Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 78631 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78631 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
“Hi, Daddy,” I say on a sigh.
“Everything okay, Diana?”
“I’m fine.”
“How’s the investigator working out for Dragon?” Dad asks.
“Honestly, I’m not exactly sure. He won’t tell me everything.” I purse my lips. “But that’s not why I called.”
“Why did you call, sweetheart?”
“I need to talk to you, Daddy.”
“Of course.” I hear him typing. “I’m supposed to get on a phone conference in about ten minutes, but I’ll delay it.”
“Crap. I don’t want you to neglect your own work because of mine.”
“This has to do with your work?” he says. “Isn’t this just your second day?”
“Yeah.”
“All right, Dee. What’s going on?”
“I don’t want you to miss your call.”
He chuckles. “Screw my call. When one of my kids needs me, that’s where I’ll be. Always. You know that.”
I scratch my arm. “I should be able to handle this myself.”
“You’re a capable young woman, Diana. And I have every faith in you that you can handle anything yourself. But sometimes getting some advice from someone who’s older—and may I say it, wiser—is never a bad thing.”
I draw in a deep breath. “Okay, Daddy. Here goes. You know that big mountaintop resort project I told you about?”
“Yeah. It sounds great. I know you’re excited about it.”
“I was. Still am, really, but I found a problem in the plans.”
“Does that mean they put you on the project?”
“No, not exactly. Yesterday, my first day, my boss had me look over some of the firm’s projects. The mountaintop project was included. But I found an issue on the blueprint.”
“What kind of issue?”
“It has to do with the irrigation and plumbing system. One of the pipelines is a little too close to a cliff. I won’t go into detail, but suffice it to say it could cause major problems.”
“And you brought it to their attention?”
“They already know, Daddy. And they should. Any architect worth their salt would’ve pointed it out. The problem is—”
“Don’t tell me. The problem is fixing it will cost a lot of money.”
“Yeah. In the millions.” I sigh. “So they’re not looking to fix it.”
“Is there a chance the issue won’t end up being problematic?”
“Well, sure. There’s always a chance. And things can go wrong with buildings all the time. Even things that aren’t foreseen. But the point is that this can be fixed. Yeah, it’ll cost money. And of course one of my coworkers gave me the big spiel about how money doesn’t mean anything to me because I have a lot of it.”
Dad sighs into my ear.
I rub at my forehead. “The mountaintop project is the reason I took this job. I’d be thrilled to work on it. But I honestly never thought that these architects—some of the best in the country—would resort to such tactics.”
“You’d be surprised what people do when money is involved,” Dad says, his tone dark.
Don’t I know it. My father was put through the most horrible abuse, the greatest possible trauma someone can inflict on a child, all for money.
And I thought it was the right move to call him and whine about corporate America cutting corners after what he’s been through. There’s no comparison. He probably thinks I’m being pathetic.
I take a deep breath.
No. Of course he doesn’t think that. My father loves me. He loves all of us. And he’s proud as hell of what I’ve accomplished.
Problems don’t have to be as monumentally horrific as what he’s been through to still qualify as problems.
“But Daddy, you don’t let money get in the way of doing the right thing,” I say.
He chuckles again. “I’m guessing I probably have way more money than any of these architects. Or than the business itself. But that’s not even the point. Your uncles and I don’t cut corners for one specific reason.”
“What’s that?”
“The biggest reason is, like you said, because we do what’s right. It’s what we were taught. But number two is that when we found out our father wasn’t the esteemed pillar of society we always thought he was, and that he did questionable things in the name of money, your mother, aunts, uncles, and I decided not to run the business that way. That’s easy for us to say, of course. Our holdings are worth a small fortune.”
“I know you don’t do business like that, Dad. It’s one of the reasons I respect you so much. And the reason I wanted to call you.”
“You’re wondering what to do.”
“Yeah, I am. I feel like the right thing here would be to let the client know about the issue. But if I do that, I’ll almost surely lose my job.”
“Would that be such a bad thing?”
“Maybe not for me. I might be blacklisted among architecture firms in Denver, but I might not be. That’s not really the issue. The issue is my coworkers. One of them, Marcus, has a baby on the way. He needs his job. If I alert the client to this potential issue, they might fire the firm.”