Chapter 7

Seven

B lake

I mosey over to the rotting picnic shelter where the ghost tour is scheduled to begin and end.

As I wait for Dahlia, I look over the neglected structure and think about how I’d love to have the chance to fix it up.

I recently put in a bid to the city council to let me take on the project. I could do it myself almost entirely in my Gramps’s wood shop. And since I’m not a large construction company and have no employees, I know my bid has to be lower than anyone else’s.

I don’t understand a lot about local politics but I know I saw something in the paper about the council getting into a huge argument with the finance department over the project, and the whole thing getting tabled until the next meeting. Which kind of sucks, as it would have been nice to have new shelters built in time for visitors to use on the day of the festival. Then, in the following week’s newspaper, I recall reading about the finance director quitting. The past couple of years has seen several department heads quit unexpectedly, which is how the city came to offer the tourism job to Dahlia.

City government and finance might not make any sense to me, but hell, I’d probably rehab every picnic shelter in the entire town for free if Dahlia asked me to. Surely that’s a bid not even our mayor could refuse.

While I wait for the tour to start, I reach into my back pocket and count out my tips again. Dahlia was right. The bar ended up making a huge profit off the scavenger hunt, and the clientele wasn’t nearly as obnoxious as I’d first assumed they would be.

I would normally stay extra late on Halloween, but I have new plans, which, if all goes well, will take up the rest of my night, so I called in a couple of extra servers to help Kenny. I’d rather spend time with Dahlia than squeeze out more tips for me from drunk customers after midnight.