Chapter 12 Alex
ALEX
The basement smelled like damp concrete, old dust, and something faintly metallic, which usually meant someone had cut corners and hoped for the best.
I stood in front of the breaker panel and stared. And stared. And then stared a little longer, just to make sure my eyes weren’t lying to me.
They weren’t.
Whoever had last worked on this panel should be barred from touching electricity ever again. Possibly from touching tools. Possibly from being left alone with crayons.
Wires crossed where they shouldn’t cross.
Labels had been written in three different handwritings.
A strip of electrical tape was doing a job electrical tape was never meant to do.
One breaker was marked maybe kitchen??? with three question marks like even the guy who wrote it had lost confidence halfway through.
“Christ.” I exhaled slowly through my nose. If this were one of my flips, I’d fire the electrician on the spot. After getting my money back. Then I’d fire him again for emotional damages.
I crouched and pulled the panel cover fully open, careful not to disturb anything until I understood the mess.
Old cloth-wrapped wiring ran alongside newer plastic-sheathed cable, spliced together in places that made my jaw tighten.
Some of the newer runs were clean and thoughtful.
Whoever had done that part knew what they were doing.
Other parts looked like Edna had stood there with a cigarette, pointing and saying, “It works. Don’t touch it.”
And the electrician had listened.
I traced a line with my finger, following it along the wall, over a beam, and then back into the panel—original wiring, old as the house, still intact. It wasn’t pretty, but it was solid. Someone back then had built things to last because failure wasn’t an option.
I respected that.
Then there were the shortcuts. The additions. The “temporary” fixes that had become permanent by sheer force of time. The kind of things inspectors hated and owners ignored until something sparked or screamed.
I checked the grounding—better than I expected. Then I checked the load balance—worse than I hoped.
I leaned back on my heels and scanned the basement, my eyes adjusting to the low light. Pipes ran overhead, some replaced, some original. The boiler sat nearby, humming now instead of shrieking like it had this morning. At least that problem had been straightforward.
The panel wasn’t.
And somehow, despite all of it, the place was still standing. Lights on. Heat working. No scorch marks. No burn smell.
Which meant one thing. Someone, probably Edna, had known exactly how far she could push things without crossing the line.
I stood and rolled my shoulders, tension settling in. This wasn’t a quick fix. It wasn’t even a clean one. It was a careful, methodical untangling that would take time and attention. Time I didn’t usually give to places like this.
I pulled my phone from my back pocket and started taking pictures. Then I flipped to my notes: fix, upgrade, reroute.
“Fuck.” That was already more than I’d planned. And it would cost thousands. Real money. The kind people didn’t casually have lying around, especially someone who’d just inherited an old inn and a ticking clock.
I leaned a shoulder against the concrete wall and scrolled through the photos again. Bad splices, a mess hidden behind a working system. The kind of thing that waited until the worst possible moment to fail.
My mind flicked back upstairs without asking permission.
New York on the floor of the den, her hair loose and face flushed with sweat at her temple.
Caught between stubbornness and gravity, refusing to give either one the win.
She’d looked up at me like she’d been surprised by her own resilience, like she hadn’t planned on needing help but accepted it anyway.
That look stuck. It had no business sticking.
Damnit.
I shook my head once and locked my phone, shoving it back into my pocket like the thought had been a loose wire I’d just taped over. This was work—a job, a client who needed things fixed before a deadline that made sane people say no and walk away.
I didn’t get involved with clients. I didn’t blur lines. I fixed problems, collected payment, and moved on.
And I definitely didn’t stand in basements thinking about women who looked better sweaty and furious than most people did dressed up.
I pushed off the wall and went back to the panel, grounding myself in the hum of the system, the weight of the tools, and the work that needed doing.
This place needed attention. That was all. Anything else was a distraction. And distractions were expensive.
I moved deeper into the basement, following another run. Newer wiring here. Clean install. Staples properly spaced. Someone had cared at least once, probably during one of the last renovations. I could work with this, build from here instead of tearing everything out.
The inn wasn’t a disaster. It was layered, patched, adjusted. Held together by stubbornness and just enough skill to keep it alive. That counted for something.
