Caleb 70 - Dana

I whistled at the amount, which was far more than I had originally expected. I never really knew how much the house had cost to buy since Dean had purchased it at auction from the FBI. I had guesstimated it to be about one point five million, but the offer for rebuild was over double that. Perhaps it cost more to build than to buy? That didn't seem right, but I didn't have much experience in this.

I decided to get some advice on this and called Dean.

"Hey Pops," I said as he answered.

"Well if it isn't Biggles," he said. "Don't tell me, you parked in a tree again?"

"Yeah yeah," I said. "Very funny. How did you find out?"

"Jules called us, just after you told them about it," he said. "Then she called again after you were picked up to let us know you were all right. You've certainly had an eventful few weeks."

"You could say that," I said.

"Are you coming up for the break?" he asked.

"We're just figuring that out," I said. "Sarah has a new boyfriend and wanted to know if she could bring him?"

"He the instructor guy?" he asked.

"Damn," I said. "Does Jules send weekly reports or something?"

He laughed. "We speak to both our girls almost every day," he said. "In any case - yes, he's welcome. Will he be bunking in with you or will they need a separate room?"

"Separate room," I said. "He doesn't know about powers yet. I don't know if he will by the time we come up, things are still fluid."

"Okay," he said. "We'll play it by ear."

"I got an offer from the insurance company," I said. "For the rebuild."

"Okay," he said, "how much?"

I told him the figure.

"That sounds about right," he said. "I'd accept if I were you. The sooner that's all sorted the sooner you can start the rebuild."

"I've got a contractor clearing the site as we speak," I said. "Hopefully we can start digging foundations in a couple of weeks. I've got an appointment tomorrow afternoon with an architect. Hopefully we'll be ready to apply for permits by the time the ground is cleared."

"What about your new house?" he asked. "When are you moving in there?"

"We're going to take some measurements this evening. Hopefully the realtor will have an update for us then too. It can't come too soon for me. This place is amazing, but I'd rather be in my own home."

"I know the feeling," he said. "Before we settled here, Cheryl and I spent a lot of time building the business, and I spent a lot of time on the road. I stayed in really nice places, but hotels aren't homes."

"You're not kidding," I said. "I'll be glad to get out of here."

He laughed. "Hopefully it won't be too much longer. Give our love to my girls."

"I will," I said, knowing that he was talking about all the girls, including Sarah. He and Cheryl seemed to have adopted all of us as a family. I loved them for that, and I knew my girls did too, although Sarah had yet to really get to know them. "Give our love to Cheryl. Love ya, Pops."

We ended the call and I typed out an email to the insurance company, accepting the offer for the rebuild as well. Once the money was in my account, I'd have to transfer money to all the girls, Josh, Louise, Gracie, and Dana according to the list that they'd sent.

I spent the time waiting for the girls to return from school working through the lists that the insurance company had sent, and working out how much of the money they were going to send would be given to each person. I hoped that they would be happy with the amount.

Once the girls got back, we met up with Josh and Louise and went for an early dinner. The appointment at the house was for seven, and Marcia was waiting for us when we arrived.

"Hey Marcia," I said as she got out of her truck when we pulled up. She was grimy from, I assumed, just coming from our old house having been working there.

"Hey, Caleb." She said. "Any news on the plans yet? We've demolished the rest of the house and are just in process of removing all the remains from the site. Once that's cleared, I'm going to be digging out the old foundations. Two weeks and the site is going to be ready for the new foundations to be dug."

"I've got an appointment with an architect tomorrow," I said. "Hopefully we can at least get some plans underway. I think it's probably going to take a couple of months for that to happen, and then we need to apply for all the permits.

"In the interim there is the work on this place to be done." I finished.

She turned and looked at the new house, just as the realtor pulled up in her car.

"Mr. Stott," she said getting out and walking towards us.

"Good evening," I responded, smiling at the older woman.

She simply handed me a set of keys.

"I'll wait in my car," she said. "You go ahead and do what you need to do."

"Any progress on the sale?" I asked taking the keys.

