Checkmate

Chapter 9

"Where's Connor?" Craig asked as Rory handed him a crowbar.

"I, um," she had to swallow back a chuckle and force herself to keep a straight face as she continued, "I think he's taking the day off."

"Are you serious? The second day on the job and he's taking the day off?" Craig asked in disgust.

"It's shameful," Rory said, struggling not to laugh.

"It's bullshit. We have enough to do without adding supervising his men to the list," Craig said, sighing heavily as he grabbed a pair of work gloves off the top shelf in their double wide portable storage unit.

"It won't be that bad," she said, initialing the order form before tossing it back to Eddie, one of the few supervisors she had working for her that wasn't blood related. He looked it over before nodding and heading out to get the supplies they needed. "Decide which of his men are qualified to help you with the roof today. Have Sean put the rest to work on gutting the first and second floor. I don't want anyone working outside unless they're on roof detail. We don't need accidents this early in the game," she explained, knowing just how quickly accidents happened when people swarmed areas that should be kept cleared.

Today and probably for the next few days they'd work on taking the old roof off. The last thing they needed was men working on the grounds around the manor where boards, nails and shingles were going to fall. They'd have a small ground cleanup crew working the property that was trained to move their asses and knew better than to take any chances.

The rest of the men would work on gutting the walls and checking for damage to the frame and while they were doing that she was stuck with basement duty. She'd been looking forward to getting to work on the roof, but McGill called this morning while she was on her way to work and asked if she could reconfigure the plans for the basement. Apparently after a talk with his partners, they decided that they wanted to double the size of the planned wine storage.

Even though it changed her plans for the day she agreed to look into it today and draw up new plans for the basement. Having the client call up with changes this early in the project was not a good sign, but she wasn't about to complain since it meant more money for Shadow Construction and it made the client happy, which is what she really cared about since she needed them to okay her plans this Friday. As long as they allowed her to design and build the attic suites she'd bite her tongue and nod when they suggested something that irritated the hell out of her.

"That sounds fine," Craig said, heading for the open double doors. "Do you want me to send any of the men to help you in the basement?" he asked over his shoulder.

She shook her head as she grabbed a flashlight. "No, I shouldn't be more than a few hours. I'm going to measure the rooms again and see what I can shift around," she said, biting back a sigh. A few hours was being optimistic. She had a feeling this particular project was going to take up most of her day. "As soon as I'm done I'll come up and help," she promised as she grabbed her water bottle and headed towards the manor that was already bustling with activity.

As she made her way through the large foyer she wasn't at all surprised to find a decent amount of her men already working on gutting the first floor and tearing down the old grand staircase. Her men knew what was expected of them. When things needed to be done they did them without having to be told. It was one of the benefits that she found from treating her men like equals and making sure they knew the game plan from start to finish and she kept them updated of any changes.

She wasn't too surprised to find a few of Connor's men standing around, talking. Honestly, she didn't know how he built the reputation he had by having slackers work for him. The majority of his men were hard workers, but the rest of them left a lot to be desired. From what she'd seen it was his friends, the men he'd made foreman, who caused most of the problems.

When Connor wasn't around they seemed to give up the pretense of working, instead choosing to hang out while the rest of the men worked. Connor must have to micromanage the hell out of each project, she realized, nearly wincing in sympathy for the man. She couldn't imagine the kind of time and effort it would take to go around supervising each part of the job and having to take the time out of her day to explain each and every job as it came up. She didn't have time for that nonsense.

"Gentlemen," she said, gesturing to the men standing in the foyer and getting in the way of the men working, "if you're not working then you need to leave the site."

"We're waiting for Connor," Andrew, Connor's oldest friend and one of the biggest assholes she'd ever met, explained.

She hadn't liked the jerk back in school when he was nothing more than one of Connor's lackeys and she sure as hell didn't like him now. He was cocky, arrogant and lazy. As much as she hated Connor, and dear god did she hate the life ruining bastard, she thought he could do better. She wasn't sure why the man kept this asshole in his life for so long, but that was his problem. As long as they didn't interfere with this project she didn't care what they did.

