Broken Bonds

by Karen Harper

  She said hi to Matt’s secretary and peeked into his office. He was doing desk work, frowning at his computer screen and taking notes. He looked up and visibly relaxed. A smile lit his face. He closed the lid of his laptop.

  “It went okay?” he asked, getting up.

  “Yes. Mission accomplished. Henry drove well, the kids were happy. Matt, Henry says Sam McKitrick is just putting on a show about his protecting his place from terrorists, that he’s conning everyone. What if Woody knew that, called him on it?”

  “It’s possible,” he said as he came over to close the door behind her. “I thought it might be just that Sam didn’t want to look for a job since he had saved some money, was getting disability pay too at first. That could be what came between them, and they argued—up on the cliff. Okay if I call Gabe to fill him in on that, or will you? And I’d like you to stay with Gabe and Tess awhile longer. Actually, I’d like you to stay with me, but I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

  He moved closer to her, slowly pinning her against his office wall with his hands beside her head.

  Her breath caught in her throat, and her pulse picked up. She’d been tempted to just run in here and throw herself in his arms. “What about that would be the wrong idea?”

  “That I can’t keep my hands or thoughts off you.”

  “I repeat, what’s wrong with that idea?”

  “Nothing in my book, but so much has happened. We’ve had ups and downs since we found each other—ah, just one week ago today. I didn’t want to push my luck. But talking about someone being crazy, I’m that—for you.”

  He bent his head to kiss her. She looped her arms around his neck and kissed him back hard, openmouthed. She wanted his attention, his love—she wanted him. He pushed her closer against the wall, gently, but the kiss was wild, and she returned it mindlessly as his hands moved inside her unzipped coat and grasped her waist, then lowered to cup her bottom.

  After what seemed a mere moment, he came up for air first. “I don’t...mean to do this here,” he told her, drawing in deep breaths. “Let’s go to my place for lunch.”

  “Can’t,” she told him breathlessly. “I’ve got to ask Joe Fencer if he’ll take me to talk to Mandy Lee. I promised Jemmie I would talk to his mom and I might get a better reading on Sam if I do. Then we can let Gabe know that, too. And about two o’clock, Henry’s driving me up Pinecrest to talk to two other families with truant kids.”

  They stayed in their embrace for a moment, nose to nose. He looked dazed. “I can take you to see Mandy Lee. I don’t want my woman being driven all over the county by other men.”

  He winked and squeezed her bottom, then guided her to sit in a chair. He pulled the other one up so close their knees touched. He leaned forward and took her hands in his big, warm ones. “Next week, if this isn’t all settled somehow, think about staying with me instead of Gabe and Tess. No pressure, but—”

  His intercom buzzed. They both jumped when his secretary’s voice made her sound as if she were in the room. “Matt, Sheriff McCord’s on the line, says it’s important.”

  His eyes locked with Char’s before he looked away, leaned over his desk and grabbed the receiver. “Matt here, Gabe.”

  Char strained to hear but couldn’t tell what Gabe was saying. “Are Grace and the kids still all right?” she asked Matt in a whisper. He nodded but held up his hand as he concentrated.

  “Man, Vic Reingold has clout!” Matt told Gabe. “Sign him up for future help. So what did the test show? Really? Yeah, I’m surprised, but we can’t put anything past anyone now. Okay, I understand. If she argues, tell her I gave my permission for her to be away,” he said, and hung up.

  “What now?”

  “Vic Reingold got Gabe a rush on the DNA test on the arrows. What was there matched the swab test Ginger agreed to give so her DNA could be eliminated, just like ours was. But her DNA and ours were the only trace on the two arrows. If someone else handled them, other DNA would be there, too. Gabe’s coming over right now to take her to the station to question her, and he just wanted me to know.”

  “Ginger! What’s the motive? You said she wasn’t after you, but maybe she’s angry with you—or just wants you to need her help. Maybe she’s not really at odds with Royce but helping him. He wants to keep you in line, so she’s shaking you up so you depend more on him.”

  “Sweetheart, all roads do not lead to Royce!” he told her much too loudly, as if he was trying to convince himself.

  Well, she thought, glaring at him, however bad this continued to get, at least he’d called her sweetheart.

  * * *

  Matt dropped Char off at the Fencer house across from the huge fracking site. He’d agreed that it might inhibit Mandy Lee if he went in, and he didn’t want to visit Joe’s house without talking to Joe first. He valued his new friendship with him.