"I suspect another couple of weeks," she said. "I've been trying to push it, given your circumstances, but there is only so much we can do from this end. Hopefully I'll know more by this time next week, and maybe by then I might even have a date for you to be able to take possession."

"That would be nice," I said. "There are things we need to order, and it would be good to be able to have a date for that."

We went through the house, taking measurements for drapes and furniture, and decided that the bigger bed would definitely fit in the master bedroom.

Marcia spoke with Jules about how she wanted her workshop set up, and made a definitive list of the jobs that she'd alluded to when we'd viewed the house prior to buying it.

When we came out, Bob and Angela were waiting on the front yard.

"I thought that was your truck," said Bob grinning at me. Angela came over and gave me a huge hug, pressing her body into mine. I was still not sure what was going on with these two.

"What are you doing here?" Bob Asked.

"We need a place to stay after the fire," I said. "We bought this place to use until our house is rebuilt."

"Wow," said Angela. "We're going to be neighbors?"

"Almost," I said. They lived about four houses down. "Is there anything we need to know about the neighborhood?"

"Nah," said Bob. "Most of the houses on the street are rented to students at PSU, except for this house and the house where..." he stopped, not wanting to say Harold's name.

I nodded. "Who owns that place now?" I asked.

"It's a young family," he said. Looking at the house next door. I hadn't realised that we lived that close to Harold's old house. I looked at the house and noted that there was a late model pickup truck on the drive, and a smaller compact car.

"I pity them," I said with a laugh. "Living among the rabble."

"Cheek," Angela said, slapping my arm gently. I grinned at her.

"I do hope you're having a housewarming party," said Bob, "when you move in."

"We'll think about it," I said. "Don't want to upset the neighbors."

He laughed.

"Invite them all," he said. "That's what we do."

"I'll think about it," I said. "We need to get in first."

"Well let us know if you need any help moving stuff," said Bob.

"Sadly," I said, "there's nothing to move. Only our clothes and some tech we bought after the fire - everything else went up with the house."

Bob grimaced.

"Sorry, man," he said. "That really sucks."

"It's fine," I said. "Good opportunity to get some new stuff."

We finished off at the house, bade goodnight to Bob and Angela, and went back to the hotel. Marcia had made a list of jobs for which she was going to send me an estimate.

Thursday afternoon found me standing outside a small office building which was let out to a number of small businesses. It wasn't the most elite of places, but the offices were clean and neat.

I walked through the door to find that there was no reception, but there was a directory of sorts on the wall in the elevator lobby. There were only three floors total in the building. Looking at the board I could see the office I wanted was on the second floor. Rather than waiting for the elevator, which appeared to be stuck on the top floor, I took the stairs.

There were two offices off the second floor elevator lobby, one seemed to occupy the majority of the floor, and another which looked to be about the same size and shape as a broom closet. It did have a half glazed door which was currently slightly ajar. There was a company name etched in the glass. At least at first glance it looked etched. On closer inspection I could see it was a simply plastic sticker, made to look like etching. It made sense. Replacing the full pane of glass would be costly each time a tenant moved out.

I knocked on the door.

"Come in," said a voice. It sounded young and, when I opened the door, I found myself facing a desk which occupied about a third of the space in the room. Behind it, to one side, there was a drawing board, and on the other some filing cabinets and a large format printer which looked to have seen better days.

Between the desk and the door where I stood there was about ten feet of floor space, in which stood a couple of mismatched chairs.

A young man, who looked to be about my age, was sitting behind the desk. He examined me as I examined him and his office.

"Mr. Stott?" he asked.

"Yes, sorry," I said entering his office and closing the door behind me. He stood.

"Aaron Jenkins," he said. "We spoke on the telephone."

"We did," I said still looking around the office.

"I'm just getting started," he explained. "I finished school two years ago and went to work for a firm across town. Unfortunately that didn't work out and I decided to set up on my own."

I raised my eyebrows, catching his stray thoughts.