"Then wait for him outside," she said, gesturing to the wide open battered doors that were going to have to be replaced sometime today since construction sites had the unfortunate luck of drawing vandals.

With a nod, they headed for the door. They'd probably bitch and moan to Connor the next time they saw him, not that the man was going to need much encouragement to flip out on her. The last time she checked on him, he was making all sorts of promises to her ass that didn't sound like fun for her so she left him where he was.........

After she taunted him one more time of course.

Not only had she gotten back at Connor first thing in the morning, but she'd made damn sure that he wouldn't be bothering her for at least a day....or two. She'd definitely have to let him go before the forty-eight hour mark passed just so she could avoid someone filing a missing person's report on him since the last time that happened hadn't exactly ended well for her.

Then again the judge clearly agreed with her that the circumstances of his "imprisonment," weren't really her fault. No one had forced Connor to follow her into the old shed on the back of her uncle’s property. Just because she might have “accidentally” locked the padlock and ignored his demands to release him didn't make her responsible.

Of course, the judge may have thrown the case out because they'd only been seven at the time and he had kind of asked for it by chasing her with his pet python. It also didn't hurt that the judge thought that Connor's mother had overreacted to the whole thing. Not really a big surprise since the woman always overreacted to everything that involved the two of them.

It didn't matter whose fault it really was, it was always Rory James' fault according to Janice O'Neil. Her son was a perfect angel and only acted up because of Rory. It never mattered how many witnesses there were or if the incident had been captured on camera, it was Rory James' fault and Janice made damn sure that everyone knew it. Not that anyone believed her, they didn't, but that hadn't stopped Janice O'Neil from bitching about Rory since the first time Rory and Connor came to blows.

The only thing that had saved Connor from a broken nose for all the trouble his mother caused her was the fact that he seemed embarrassed by his mother. Again, not that she could blame him. The woman gushed over him and treated him like a baby up until about five years ago when she passed away. It had always been that way. She knew it embarrassed Connor when his mother showed up at school or at one of his games and fussed over him, making a huge scene if someone got too close to her son on the football field. So of course Rory made sure that his lovely mother had a front seat at all of his games and then sat back and laughed her ass off at him.

She turned on her flashlight and opened the thick oak door leading to the large basement. She closed the door behind her as she carefully navigated the old stone stairway. The stairs were in pretty good shape, but like the rest of the house it had been damaged over the years by wear and tear and needed a little TLC. She was reminded of that fact several times as her foot landed in ruts where rocks were supposed to be and she almost went flying on her ass.

Thankfully, the designers of this basement had the foresight to add plenty of windows so that the area wasn't pitch black, but she still needed her flashlight to get around. Although she knew the measurements of the entire manor by heart as well as the layout, she still needed to look around the large basement rooms to get a better idea of how she was going to work a much larger state of the art wine cellar into the plans.

A half hour later she still wasn't sure how she was going to do this without causing some serious damage to the foundation. She looked over at the cracked plank door of what she assumed was used as a storage room since it still had a wall lined with old crates. Maybe she could break through that room and keep the original spot she had planned for the wine cellar, but that all depended on what was behind those crates. If it was stone then she'd have to come up with something else, but if it was wood then she'd have the space that she needed and could go up and help the guys with the roof. She'd change the plans later tonight.

Eager to get this over with and help the guys with the roof, she made her way over to the crooked door and pushed it open with her shoulder. She swung her flashlight around the damp dark room, praying that she wasn't about to have a run in with some furry little friends or some of the eight legged variety. When nothing came running out or dropped from the ceiling she focused her flashlight and attention on the wood crates stacked against what she was hoping was a wall constructed of wood.

She placed her flashlight on the floor against the opposite wall with the beam of light pointed on the crates. With a resigned sigh, she set to work moving the top crates first. The crates were empty and she was able to move them quickly and stack them on the other side of the room. When she had the crates cleared at chest level she squinted her eyes, trying to see what she was dealing with. She was almost positive that it was-

"This ends now," Connor suddenly said, scaring the living hell out of her.