  As he backed out of the driveway, he saw Brad Mason in his bright red truck driving into the fracking site. On a hunch, he followed him in, parking just behind him near what must be the main office, a corrugated metal building with a flat roof. They had set up this site in a huge hurry, really, in several months. When he got out, the noise and motion of the place hit him hard. He wondered why they had no security here, or did the fact he drove in right behind Brad give him a pass?

  “Hey, Matt, what’s up?” Brad shouted as he noticed him and walked toward his car.

  Even close up, they both talked loud to be heard. The diesel engines on the waiting tanker trucks and some loud pounding nearly drowned out their words. “Just saw you pull in when I was dropping something off across the road,” Matt said.

  “Yeah, having that site’s sure going to help with expansion. This is the biggest site EEC has in this county, but we are always on the lookout for new ones.”

  “I realized I haven’t looked at the action here close up, not since the grid was first laid out and I came here and walked around the site with Royce.”

  “He’d still let you buy into the company—or hand you part of it,” Brad said, squinting at him. “You want a quick tour? There’s a meeting here soon about the schedule for tearing down the Fencer place, but I’ve got a few minutes.”

  “Yeah, a tour would be great.”

  “I’ll get us both hard hats—site rules. Anything for the boss’s son.” He grinned at Matt. “Just kidding, but you’re the closest thing to that. He takes care of all of us nicely, at least I think he does. Orlando might argue with that.”

  Matt scanned the busy site while Brad went inside. True-blue Orlando was upset with how Royce treated him? Brad must have read that one wrong.

  Matt studied a square structure built of pipes that reminded him of massive, entwined spaghetti. More pipes were piled on the ground. Tall, thin towers—actual drilling sites—scattered here and there seemed to stab the sky. The big lagoon of water glinted in the winter sun. Was the water really tinted the color of tea, or was that just a reflection from the thick plastic shell that encased it? It had to hold toxins in wastewater. Could that be leaking rather than runoff from the wells themselves?

  “Is that wastewater or usable water?” Matt asked, when Brad returned and handed him a hard hat.

  “It’s a holding tank for used water. Tanker trucks come to haul it away to be cleaned of pollutants so it can be recycled for reuse. I’m not the tech guy to talk to, but it’s all handled by the book. Why? Is there a problem?”

  “I sure hope not. Will there be more wells or storage lagoons over on Joe Fencer’s land?”

  “Oh, I get it. Look, Matt, level with me. Is Fencer getting cold feet again about selling his land and he’s sent you over here? It’s a done deal. I know he’s working for you now, and that’s great. But why don’t you ask Royce or Orlando about the expansion plans? They’d love to know you’re interested. I’m only the head of site acquisition.”


  “I realize that. Yeah, I’d like to support Royce in any way I can. I’ve only been leery of the fracking because it split the locals into the haves and have-nots after I’d tried so hard to patch all that up when we opened Lake Azure.” He regretted he was partly lying now, but he’d almost talked himself into a corner. “Big changes in an area like this break more human bonds than the fracking breaks the shale.”

  “Yeah, I have to deal with that, too,” he said, sounding almost relieved. Matt thought Brad was jumpy, almost defensive. Did he know or suspect something was not right here but didn’t want to rock the boat of a lucrative job?

  The most interesting thing about this impromptu little interview, Matt thought, was the fact that Brad had suggested he should talk to Orlando—a disgruntled Orlando?—about it. Was Orlando more than just Royce’s driver and bodyguard? Maybe it was time for Matt to mend fences with Gordon Orlando—or pretend to.

  * * *

  “I’m sorry to take your time when you’re so busy helping your sister move,” Char told Mandy Lee as they each balanced a mug of tea on their knees. Most of the furniture had been cleared out, so they perched on packing boxes in the nearly empty kitchen.

  Sam’s wife’s hair was somewhere between blond and red. She had it scraped back in a ponytail, and that accented her big hazel eyes. She was very thin. Her hands shook when she’d poured their tea and still did now as she cupped them around her mug. She wore tight black jeans and an oversize, gray Go Army sweatshirt. Char thought she looked younger than she must be, but then most mountain girls married early.

  “I realize you haven’t seen Jemmie for a while.” Char steered the conversation toward where she hoped to go. “So I wanted to tell you he’s officially enrolled in school, has a ride there and back every day, and he wants you to know he’s going to work really hard at his lessons. I promised I’d tell you when I rode in the school van with Henry Hanson, the driver, today.”

