Whitman was intrigued, and did. Brooke perched on the edge of the couch uncertainly.
“I understand you’re the builder,” Amber said, indicating the house and the rest of the subdivision, with a wave of her hand.
“That’s right, I am,” Whitman replied suavely. “If you’re in the market to buy, you’ve come to the right place. I’m in the market to sell, and you can’t do better than this.”
Amber wasn’t in the market for anything this guy had to offer, and with that tone, and that look in his eyes, what was he doing, flirting? He could be her dad’s age! Or older. She wondered what her dad would say if he was here, and almost laughed. If Erik saw, she wondered if he’d pretend she was his sister again. She rolled her eyes a little.
Whitman felt decidedly rebuffed, but Amber didn’t give him time to dwell on it for long.
“These houses aren’t too bad. I’m somewhat impressed with them. The location, however, not as much. Is this your only development?”
Whitman couldn’t decide whether he was being complimented, or insulted. Brooke watched the two in fascination, much as she would a game of chess.
“I’m considering several additional projects in the near future,” he replied loftily. He picked up the ballpoint pen on the end table next to the real estate contracts, and pressed the push button with a click.
“Are you. Anything in the mountains, perhaps? I much prefer that to living in the desert.”
“I’ve been asked to put in a bid for the development in the foothills of the Diente de Sierras. I may,” Whitman replied with a slight shrug, and clicked the pen some more.
Amber waved that away as unacceptable.
“I’m looking for naturally growing pine trees, not scrubby piñon that don’t get any taller than I am. There’s a new development on Pine Mountain opening up soon. Are you building there?”
Whitman’s cockiness returned, in force.
“I may step in, and get the developer out of the bind he’s got himself into,” he said casually, inspecting the pen and then clicking it again. Amber felt like taking it away from him.
“What bind could he possibly be in? It’s my understanding that Pine Mountain is scheduled to open the first of December, weather permitting.”
Whitman laughed shortly, as if amused by her ignorance.
“My understanding is that the project has run into problems due to the builders’ incompetence,” he said, and shrugged. “That’s what you get, when all you’re willing to pay for is inexperience. If the developer hasn’t learned that yet… he’s about to.”
“How, exactly?” Amber questioned, raising an eyebrow. “You’re being very judgmental of your fellow contractors, if all you’ve got to go on is your understanding. That’s hardly enough to accuse, much less convict.”
“Take a trip up there, and see for yourself,” Whitman replied, lifting his hands as if distancing himself from responsibility, should she choose to waste her time in such a way.
“If I want a straight answer, it appears I’ll have to,” she retorted. “I don’t believe you know anything about it at all. It doesn’t say much for your own work, if the only way you know how to market yourself, is to tear down someone else.”
Whitman no longer looked amused.
Chapter 14
ERIK waited, as Amanda Beverly cleared her throat and rustled the papers on her desk. He glanced at the model home, and wondered what was taking Amber so long.
“Neither the office employee, nor the security guards on duty that day, recognized the man who placed the granite in bay seventeen,” Amanda Beverly said.
“That’s right,” Erik replied. “We’ve determined who he is, and the name given by the person who hired him by phone. What I’d like to know, is if it’s the same person leasing bay seventeen.”
Amanda Beverly tapped her pen against the desk, and cleared her throat again.
“The name on the lease is Andrew Whitman.”
“Thank you,” Erik said, and promptly ended their call and returned to Amber’s. He heard a man’s voice on the other end of the line, and frowned. Who was that?
His phone emitted a series of tones, interrupting whatever it was the guy said. Erik ignored it, but once again it cut out the conversation on the other end. Whatever Amber’s response was, he didn’t catch enough to understand. Erik glared at the phone, and answered.
ROB held his phone to his ear, as he waited. Samantha sat beside him, watching.
“What do you know. It’s ringing,” he commented.
“What?” Erik answered shortly.
“Erik?” Rob asked in surprise.
“Yes, what?” his younger brother retorted. He sounded tense.