Rory whirled around, hand to chest, heart pounding violently as she fought to calm her breathing. "What in the hell is wrong with you?" she demanded, taking a deep breath to calm herself as she looked at Connor.

The man stood in the doorway with a flashlight in his hand and even in the dim light she could tell that he was having a hell of a time stopping himself from crossing the small room and throttling her. She had to give him credit, because if she was in his place there would be no stopping the ass whooping that he would have had coming.

"You went over the line today with that bullshit, Rory," he said, taking a step into the dark room.

She had to roll her eyes at that. "You're only pissed because you didn't think of it first," she said, turning her back on him and effectively dismissing him. She didn't have time for his whining today. She needed to make sure that the whole wall was made of wood and then help the guys with the roof.

"That's bullshit," he snapped. "You chained me to a toilet, Rory, and took away any way to call for help. What if there had been a fire?" he demanded.

"I paid Mr. Henderson fifty bucks to watch the house and keep an ear out for you," she said in a bored tone as she started hefting more crates over to the other side of the room.

"Mr. Henderson is ninety years old and wears a hearing aid the size of my fist. How the hell was he supposed to hear me screaming for help over the garbage you left blasting?"

She picked up a crate and moved it to the other side of the room as she said, "He had his binoculars."

Connor snorted in disbelief. "Of course he had his binoculars! He can't see without them!"

"Obviously nothing bad happened," she said with a shrug as she grabbed the second crate from the top, not mentioning that she also paid Katie, her seventeen year old neighbor who specialized in babysitting, fifty bucks to also keep an eye on Connor's house. Then again, she wouldn't be paying Katie the extra fifty dollars to call her and alert her when Connor broke out.

Oh yes she would, she realized a moment later, sighing as she reached for her cell phone and remembered that she'd put it down on her desk when she changed her shirt and forgot to put it back on her belt. Damn, a warning would have been nice, too.

"What about kicking my men off the site? What's your excuse for that?" Connor demanded, sounding truly pissed.

"You mean the men standing around and getting in the way?" she asked, wondering when he was just going to give up this line of questioning and seek his sad little revenge.

"I don't care what they were doing-"

"Well, you should," she said, cutting him off as she reached for another crate.

He simply continued as if she hadn't spoken. "Those men work for me. If there's a problem then I'll handle it," he said tightly.

"But you weren't here," she pointed out in an innocent tone that she knew would drive him crazy. It was probably wrong of her to enjoy tormenting him, but she didn't care. It was one of the few pleasures in life that she allowed herself.

"If it hadn't been for you, I would have been here and my men wouldn't have been delayed," he snapped, sounding more irritated.

With a sigh, she removed the final crate and brought it over to the other wall. "You shouldn't have to babysit your men, Connor. It's a waste of time and resources," she simply said as she walked back to the area she'd just cleared and inspected the wall.

The wall was made of wood, rotting wood, but that would work. She frowned as she looked down at her feet. Although the area matched the rest of the room's floor, dirt mixed with a heavy layer of dust, it didn't feel like dirt beneath her feet. Was it a wood floor, she wondered idly as she dragged her foot across the surface, shifting the dirt and sand to the side to reveal old rotting wood.

"Don't tell me how to handle my men, Rory. In fact, I'd appreciate it if you just stayed the hell out of my way completely," Connor snapped.

"That's going to be kind of hard to do with us working together, don't you think?" she mused.

"We're not working together, Rory. I'm running this site with the use of your men and equipment. You’re going to stay out of my way. If you can manage to do that and cut the bullshit like this morning then you'll come out of this a very rich woman," he said, ramming his fingers through his hair in frustration.

She ground her teeth together as she reminded herself that she had to play nice, well, at least while they were at work. Outside of work she didn't have to take his bullshit. "We signed that contract together, Connor, so whether you like it or not I will be working on this project and if you don't like that then you can-"

She never finished that sentence as the sounds of planks cracking cut her off. Before she could move so much as a muscle, the floor beneath her gave way and she found herself falling into darkness.

"Rory!" she thought she heard Connor yell, but she wasn't really sure since she couldn't hear much of anything above her own screams of agony.