LITMIR.BIZ

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the central microphone in the bank set up on the lectern.

      Gina, fuming, headed for the exit. What was the point in sticking around? She had real work to do.

      The television reporter who had been standing next to her earlier intercepted her near the door. “What was that little face-off all about?”

      “Nothing at all,” Gina said firmly and kept walking.

      She was halfway back to the museum before she could see the faintest glimmer of humor in the whole situation. And she found herself feeling a hint of relief as well. Of course, she was still disappointed at losing the chance to acquire an ideal building, but at least she hadn’t made a fool of herself by going public with her crazy plan before she’d checked it out. It would have been almighty embarrassing to have gotten the museum board excited over the possibilities and then had to go back to them and admit that her brainstorm hadn’t worked.

      Tyler-Royale’s CEO was a pro with the press, Dez thought as he listened to the smooth voice explaining that no, the five hundred employees of the downtown store would not lose their jobs but would be absorbed into the chain’s other area stores. The reporters were circling like sharks in the water, snatching bites now and then, but Ross remained perfectly calm and polite. As the questions grew more inane, Dez let his attention wander to more interesting matters.

      Like the little redhead who had been lying in wait for them. Now she was something worth thinking about. First she’d turned up at The Maple Tree yesterday, having lunch with the press. He’d thought that perhaps she was a reporter too. That would account for the inspection she’d given him. She’d looked him over like a cynical searchlight—not exactly the sort of feminine once-over he was used to.

      Apparently his guess had been wrong, however. I’m with the Kerrigan County Historical Society, she’d told Ross. And she wanted the building. I think it would make a wonderful museum.

      Dez snorted. The trouble with the history-loving types was that they were completely impractical. The woman was totally out of touch with reality or she wouldn’t have suggested anything so patently ridiculous as turning the Tyler-Royale store into a museum.

      His aunt Essie would have done the same sort of thing, of course. Dez remembered visiting Essie when he was a kid, and being creeped out and fascinated all at the same time. In Essie’s house, there was no telling what you might run into at the next turn. He’d found a full human skeleton in a bedroom closet once; Essie had calmly told him it was left over from the personal effects of the first doctor who’d set up practice in Kerrigan County.

      And that had been well before Essie’s house had formally become a museum. Though he hadn’t been inside the place in at least a decade, he had no trouble imagining how much more stuff she’d collected over the years. He’d been frankly amazed, when Essie died, that they hadn’t had to tear the house down in order to extricate her body from all the junk she’d collected.

      At least this young woman appeared to have a little more sense than Essie had—she didn’t seem to want to live in her museum. Other than that, she might as well be Essie’s clone.

      Apart from looks, of course. Essie had been tall and thin, seemingly all angular bone and flyaway gray hair, while this young woman was small and delicately built and rounded in all the right places. She had the big, wide-set, dark brown eyes of a street urchin—an unusual color for a redhead. Odd, how her hair had seemed sprinkled with gold under the myriad lights in the ballroom…

      “Dez?” the CEO said. “I’ll let you address that question.”

      Dez pulled himself back to the press conference, to a sea of expectant faces. What the hell was the question?

      “The Chronicle reporter asked about your plans for the building,” Ross Clayton pointed out.

      I owe you one, buddy, Dez thought gratefully. At least it was an easy question—a slow pitch low and outside, easy to hit out of the park. He stepped up to the microphone. “That won’t take long to explain,” he said, “because I don’t have any yet.”

      A ripple of disbelief passed over the crowd. The reporter from the newspaper waved a hand again. “You expect us to believe you bought that building without any idea what you’re going to do with it?”

      “I haven’t bought the building,” Dez pointed out. “I’ve bought an option to buy the building.”

      “What’s the difference?” the reporter scoffed. “You wouldn’t put out money for the fun of it. So what are you planning to do with the building?”

      Another reporter, the one from the television station, waved a hand but didn’t wait for a cue before she said, “Are you going to tear it down?”

      “I don’t know yet, Carla. I told you, I haven’t made any plans at all.”

      “You don’t know, or you just won’t say?” she challenged. “Maybe the truth is you simply don’t want to talk about what will happen to the building until it’s too late for anyone to do anything to save it.”

      “Give me a break here,” he said. “The announcement that the store was closing came as a surprise to me, too.”

      “But you leaped right in with cash in hand.” It was the Chronicle man again.

      “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve bought something without knowing what I’d end up doing with it.”

      The television reporter bored in. “Isn’t it true in those cases that you’ve always torn the buildings down?”

      “I suppose so.” Dez ran over the last few years, the last dozen projects. “Yes, I think that’s true. But that doesn’t mean…” What had happened to the easy question, he thought irritably, the slow, low, outside pitch that should have been so simple? He felt like someone had tossed a cherry bomb at him instead. “Look, folks, I’ll tell you the same thing I told the young lady from the historical society. Just because there’s already been one deal doesn’t mean there couldn’t be another one.”

      “Then you’d resell the property?”

      “I’d consider it. I’m a businessman—I’ll consider any reasonable option that’s presented to me.”

      “Including preserving the building?” It was the television reporter again.

      “Including that.” Irritation bubbled through Dez. Damn reporters; they were making it sound like he carried a sledgehammer around with him just in case he got a chance to knock something down. “As long as we’re talking about preservation, though, let me give the do-gooders just one word of warning. Don’t go telling me what I should do with the building unless you have the money to back up your ideas. I’m not going to take kindly to anyone nosing into my business and telling me what I should do with my property if it’s my money you plan to spend on the project. I think that’s all.”

      The reporters obviously realized that they’d pushed as far as was safe, and they began to trickle out of the room. A crew moved in to tear down lights and roll up cables.

      In the anteroom behind the stage, Ross Clayton paused and eyed Dez with a grin. “Thanks for snatching the headlines away from the question of what’s going to happen to all my employees,” he said. “After the challenge you issued, that pack of wolves will be too busy ripping into you to check out anything I said.”

      That afternoon Gina dug out the blueprints of Essie Kerrigan’s house from the attic closet where they’d been stored, and when she finished work for the day she took them home with her. Not that she was any kind of expert; expanding the museum would take not only a good architect but an engineer. Still, she might get some ideas. She might even have missed something obvious.

      But when she unrolled the papers on her tiny kitchen table, she had to smother a dispirited sigh. For a little while today, it looked as if she’d found the perfect solution. It was so ideal. So sensible.

      But then Dez Kerrigan had gotten in the way, and she was back at

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