“I’ve been trying to reach you,” Rob replied. “Samantha and I’ve been doing some investigating of our own.”
“That’s great, Rob. I’ve got to go.”
“Wait, don’t you want to know what we found?”
“No, Amber’s on the other line, and I’ve got to get back to her!”
“I found the two guys that tampered with model F. They were frozen in their SUV. We’ve got their names, and know that they were working for Burns, who was working for Whitman.”
“Gotta go!” Erik said.
Rob stared at the phone in his hand.
“He hung up on me.”
“What? Why?” Samantha wondered, frowning a little.
“He said Amber was on the other line. He wanted to get back to her. He sounded kind of stressed.”
Samantha rolled her eyes in annoyance.
“If he insists on hanging out with my sister, he might as well get used to it,” she replied.
ERIK’S eyes were locked on the front door of the model home, as he held the phone to his ear.
“If you know what’s good for you, that’s exactly what you’ll do,” the man said.
Erik’s heart beat faster as he prayed, threw open the door of his SUV, and headed toward the model home. If anything happened to her…
“Your scare tactics won’t work with me, Andrew Whitman,” Amber said in response, her voice icy. Erik’s heart hammered in his chest, as his feet pounded just as rapidly up the walk toward the front door.
“Suit yourself,” Whitman said ominously.
Erik heard a click, which could only mean—
He threw the door open and it hit the wall with a resounding thud, startling the three people sitting in the family room of the open living space. Erik took them in at a glance, his eyes blazing. Amber, Brooke, and Andrew Whitman, stared back at him.
“Erik…” Amber said faintly, wondering what on earth could be the matter, as he walked purposefully to her side. With that fire in his eyes, she almost felt afraid of him. The other two in the room, did.
Erik gave the paralyzed Andrew Whitman a quailing glare, then looked Amber over fiercely. She seemed okay…
He relaxed slightly.
“Amber,” he said. He took a deep breath, and gathered his panic-stricken wits. “Please, tell me you didn’t sign anything.”
Andrew Whitman raised his eyebrows, returned the ballpoint pen to the end table, and left the way he came.
Amber blinked. Then she crossed her arms, turned away, and looked offended.
“Of course I didn’t sign anything! I was only looking.”
“She didn’t,” Brooke hurried to say. “She said no. Over and over.”
“A girl can’t help dreaming, can she?” Amber asked accusingly, glancing over her shoulder to cast him a glare. “I’m tired of living in the apartment. And besides, it isn’t good for the baby to be cooped up all day.”
Erik raised an eyebrow.
“Speaking of the baby, where is he?”
Amber whirled in her seat to face him, and glared in earnest.
“With my parents, of course! You don’t trust me at all, do you!”
“Well, you can’t even keep up with your wedding rings,” he felt the need to say. If they were going to have a pretend child, th
ey were going to have a pretend marriage to go along with it. “How am I supposed to know you didn’t lose our son, too?”
Amber gasped, and shot him a look of outrage.
“My rings are at the jewelers being cleaned, and having the stones checked. Because I’m so irresponsible,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Well… okay, fine, but it doesn’t look right, you being without. Especially with the baby. Speaking of which, since he’s spending the day with his grandparents, we should go out to lunch. Just the two of us,” Erik said. Reaching for Amber’s hands, he pulled her to her feet. “We’re losing touch, that’s why we’re always fighting. We need more quality time.”
“Okay,” Amber replied cheerfully. “Thanks, Brooke, for showing me around. It was nice meeting you.”
“Yeah, uh… you too, Mr. and Mrs. Fields,” Brooke managed to reply, as Erik hurried Amber out the door.
He had her down the walk and back in his SUV, as fast as he could get her there. He closed her door, then hurried to join her on the driver’s side.
“Are you alright? I was worried sick!” he exclaimed, turning to look at her.
“Really? Well, you startled me out of one of my nine lives. I’d say we’re even,” she replied, and began to laugh. “What was that all about, anyway?”
