The crowd dwindled at the same rate as the Entenmann’s cookies and before long, guests retired to their rooms. Back at Finn’s, we worked in silence. I wrote a three-hundred-word freelance article on a small, employee-owned, fair-trade organic coffee company based out of Colorado—the assignment I’d applied for before I left the city—at his desk while he stretched out on the bed with his laptop on his knees. While it didn’t solve my immediate problems, snagging the coffee piece lifted my confidence that I had the potential to make more money on my writing, even without a full-time job at Tea, if I doubled down on my freelance efforts.

The first draft finished, I put it aside to edit the next day and resumed my search for a new angle here in Pleasant Hollow. I had my laptop open to the public financial records I could find on the town. There was data on expenditures, revenue, budget, and payroll, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of the numbers. I was not one of those blessed to have the gift of words and numbers.

I could ask Finn to interpret, but the subscribers of Tea wouldn’t care about the contents of Pleasant Hollow’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report from preceding fiscal years anyway. If the locals cared enough about The Hollows to seek evidence that its development would hurt them financially, it might be worth digging, but they didn’t, so it wasn’t. I also strongly suspected any further prodding would lead to the opposite conclusion.

I closed out of the window and turned my attention to Finn’s desk. There were a lot of papers on it, naturally in neat little piles. My eyes scanned the documents at the top of each stack as a procrastinating device more than out of actual curiosity: Certificate of Liability Insurance; Insurer: A. Hanes Ltd.; Workers’ Compensation; Name of injured party: John Connors. Yadda yadda yadda. Fascinating stuff it was not. I glanced over my shoulder. “Maybe I should reconsider taking Johnny up on his offer for dirt on The Hollows.”

Finn glanced up from his computer. “What kind of dirt do you expect to find?”

“I don’t know. Witch trials?”

He gave a crooked smile. “Séances?”

“Orgies?”

He laughed. “Sorry to be a bummer, but unless a worker falling off a ladder because his eyes were dilated from the optometrist appointment he didn’t tell me about is considered scintillating material, I’ve got nothing for you.”

“Boooring,” I teased. “I wouldn’t throw your construction site under the bus for a story anyway.” I was still a journalist first, and my temporary role as Finn’s lover had been adjourned, but my fondness for him rendered the notion of betraying his trust for the sake of the story unthinkable.

“Much appreciated.”

I buried my face in my hands. “But what am I going to do?”