Aaron had been a rising star in his office but, although he knew his business and had qualified with honors, he had no head for office politics. When his rivals at the office started playing games, Aaron found himself completely outmatched. Eventually, his rivals had managed to engineer a situation between Aaron and the owner's daughter and he ended up being fired. The owner had vowed that Aaron would never work in Oregon again so he was left with the choice of leaving the state or setting up on his own, as no other firms would hire him. Now he was scratching a living doing small jobs like ours while wishing he'd been better at the game.

"Please," he said. "Take a seat."

I sat and looked at him.

"You said on the telephone that you wanted plans drawn up for a rebuild, following a fire," he prompted.

"Yes and no," I said. He arched his eyebrows.

"Yes," I clarified, "our house was burned down, but no I don't want to rebuild, or at least not the same house. We now have an empty plot of land, a blank slate so to speak, and I'd like to build a new house on it, but we'd like to change the design."

"Okay," he said. "Do you have any ideas as to what you'd like to do with the space?"

I smiled at him and then described the house we wanted. At the same time, I was finding out more about him and deciding whether he was, in fact, someone we could work with.

I was there for nearly two hours while we talked. It had taken me about thirty minutes to decide that this guy was someone I could work with. He was honest and, from what little experience he had, he was good at his job. He'd aced all his exams and had plenty of ideas of how to achieve what we wanted. He took what the girls and I had discussed and, as we were talking, started sketching on a large pad on his desk.

"So," he said finally, showing me a sketch he'd done of the proposed build. I had to say it looked really good, and I was impressed at his level of skill, not just at visualizing what we wanted, but also in drawing it out, in realtime, while we were talking.

"I'll need to go to the site and take some measurements," he told me. "Then I can draw up some plans for submission. At that point we can start applying for building permits. They say it should take about thirty days to get a building permit, but at the moment you can just about double that. The sooner we can get the application in, the sooner you can start the build.

"I'm not exactly rushed off my feet at the moment, so I can probably have a first draft of plans to show you by mid-week next week. I'd suggest bringing your partner with you at that time to review them."

"Sounds good," I said. "Should we make an appointment now for that or did you want to let me know when the plans are ready, and we can make the appointment then."

"Now would be fine," he said. Then he grinned at me. "I work better to a deadline."

I laughed. "My only problem is that the only time we'd be able to make an appointment would be after five."

He sighed, theatrically, but there was a hint of a grin.

"Okay," he said. "Just for you guys, I'll do that - shall we say next Thursday at five thirty?"

"There's one thing we haven't discussed," I said. "How much?"

"Depends on whether you just want the plans drawn up," he said. "Or you want me to actually manage the build. I can assure you that I have managed projects of a much bigger scale than yours, so I am fully capable of doing so.

"If you just want the plans drawn up - then I charge $200 per hour, and I'm thinking it will be somewhere in the region of $2500 to $3000. If you want me to manage the build then I work on a percentage fee of the project cost. That includes everything, applying for permits, hiring contractors, arranging all the relevant inspections, project managing the build, sourcing materials, and of course supplying all the relevant drawings for the build."

"And what is that percentage?" I asked, having already discovered that some architects charged up to fifteen percent of the project cost."

"Four point five percent," he said.

That sounded like a lot of money. A project that cost a million dollars would net him a fee of forty five thousand dollars. I expected that the build would probably cost closer to three million than two, which would mean he would be earning over one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. I considered whether I should change professions.

"I have a contractor I'd like to use," I said. "She's currently doing the site clearance, but she's a sole operator."

"I can speak to her," he said. "But I'll want to get references. If I manage this build, then it's my reputation on the line and I need to make sure that all those involved are worth hiring."

"Sounds reasonable," I said. "She did some work for us previously, so I'm happy to provide at least one reference,"

"That wasn't why the house burned down was it?" he asked. I laughed.

"No," I said. "We were burned out. That's what you get for having an FBI agent living with you."

"Oh," he replied, looking stunned. "I'm so sorry."

"Okay," I said. "For now, I'm happy for you to draw up the plans, you can bill us at your hourly rate for the work you do. After our next meeting, we can figure out the rest. Is that reasonable? I don't want to commit without discussing it with my fiancées first."

