Chapter 10: The River Lots

At six-thirty the next morning the gate at the river lots in Sharpsburg wouldn't open for Leah.

She punched her code in twice.

The keypad beeped red both times.

"Brett changed it," she said. "Of course he did."

Beyond the chain-link fence, forty townhouses stood along the Allegheny in a long row, framed and sheathed with no roofs on them.

The crew was already there, drinking coffee by the trailers.

Nate stayed by the truck.

He had already decided that on the drive over.

This was her site, and if he walked through that gate in front of her, the crew would think she needed him to.

Leah rattled the gate once.

The foreman came across the mud with a toothpick in his mouth and a ring of keys.

He was fifty-eight and had worked for her father for thirty years.

"Morning, boss," he said, and unlocked the padlock on the side gate. "Somebody messed with the keypad."

"Somebody did," Leah said.

She walked in, and the foreman locked the gate behind her.

By seven the first roofers were up on the end unit.

Leah was on the ground with the drawings spread on a sawhorse, and she had four men around her arguing about flashing.

At ten past seven Barbara's car pulled up at the gate.

Brett got out of the passenger side.

Barbara got out of the driver's side in a camel coat and stood at the chain-link.

"Leah," she called. "You don't work here anymore. I sent you a text."

Up and down the row of townhouses, nail guns went quiet one by one.

Men on the scaffolds turned around to look.

Leah rolled up the drawing and walked to the gate.

She didn't open it.