Happy Memorial Day everyone. I am going to keep this short and sweet as I am taking most of the day off. I still feel a little unsettled if I don’t start my day with a prompt, so prompt (and 15 Minute Novel) first and then I can enjoy the day off. Habits, huh? So timers set and off we go.
I think this condensed a lot of the story. I think I would ideally like to have Ethan investigating one of the supposed development sites at the start of the story and show the starting of the investigation before John’s proposal and family fall out. Something to come back to.
Monday, May 27th: Sometimes you need to take a leap of faith.
“Sometimes you need to take a leap of faith,” John said. Ethan nodded as John pat him on the shoulder. “I’ll leave you to think about it.” Again Ethan nodded, afraid to actually open his mouth for fear of what might come out.
He smiled at John and his cousin smiled back before turning and leaving the room. When he heard the door snick shut, Ethan let out a sigh and allowed his pleasantly neutral expression to sag.
‘I wonder if he realizes how often he uses that phrase,” Ethan thought. Remembering his sheet, Ethan moved over to his desk. He opened the top drawer and took out his notebook. While the front pages had his current to do lists and notes about issues that needed to be dealt with, in the back he had a different sort of list. This one was all about John.
At the top of the page Ethan had written Leap of Faith in big bold letters. Underneath this heading he had a list of dates and notations. He picked up a pen and looked to the calendar. It was the third. He marked the date down at the bottom of the list and put a dash next to it. He then tried to summarize John’s current request.
‘Invest in shaky Architectural firm,’ he decided. Ethan looked at the entry. Shaky was at best a polite term for the company that John was pushing forward as a sure fire investment. ‘Architectural firm is also a pretty loose designation,’ he thought sourly.
The company was planning on building a resort community. He had seen their information packets and, unbeknownst to his cousin, even sat in on one of their presentations. It seemed too god to be true and Ethan treated it with healthy skepticism. He had them investigated, getting details from their previous projects around the country. As his work often took him out of town he even made slight detours to visit these sites in person.
In short, he knew they were a scam and had turned over all of the information he collected to a friend of his who investigated such matters for the government. He knew it was an ongoing process. As such he was little likely to invest anything in it.
Ethan looked at the long list of leaps of faith John wanted him to take. Many of them were projects that Ethan’s research found lined John’s pockets. He wondered if this latest one would as well and if he was going to see some fall out from the investigation hit the family.
‘Nothing that can be done,’ Ethan decided. He let his eyes scan the list and shook his head. Ass always he wondered what would happen if he presented a project to John and referred to it as a leap of faith. Ethan smiled. ‘John would reject it out of hand. John asks people to leap, he never does.’ Still the thought of the impending investigation wouldn’t leave him.
Ten til Midnight 