I straightened and glanced toward the stairs as footsteps crossed the floor above me.
New York’s voice drifted down a moment later.
“Yes,” she said. “Next weekend.” A pause.
“I do have availability.” Another pause, longer this time.
I pictured her flipping a page, her pen already moving.
“Pearls & Pints Bachelor Weekend, yes. That one. Two nights. Friday through Sunday. One queen room.” A pause and then, “No, breakfast is included. Coffee starts early.”
There it was again. That steady tone. No hesitation or panic bleeding through. Just momentum.
“I’ll send the email confirmation shortly,” she added. “We’re looking forward to having you.”
Footsteps resumed, quicker now, already moving on to whatever came next. And she hadn’t stopped to breathe once.
Most people would’ve panicked by now. Most people would’ve thrown up their hands, blamed the timeline, cursed the town, and walked away.
She hadn’t.
I went back to the panel, flipped a breaker, watched the response, and then flipped it back. The system groaned but held.
“Yeah. You’re tougher than you look.”
I closed the panel carefully, already running through what I’d need tomorrow. New breakers. Better labeling. A full rebalance. Maybe one full replacement section if I wanted to sleep at night.
I realized something that irritated me far more than the wiring ever could.
I was already planning past the inspection.
And that meant I was staying, whether I’d admitted it yet or not.
“What the fuck am I doing?”
I straightened, slid the panel cover back on, and took the stairs two at a time.
The basement air clung to my clothes, damp, metallic, old concrete, so the first floor felt almost clean by comparison.
The inn creaked as I climbed, a soft complaining sound that came with age and empty space.
It wasn’t a warning. More like commentary.
Halfway up, New York’s voice floated down from above again—calm, clipped, and steady.
“Yes, that’s right. Next weekend,” she said followed by a pause long enough that I pictured her pinning the phone between her shoulder and ear while she flipped through a ledger. “Pearls & Pints Bachelor Weekend. Two nights. Friday through Sunday.”
Her footsteps moved, quick and light. The phone call ended but then started again almost immediately. She was running a front desk with one brain and a prayer.
By the time I reached the first-floor hallway, she was already there with a notepad in one hand and a pen in the other, her breath a little high in her chest like she’d jogged from the desk.
“You’re… fast,” she said, her gaze dipping before snapping back up.
I kept walking. “You’re… busy.”
She took a step after me before checking herself. “Should I come with you?”
“Up to you.”
The hallway lights were on, warm bulbs in old fixtures that tried to look charming while doing the bare minimum.
I stopped under the first sconce, looked up, and scanned the ceiling line.
The paint had been touched up more than once.
Some areas were smoother. Some had that faint ridge you got when someone patched and painted in a hurry.
I reached up and tapped the base of the fixture lightly. It didn’t move. Good. I flipped the switch off. On. Off. On.
The light flickered once, a quick stutter, and then stabilized.
I took my phone out and snapped a picture of the fixture base.
Movement caught my peripheral vision as New York leaned in but then stopped herself and stepped back half a foot, like she’d suddenly remembered personal space.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Documenting,” I said and pointed my phone at the switch plate next. Photo. “Flicker. Loose connection, most likely. Could be the fixture, could be the wiring.”
She scribbled rapidly. “Flicker. Loose connection.”
I moved down the hall, checking each light as I went. Switch. Response. Heat. Stability. Most of them held steady. Two flickered. One buzzed faintly, like it had opinions.
New York followed behind me, her pen moving and breath still a touch elevated. She’d worn herself out already and the day had barely started. She kept up anyway.
“That one always does that,” she said, nodding toward a ceiling light that hummed like an irritated insect.
“How long?”
“Since I arrived.”
I looked up. The fixture was newer than the rest. Someone had swapped it out at some point, probably to “modernize.” The wires leading into it were hidden behind a cheap plate that didn’t sit flush.
I stepped onto a small bench that had been shoved against the wall, reached up, and eased the plate down.
Inside, the wiring was a mash-up. Old cloth-wrapped line feeding into a newer run, joined with a connector that looked like it belonged in a discount bin. That kind of thing worked until it didn’t.
I snapped a picture. Then another from a different angle.