martin explained to her.
“It would not.” Linda’s brow furrowed. “It would just strengthen it.”
“I know that. But George doesn’t see it that way.” Martin gave her a small smile.
“Maggie actually has the best plan that would not touch the hotel,” Martin told her. “Just part of the grounds.”
“Oh?” Linda looked at him curiously. “She never said anything to me.”
“Then I’m probably stepping over an invisible boundary.” Martin gave a soft snort.
“You’ve never let an invisible boundary stop you before, Martin. Tell me.” Linda linked her fingers in front of her.
He smiled at that. “Maggie wants to sell the building her boutique is in. She owns it outright. Her grandfather left it to her. The land alone is worth a substantial sum, and the building has been beautifully maintained. She has had two unsolicited offers in the last year that would clear all her debts and leave her with enough capital to invest in something else. She’s been waiting for the divorce to finalize before she sells.
She doesn’t want her ex anywhere near the proceeds. ”
“That idiot attorney of hers is dragging it out on purpose.” Linda’s anger flared again.
“I think that idiot attorney of hers is on Maggie’s ex’s side,” Martin stated.
“I agree,” Linda told him.