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idea what had happened. The sound of breaking glass, followed by one of Fitz’s explosive curses, pretty much said it all.  
    “So who’s the fucking idiot?” Nick asked, glancing down at the sight of Fitz’s feet planted in the middle of what would have been an expensive, high-quality glass light fixture twenty seconds ago.  
    “Fecking thing fell out my hands,” Fitz boomed, waving a fat hand in the direction of the ceiling hatch above the passage. “Must’ve been up there for fecking years.” He glared at Nick from under a hedge of eyebrow that met in the middle. “Are you laughing?”
    “Not me.” Nick hid his grin by squatting down and poking at the heavy brass fitting covered in broken glass. “Looks thirties art deco. Good quality. Maybe five hundred dollars at auction. Any more up there?”
    “Yeah, about a dozen of the fecking things.” Fitz kicked at a shard of glass. “I’ll get the scaffolders to help with the rest.”
    Nick glanced at the mess and decided it was a good time to step in before the scaffolders found themselves on the receiving end of Fitz’s bad mood. It didn’t help that they were outright scared of the guy, even on one of his good days. “No, don’t bother,” he said over his shoulder as he made a fast U-turn to his office. “Give me a few minutes, and I’ll help.”  
    Fitz followed him into his office and slumped into a chair. “Hell, maybe I’m getting too soft for this work.”  
    Nick grinned and flicked his eyes over his site manager’s paunch. True, Fitz was past fifty and carrying an impressive spare tire. But soft? Hardly. Few men would be game enough to find out with a guy who weighed two hundred and thirty pounds and had boxed his way to an Irish heavyweight title back in the eighties.  
    “Maybe a little less Guinness,” Nick suggested, grinning at the deepening scowl on the face across from him. Fitz had introduced Nick to the black stuff seven years ago. He’d been a green twenty-four-year-old when Fitz had coming looking for a job, and despite a twenty-year age gap and frequent arguments over their favorite drink, they’d achieved a solid friendship.
    Tipping back in his chair, Nick slapped his boots back on the desk. “Anyway, what’s the job looking like so far?”
    Fitz’s scowl melted to a broad grin. “Nothing a wrecking ball can’t deal to in a few hours.” He folded thick arms over his barrel chest. “Jesus, I love these small jobs. Easy work. Easy profits. No fecking complications.”  
    Except for the one that turned up yesterday , thought Nick with a sigh. She’d been a regular visitor in his head all morning, and it was starting to annoy the hell out of him. Like a persistent itch just out of reach.
    Swinging his feet back to the floor, he stared at the spreadsheet open on his laptop. “It’s looking like a profit of around three hundred thousand in total, including the sale of the cleared land and the building façade. The best small job for the month.”  
    Fitz grunted and scratched between two buttons straining to stay fastened. “Yeah, fecking lucky that I spotted the sale?”  
    Nick nodded and opened a new worksheet column. “How long to do the demolition and salvage? Still four weeks?”
    “Make that five weeks with a small crew. They’ll start at the end of next week. We’ll use our own equipment. Packing the bricks for the seller will take a few days. They want delivery to their New York depot, so good for us. Only a two-hour drive down the coast.”  
    Nick updated the figures. “Good. I’ll be sticking around until the end of the week at least, maybe longer. I’ve had the Blaze transported up here.”
    Nick was looking forward to some serious sailing. His favorite pastime and the first chance in months to get out on his ketch. He couldn’t really afford the time away from his business, especially with the multi-million-dollar Spanway Bridge demolition contract due to be finalized in the next three