“Amanda Beverly, from the railway office, called. And then Rob called—then I hear you being threatened, and that stupid pen sounded like a bullet chambering—”
Amber held her hand over her mouth, in a vain attempt to hold in more laughter. Erik rolled his eyes.
“Go ahead. Mock my terror,” he grumbled, but smiled when she reached over and hugged him.
“I’m sorry, but if you could’ve seen your face—and then ‘please tell me you didn’t sign anything—’”
Amber dissolved into laughter again, as she sank back in her seat.
“I’m sure from your perspective, it was hilarious,” he replied tolerantly. “Maybe I’ll think so too, someday. Considering I thought you were about to be shot, and it was all my fault… probably not.”
Amber brushed tears of laughter off her cheeks, and managed to compose herself somewhat. He really did look traumatized.
“I’m sorry, Erik. That’s very sweet of you,” she said, squeezing his hand. “But everything was fine. I had everything completely under control.”
“That’s proof that looks are deceiving. Or sound is, anyway, because that’s not how it sounded. What happened?”
“Brooke was showing me around the house, when she saw Andrew Whitman headed toward the backdoor. I said I wanted to meet him, so I did. I asked if he was doing any building in the Pine Mountain subdivision. He said he might step in, and get the developer out of the bind he was in.”
“Then he knows we’ve had problems! Plus, the storage bin where our counters were taken is leased to Whitman, and Rob said the two guys…” Erik’s eyebrows knit, as his brother’s words began to register. “I need to call him back. But he said the two guys who rigged model F, worked for Whitman and Burns.”
Amber held up her hand to silence him. Erik silenced.
“Okay. Now, let me finish,” she replied calmly.
“Alright. Go ahead.” he said, and prepared to listen.
“If Whitman was responsible, he wouldn’t have said anything about it. If he was guilty, then when I demanded details, he would’ve backtracked. If he was making the whole thing up, he would’ve elaborated. Instead, he floundered. That indicates he was recounting something he heard, and believed to be true, but about which he had no details. So maybe Burns said something, or the other two guys. I don’t know. But I don’t believe Whitman’s involved, or that he knows someone has been trying to sabotage your project.”
“Okay,” Erik said slowly, mulling that over. “He sounded like he was threatening you. What was that about?”
“He was threatening that if I didn’t put down money on a lot, I’d regret it, because they won’t last long.”
Erik thought about that, and laughed.
“He may think twice before he tries pressuring a young woman into buying, again.”
“Did you see him slink out of there? You scared the living daylights out of him,” Amber giggled.
“Yeah, well, trying to trick a guy’s gullible young wife into saddling him with a mortgage and substandard housing… he ought to be,” Erik smiled.
“That was quick thinking,” she said admiringly. “You’re a much better actor than you give yourself credit for. You even had me fooled.”
“Thanks,” he smiled, and did not glance at the necklace she wore. Now would not be a good time to draw attention to it.
Erik started his vehicle, and pulled out onto the road.
“Where are we going, next?” Amber wondered.
“I need to call Rob back, then we need to take what he knows, and what we know, and plan accordingly. We can do that over lunch. I did say I’d take you out, after all. I may not be Mr. Fields, but I do keep my promises.”
Amber laughed, and glanced at him sideways.
“You’d make a lovely Mr. Fields,” she declared.
“You’d make a lovelier Mrs. Davison,” he replied, much to his own surprise, and narrowly missed plowing into the curb.
“Careful!” Amber gasped, grabbing the armrest.
“Yeah, I… need to be,” Erik agreed.
SAMANTHA set aside the notes she and Rob made, as he returned from the kitchen portion of the cabin’s main room. She relieved him of the two bottles of water he carried under his arm, and he handed her one of the sub sandwich-filled plates he held.
“Thank you, this looks great,” she said, as he sat beside her. “I don’t think I can eat it all, though.”
“Then we’ll save what you don’t. We can’t afford to let anything go to waste,” he replied.
