You said you're drowning. I'm offering to bail the water. $20 an hour is a bargain." Dean looked at his daughter. Sam had picked up the two halves of the blue chalk and was trying to smash them back together. He looked at the desk covered in final notices.
He didn't have the cash. He knew he didn't. But if someone didn't start answering the phone and collecting on the finished jobs, he was going to lose the building by the first of the month anyway. "Fine," Dean growled. "Cash on Fridays.
You start now." He didn't wait for a handshake. He grabbed the clipboard and walked back out to the bays, sliding violently under the Chevy. He needed the noise of the machinery to drown out the fact that he had just hired a stranger who looked like she owned a yacht to babysit his life. Clare watched him go.
For the first time in six months, her chest didn't feel like it was trapped in a vice. The panic that had been humming under her skin since she fled the city was gone, replaced by a cold, familiar focus. Problems she could solve, tangible physical problems. She looked down at the floor. The kid was staring back.
"What's your name?" Clare asked. "Sam," the girl muttered. Sam. Clare nodded.
She didn't kneel. She didn't use a baby voice. She spoke to the six-year-old with the exact same cadence she used with her executive board. "I'm going to throw away everything on this desk that is garbage. If you see me throw away a piece of paper that is important, tell me.
Sam blinked. My dad keeps everything. "Your dad is highly inefficient," Clare said. She found a heavy black trash bag in a supply closet and started. She didn't clean.
She purged. Coffee cups, stale donuts, promotional flyers from tool companies, all went into the bag. Underneath the refuge, she found the ledger. It was a chaotic mess of chicken scratch, but to Clare, numbers were a native language. Within an hour, she had cross-referenced the completed repair orders with the unpaid invoices.
Dean had over $4,000 floating in the wind just because he hadn't bothered to follow up. By hour three, she had called five customers. Two yelled. She didn't raise her voice. She simply threatened to place mechanical liens on their vehicles with such precise, terrifying legal jargon that they promised to bring checks by 5:00.
Through it all, Sam watched her. The kid eventually got bored of the floor and climbed up onto a rolling stool, wheeling herself quietly around the office as Clare worked. Clare ignored her, which Sam seemed to deeply appreciate. There was no forced affection, no awkward attempts to play. They existed in a state of mutually respectful indifference.