She debated what to do with Kudo. She would have liked to let him out of the car but she wasn’t confident she could control him, even on the leash. It was cold and windy outside, but the sun was shining and the car would stay warm, so she decided to leave him.
“Be a good boy,” she told him.
Kudo stared at her for a minute, almost as if he couldn’t believe he was going to be left behind. Then he curled up in a ball for an afternoon nap.
As usual, there was an assortment of vehicles in the Browns’ farmyard, but none of them looked like the kind of car O’Hara would drive. The shiny black pickup truck was Andy’s, his wife drove the Caravan, and the battered Corolla with radio station stickers probably belonged to one of their kids. The motorcycle, she figured, could belong either to Andy or one of his boys, maybe even a farmhand.
Lucy wasn’t sure if she should go to the house or the barn. There’d been mention of mulled cider, which seemed to indicate the house, but since the barn door was propped open, she thought she might as well check there before climbing the hill to the house.
After the bright, albeit waning, sunshine outside, it took a few minutes for her eyes to adjust to the dim light inside the barn. It was surprisingly warm, and she pulled off her beret and jammed it in her pocket.
“Over here!” yelled O’Hara, and she finally made him out standing by TomTom Turkey’s pen.
As she got closer and her vision cleared, she was shocked to see he was wearing a leather motorcross suit.
“I took you for the kind of guy who drives a Lexus or a BMW,” she said in a teasing tone.
“You’d be right,” he said, smiling. “I’ve got a Lexus but I ride my bike whenever I can. It’s great exercise and a lot more fun than sweating on a treadmill in some stinking gym.”
“A lot more dangerous, too,” said Lucy, thinking of the cyclist who had harrassed her on the back road and wondering if it could possibly have been O’Hara. She thought of Bear Sykes and his cell phone but dismissed the thought. It seemed unlikely that O’Hara would be at Sykes’s beck and call; it must have been one of the young toughs Ted had told her about. She relaxed.
“Where’s Andy?” she asked, glancing uneasily at the turkey, who was pacing back and forth in his pen. “I don’t think old TomTom here cares much one way or the other about the casino.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” said O’Hara with mock seriousness. “Before you got here, he was telling me he loves to play blackjack.”
“I think craps is more his style,” said Lucy, wrinkling her nose.
“You may be right,” agreed O’Hara, unrolling the plans and laying them out on a stack of hay bales. The sun was sinking lower in the sky and it streamed through the high windows, lighting the entire area in a golden glow. “Andy had to make some phone calls but he said he’d be right over.”
Lucy stepped closer, studying the blue-and-white diagram.
“This is what they call an elevation,” O’Hara said. “It shows what the casino will look like from the southeast, actually the main entrance.”
Lucy looked at the rounded awning, which was reminiscent of a long house. She noticed the carvings of a bear and turtle that stood on either side of the doorway. Her eyes followed the soaring lines of the hotel tower and she counted the rows of windows.
“Fourteen stories. It seems so big. Bigger than anything we’ve ever seen in Tinker’s Cove.”
“I know. But what would you rather have? A tall building like this or a sprawling complex covering acres of land?”
“I guess I never thought of it that way,” said Lucy.
“This is so much more economical. It’s energy efficient.” O’Hara paused, looking at her. “You know, I’ll never understand you country folk. You’ve got all this empty land—acres and acres of it—and you all act like one building is going to spoil it. What gives?”
Lucy shrugged. “People around here like it the way it is.”
“I noticed.” He tapped the plans with his finger. “You can’t hold back progress, you know. Whether you like it or not, things are going to change in Tinker’s Cove, with or without the casino. If the tribe gets federal recognition, the whole balance of power is going to change. It won’t be Howard White and his buddies calling the shots anymore. And your boss, Ted? He’s awfully cocky for a guy whose entire livelihood is tied up in that rickety newspaper. I mean, think what one carelessly thrown match could do to that place.”
Lucy’s head jerked up and she stared at O’Hara. “Is that why you had me come here? To send a message to Ted that you’re going to torch the Pennysaver if he doesn’t support the casino?”
O’Hara had been getting the full force of the slanting sunlight; it was so bright it illuminated the dancing dust particles in the air. Beads of perspiration had formed on his upper lip and he wiped them away with his hand.
“You’ve got me wrong,” said O’Hara, unzipping his jacket. “I just think people should think things through before they make big decisions.”
“That’s good advice for—” began Lucy, stammering to a halt as her eyes fell on the short black thread that dangled from the neck of his sweater. It should have held a button, a woven leather button just like the ones that remained.
“Well, for anyone,” she continued brightly, hoping he hadn’t noticed her staring. “It’s just common sense,” she babbled on, wondering if O’Hara’s missing button was the missing button.