“You don’t think we have plenty, after raiding the rest of the cabins?” she wondered.
Rob didn’t answer right away, and concern filled her eyes. He caught her looking at him and grimaced, then shrugged dismissively.
“We’ll be fine. I didn’t find the cabins as fully stocked as I expected to… but, we’re not likely to ever run out of soap, toothpaste, or toilet paper. And we’ll be fine. We have food, and the storm can’t last forever.”
The wind shrieked as if it begged to differ. Samantha cast an anxious glance at the window, and the snow that rattled against its panes.
“Are you sure?” she asked gloomily.
“Pretty sure,” he replied matter-of-factly.
Instead of laughing, or smiling in response, she sighed. He saw the worry in her eyes.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Besides the obvious, I mean.”
Samantha shook her head a little, and tried to focus on the meal on the plate in front of her.
“I’m just anxious to get back, I guess. I miss my family, and tomorrow’s Thanksgiving…”
What she really missed, was her son. She’d never been away from Caleb for more than a few hours at a time. Her heart ached, as she wondered desperately how much longer it would be before she could hold him in her arms again.
The sound of Rob’s phone was a welcome distraction.
“What do you know,” he said, glancing at the screen as he answered. “Hello, Erik.”
“Hi, Rob. Sorry about before, it was kind of an emergency,” his younger brother replied. In the background, Rob heard Amber laugh. Erik spoke off the phone, and she laughed again. She responded in a soothing tone, and whatever it was she said, made Erik laugh.
“Am I interrupting something?” Rob asked dryly.
“Yes. No. As I was saying, what was it you were saying? You found the two guys that sabotaged F?”
“Yes. On the dirt road, just past cabin one. They were headed toward the lodge. Their SUV was buried in snow, and so was their tailpipe.”
“Good grief,” Erik said. “You found them, how?”
“There was a break in the weather, early this mornin
g. It didn’t last long, but I made a run to the other cabins to stock up on what I could. I saw the antenna sticking out of the snowdrift, and investigated. I found them frozen, inside the vehicle. I took the papers from the glove compartment, and the cell phone I found on the floor. From those, Samantha and I determined that their names are Jess Stilton, and Randall Jerome. Samantha looked at their Facebook profiles and friends lists, and checked Jess Stilton’s call log, email, and texts. They both work for Amos Burns, and according to Stilton’s email bank statement, he’s received several checks from Burns. Most of them have the name of Whitman’s company, in the memo.”
“Okay. Have you called the sheriff office, yet?”
“About the two dead men? No. As long as I get to it by the end of the day, then I figure that’s good enough.”
“Alright. Amber and I’ve done some investigating, too. The railway bay where our granite was taken, is leased by Whitman. But, Amber spoke with him. Our conclusion is that he heard—probably overheard—something that gave him the impression that the Pine Mountain development isn’t going well. Since Burns, Stilton, and Jerome work for Whitman, that’s probably where he heard it. Amber doesn’t believe Whitman knows any more than that, and I trust her judgment. As foreman, Burns likely has access to bin seventeen’s key, so either he’s responsible for our counters being placed there, or Stilton and Jerome are. What else did you find? Is there a connection with any other contractor, or foreman?”
“We know there’s a third person involved, because of texts Stilton received during the time shortly before his and Jerome’s deaths, and after. All we have for the sender is an iCloud address, so that’s not much help in determining whether it belongs to Burns, or someone else. Stilton has also done work for Robert Sherman, judging by the two checks with his name in the memo.”
“Are the payments from either Sherman, or Whitman, sizeable?” Erik wondered.
“I wouldn’t call them excessively generous,” Rob replied.
“Okay. Assuming Whitman’s only involvement is that he overheard Burns, or someone else, talking about Pine Mountain as if it’s an imminent fail, then we’re going to branch out. Whether Burns is involved or not, someone else has to be, in order for there to be a financial benefit.”
Disengaged (Terms of Engagement Book 3) Page 25