Chapter 2
Holden
The coffee at The Frosted Pine Inn tasted like someone dissolved disappointment in hot water and called it artisanal. The fact that I've paid twelve dollars for this liquid tragedy is just adding insult to gastrointestinal injury.
I stand at the window of the local restaurant, watching Snowfall Creek wake up under fresh snow.
The town looks exactly like the photos in the acquisition file—aggressively quaint, economically inefficient, and begging for modernization.
Every building on Main Street screams ‘missed opportunity’.
The town square alone could be converted into forty-thousand square feet of high-end retail space.
But then I remember amber eyes and self-deprecating jokes about bankruptcy, and suddenly profit margins seem less interesting than—
Stop. I shake my head, forcing myself back to the task at hand.
My phone buzzes with the subtlety of a cardiac event.
Sterling: Status update required. Board meeting Thursday.
Sterling Blackthorne, Senior VP of Development and a professional pain in everyone's existence, thinks urgent means ‘interrupt whatever you're doing to tell me things I already know’. The man sends follow-up emails to his follow-up emails. He probably has anxiety about his anxiety.
The dining room fills with morning chatter—everyone knowing everyone, conversations flowing between tables like the whole place is one big family reunion. Inefficient. Unprofitable. Weirdly... nice?
"More coffee, Mr. Clark?"
The waitress—Iris, who apparently works in every establishment in town—hovers with a pot that smells marginally better than what I'm currently regretting.
"Is it the same coffee?"
"Oh, honey, no. This is a fresh pot. The one you're drinking is from yesterday. We call it 'The Widowmaker.'"
"You served me yesterday's coffee?"
"You ordered the continental breakfast. That comes with continental coffee."
"What continent? The one with no standards?"
She laughs and pours fresh coffee without asking. "You're funny. We don't get a lot of funny here. We get earnest. We get cheerful. We get Teddy Wickham, who thinks puns are the height of comedy."
"Sounds dire."
"You have no idea. Last week he spent twenty minutes explaining why 'snow joke' is hilarious. Twenty. Minutes."
I take a sip of the fresh coffee. It's still terrible, but at least it's warm terrible.
"First time in Snowfall Creek?" she asks, though her expression says she already knows everything, including my blood type and my third-grade report cards.
"Yes."
"Business or pleasure?"
"Suffering, apparently."
"That's just the coffee. The rest of the town is quite pleasant. Very... authentic."
The way she says 'authentic' makes me think she's really saying 'weird’.
"Any recommendations?"
"Avoid the gas station coffee. It's like drinking regret with a motor-oil aftertaste. The Daily Grind is acceptable if you like your coffee with a side of gossip. Giuseppe's has food that will make you cry actual tears of joy. And The Jolly Trunk has the prettiest owner in three counties."
"That's a recommendation?"
"In this town? That's a selling point, a tourist attraction, and at least two committee discussions."
She moves on to terrorize other customers with day-old coffee, and I return to my observations. This whole town operates like a living museum of How Things Used to Be. It's practically begging to be dragged into the twenty-first century.
Which is exactly why Pierce Industries wants it. And exactly why I'm here pretending to be someone named Holden Clark, who definitely doesn't have a trust fund or a Harvard MBA or a father who literally died at his desk clutching quarterly reports.
I spend the morning walking the perimeter, cataloging every inefficiency. The vintage toy shop particularly offends my business sensibilities. Prime real estate wasted on dusty nostalgia that probably nets five percent of what a Starbucks could generate.
Through the window, I catch a glimpse of green. Not just any green—the exact shade of Christmas elf costume green. The owner, Wren, is wearing a sweater with a reindeer on it. The reindeer appears to be winking. Or having a stroke. Hard to tell with knit goods.
She's in the window adjusting a display of tin soldiers with the focus of a neurosurgeon, occasionally stopping to have what appears to be a full conversation with them. At one point, she salutes one of them.
I should document this. A prime example of small business inefficiency—owner talking to inventory.
Instead, I wonder if she names them.
Get it together, Holden.
A "Help Wanted" sign at Gallagher's Garage catches my eye. Hand-written on what appears to be a pizza box lid. Because nothing says "professional employment opportunity" like grease stains and pepperoni remnants.
The garage smells of motor oil and broken dreams. A man emerges from under a Ford that probably remembers when Roosevelt was president—Teddy, not Franklin.
"Help you?" His voice is friendly but assessing.
"Saw your sign. I’m Holden."
"The pizza box? Yeah, we're very professional here. Last week's special was 'Buy 10 oil changes, get free breadsticks.'" He uses an old-looking rag to wipe the grease off his hand and sticks it out to shake mine. “I’m Finn. Nice to meet you, Holden.”
Reluctantly, I shake his hand. "Did anyone take you up on that pizza offer?"
"No, but Mrs. Chang asked if she could substitute mozzarella sticks."
I'm starting to understand why this town needs corporate intervention.
"You know cars?" he asks.
"I know they have engines."
"That's... a start. Where you from?"
"Around."
"'Around' isn't very specific."
"Neither is 'Help Wanted' written on a pizza box."
"Fair point." He grins. "Look, I can't pay much. Fifteen an hour."
Fifteen an hour. My watch costs more than this man will make in five years. The watch I'm currently hiding under a flannel sleeve that still has the fold marks from Target.
"When can you start?"
"Whenever."
"Tomorrow. Seven sharp. And Holden?" He grins wider. "That flannel's so new it's basically still at the store. Might want to rough it up a bit."