"Of course," he said, not seeming to notice the plural. "I'll have some plans for you by next week, and if you could pass on your contractors' details, I can make a start on getting her checked out." He was trying to close on getting the whole job, but I held back.

"Let's leave that until after we meet again," I said. "There's no point in you going through all that unless you're going to be managing the project."

He managed not to sigh out loud, thinking he'd closed the deal, but getting a final push back. Personally, I was probably going to get him to manage the project. It was one more thing I didn't have to do, and I didn't think that Marcia, as a sole operator, would be able to do it. I wanted the girls to meet him though, and get their opinion. The house would be something we'd all have to live in, and I wanted them to be happy with him too.

I left his office, having paid him a retainer. He gave me the sketch of the house he had drawn while we were talking. I'd be interested in seeing my girls' opinion of it.

I was later back to the hotel than I'd anticipated, and all the girls were already back when I got there. We decided to go to the range as usual then grab dinner on the way back to the hotel, rather than eating in the restaurant.

I showed them all the sketch of the house and they each had suggestions as to how it might be improved, although on the whole the reaction was positive.

Friday morning I was walking to my first hypnotherapy appointment when I ran into Dana, or rather she came looking for me.

"Hey Caleb," she said, a little out of breath. Apparently she'd had to run to catch me up.

"Hi," I said. "How are things?"

"Are you still coming over tonight?" she asked.

"If that's okay with Gracie?" I returned.

"She's looking forward to it," she said. "We both are."

"Then I'll be there," I replied. "What time?"

"Are you cooking?" she asked, an unspoken plea in her eyes.

I laughed. "Okay," I said. "What do you want me to cook?"

"Gracie really liked your Paella," she offered, "and so did I."

"Okay then," I said. "Paella it is. I'll pick up the ingredients this afternoon. See you about six?"

She gave me a peck on the cheek, and then dashed off, being close to being late for her first class.

After my hypnotherapy sessions, I went shopping. I picked up a new set of knives, once more going for the same Zwilling Pro as I'd had before. I'd been very happy with them and saw no reason to change. I also picked up all the ingredients for dinner and dessert.

I arrived at Dana and Gracie's place just after six, having stopped off at the hotel for a shower. Mary and Amanda were not going out until later, so didn't need to get ready so early.

"Are you not going with them?" I'd asked Melanie knowing that, as an empath, she needed to share as much as they did.

"Not this time," she'd replied. "I'm not really feeling the need. I think meeting so many new people at school and everything has met my need to connect for now. Maybe next time."

Gracie opened the door to my knock, and her face split into a grin as she saw me.

"Caleb!" she exclaimed, almost as if it were a surprise I was standing there. For a moment I was concerned that Dana had engineered this without telling her girlfriend, but a quick check of her surface thoughts reassured me that that wasn't the case. I was also pleased to note that she was genuinely happy to see me.

She pulled me into a hug, holding me to her for a long moment. I couldn't really return the hug as I had bags of stuff in my hands.

"Gracie," said Dana from across the room. "Let the poor boy in and put down his stuff. You can devour him later."

With a slight blush Gracie released me and then led me into their small kitchen where I unloaded all the groceries I'd bought."

"Before I forget," Gracie said and went to her jacket which was currently draped over the back of one of the chairs. "Maggie asked me to give you this."

She handed me an envelope, which I opened.

It was a note from Maggie.

Caleb,

Those assholes at HR are going to write and reject your application to the bureau on the grounds that you are under the age requirement for the FBI.

I could get involved, but it's easier if you sort it yourself.

I need you to contact them once you receive their Rejection and tell them that you are exempted from the age requirement, based on Regulation 443, Section iii, Appendix b. They will try and get you to explain further, but they do not have the clearance to know more. Just cite that regulation and that should resolve the issue.

DO NOT under any circumstances reveal anything more than that.

Maggie.

I sighed. Bureaucracy gone mad. Keeping secrets from your own organization. I could see the reasoning for it, but it didn't seem right. I tucked the letter into my pocket and then turned back to the girls, who'd both been watching me.