"Noted."
I spend the afternoon destroying perfectly good clothes with sandpaper and a cheese grater I bought from the general store. The elderly woman who sells it to me asks if I'm ‘doing a craft project’.
"Something like that." I tell her.
"My granddaughter does crafts. She made me a toilet paper cozy shaped like a swan. Would you like to see pictures?"
Twenty minutes later, I've seen forty-seven photos of toilet paper swans and know more about her granddaughter's failed Etsy business than I know about some of my relatives.
This town is personal, and somehow I've been adopted by a stranger who insists I take a coupon for buy-one-get-one crackers "because young people need to eat. "
By the time I escape, the afternoon sun is already fading, and I look like I've been in a fight with a cheese grater. Which, technically, I have.
Sterling calls while I'm watching a YouTube video titled "Oil Changes for Idiots."
"The board wants an update." He starts without any preamble.
"It's been two days."
"Two days of what? Sitting in Vermont eating cheese?"
"Reconnaissance."
"Is that what we're calling it?"
"Would you prefer 'strategic integration into the target community through systematic observation and careful relationship building'?"
"I'd prefer results."
Through my window, I see the town square filling with people. That damn tree glowing like a beacon of anti-capitalism. Families walking together. Couples sharing hot beverages. Wren hurries past in what appears to be a cape made entirely of tinsel.
"The town is exactly as the file indicated. Financially vulnerable. Emotionally attached to unprofitable traditions. Resistant to change."
"Perfect. Timeline?" He demands.
"Six weeks minimum."
"The board won't—"
"The board will accept it or find another CEO to alienate and eventually ruin."
Silence. Sterling hates when I remind him I'm technically his boss, even if we both know he's the one with the board's ear.
I hang up and find myself walking toward the town square. The smart move would be staying in, studying spreadsheets, planning destruction.
Instead, I end up at The Daily Grind, where, apparently, the entire population has gathered to murder music. Open mic night, according to the hand-chalked sign that also promises ‘ear bleach available upon request’.
I order coffee—marginally better than the hotel's—and find a corner table where I can observe without being observed. Or so I think.
"You came!"
Her voice hits me like Christmas morning—bright and surprising and slightly overwhelming. She's wearing a green vintage dress that makes her look like she stepped out of a holiday movie from the forties. The good kind, not the ones with problematic storylines.
"I didn't know I was expected."
"You weren't. I just mean it's nice to see you experiencing the town. Last night you disappeared so fast I thought maybe you were a hallucination brought on by financial stress."
"Do you have those often?"
"Only on days ending in 'y.'"
She sits down across from me without invitation, bringing the scent of cinnamon and something floral. She smells like a Christmas cookie that came alive and decided to be beautiful.
"So, what's the verdict on Snowfall Creek?"
"Still deliberating."
"Fair. Though you should know the prosecution's case is weak. We have excellent lawyers. Well, one lawyer. He's also the dentist. And the notary. He's very busy."
"Efficient."
"We prefer 'multi-talented.' It sounds better on the town brochure."
"There's a brochure?"
"No, but there's a committee discussing making one. They've been discussing it for twelve years, though."
Someone on stage starts singing what I think is supposed to be "White Christmas" but sounds more like a moose in distress.
"Is this normal?" I ask, pointing around the room.
"Define normal."
"Music that doesn't cause physical pain?"
"Then no, this is not normal. This is Snowfall Creek normal, which is like regular normal but with more committees and questionable life choices."
"Speaking of questionable life choices..."
"Are you about to ask about my financial situation? Because that's a third-date conversation."
"I was going to ask about the tinsel cape I saw you wearing earlier."
"Oh." She actually blushes. "Committee costume requirement. We're doing a live nativity, and I'm supposedly an angel."
"Supposedly?"
"Well, I told Mrs. Henderson where she could stick her halo after she suggested I needed a boyfriend to play Joseph, so my angel status is currently under review."
Before I can respond to that, someone calls her name from across the room. She sighs with the exhaustion of someone who's been voluntold for something.
"Committee emergency. Apparently, there's a debate about white versus colored lights that's reached DEFCON 2."
"DEFCON 2?" I have to ask.
"Last year, DEFCON 1 involved the mayor crying. We don't talk about it."
She disappears into the crowd with an apologetic smile that suggests she'd rather stay and talk to me, which is both flattering and terrible for my mission.
I watch her through the window as she mediates what appears to be a hostile negotiation over string light colors.
She's gesticulating wildly, at one point appearing to act out what I can only assume is the birth and death of a light bulb.
The committee members nod seriously, as if this is perfectly normal behavior.
I stay another hour, cataloging inefficiencies. The coffee shop could serve twice as many customers with a better layout. The open mic could be monetized with a cover charge. The entire evening could be optimized for profit instead of... whatever this is.
Community. The word sits uncomfortably in my mind, like a suit that doesn't quite fit.
By the time I leave, Wren is still trapped in committee purgatory, now apparently showing the proper way to hang garland using interpretive dance. She catches my eye through the window and makes a face that clearly says, "Save me."
I almost do.
That's when I know I'm in trouble.
Tomorrow, I become Holden Clark, minimum-wage mechanic. It's the perfect cover for a corporate raid, as long as I remember that's all she is to me. Part of the cover. Part of the job.
I head back to the inn, but my mind keeps drifting to green vintage dresses and tinsel capes and the way she laughs with her whole body when something really amuses her.
Definitely in trouble.