  The woman blinked back tears. “I’m right grateful. You must think I’m a terrible mother, leavin’ him like this, but his Granny Adela’s always been his second ma. I just had to get away, least for a spell.”

  Char bit back her urge to say, Married to Sam, no wonder. She tried to choose her words carefully. The poor woman was so nervous she was bouncing her right foot hard but didn’t even seem to notice.

  “Also,” Char went on, “Jemmie said that his dad is planning to take him out West sometime on a big trip. I wouldn’t want him to miss school now that he’s back.”

  “Oh. Oh, no! Sam shouldn’t be goin’ off with my boy. That’s pro’bly just big talk. Sam’s like that, though he got him some money to back it up from his army checks—for his disability, the PTSD.”

  “How is he doing with that?” Char asked, not wanting to chance quizzing her on how he could get disability checks if the VA hospital doctors said he didn’t have stress disorder.

  “Well,” she drawled, then took several sips of her tea as if to stall. “If you seen him, you know. Fearful of someone sneakin’ up on the house. Puts out a ring of protection, he calls it. He’s out all hours, comes and goes. Those doctors tested him was dead wrong ’bout him being just fine. I couldn’t abide it no more, livin’ with him, needed a break. At least he fusses with his old pickup hid out somewheres in the woods in one or t’other of his haunts. I think he just putters with it.”

  “I guess he and Jemmie get along well. That’s good, since I heard somewhere that Sam didn’t get along with his own father.”

  “Oh! Who said that?” she cried, slopping some tea on her jeans.

  Char could have kicked herself for taking the wrong turn when they’d seemed to be getting along.

  “But...that’s true,” Mandy Lee said, frowning at her own thoughts and lowering her voice. “Woody and Sam were oil and water after Sam come back from the war this last time, but that’s fam’ly business. Matt Rowan tell you that? I seen he let you off in front. Look, I miss my boy and I’ll find a way to see him soon, maybe take Joe and Sara Ann up with me.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you or pry. I know Matt thought the world of Woody.”

  That seemed to calm her some, as her bouncing foot slowed. “Woody cared for Matt, too. But see, the sheriff come ’round, asked me the same about is Sam really sick. And I don’t want Sam thinkin’ I sicced no one on him, asked him not to bother Sam, but said he’d have to talk to him.”

  “I guess you know Sheriff McCord’s my brother-in-law, but I didn’t know he’d talked to you.”

  “Well, as for family bonds, ‘bless be the ties that bind,’ like that old hymn says. It don’t mean we know what our mate is really up to,” she said, her voice bitter as she got up to slosh the rest of her tea in the sink.

  Char could tell she wouldn’t be getting more out of poor Mandy Lee, at least right now. However much she might love her son, she was running scared of Sam.

  And, Char realized, she had learned one new thing of interest. Sam might have a pickup truck hidden in one of his “haunts.”

  * * *

  When Matt picked up Char, she told him what Mandy Lee had said about Sam having a truck hidden somewhere that he puttered with.

  “She say what color it was?”

  “No, but aren’t about 90 percent of the ones on the mountains black?”

  “You’re right. But if he’s always just working on it, it sounds derelict. Are you thinking he’d have some motive to try to shove me off the cliff with it?”

  “Don’t kill the messenger, all right?” she said, putting up both hands as if to ward him off, then yanking her bandaged hand back into her lap. “Maybe he was jealous of how much you and Woody got on when he and his dad didn’t. Sorry, Matt. I can tell you’re upset, too.”

  “Yeah. I saw Brad Mason drive into the fracking site across the road and went there to look around a bit. He’s hardly one for an in-depth tour but he insists they’re really careful about storage of their toxic waste. Their big, plastic-lined lagoon is full of it.”

  “Bad news if Kate’s about-to-be brother-in-law is in on anything shady.”

  “Worse news if Royce is in on something bad, but I still don’t think so. I wish I could have gotten more out of Brad, but I had to lighten up. Anyway, he jumped to the conclusion I was there on Joe’s behalf. Listen, you know when you came into my office this morning?”

  “Ah, yes. I recall parts of it quite clearly,” she said, twisting toward him in her seat and reaching over to punch his shoulder with her good hand. “Especially, the part where I was tight to the wall but didn’t feel a bit like a wallflower.”

  He nodded and seemed to bite back a grin. “Well, when you came in, I was researching more about Green Tree and Lacey Fencer or Ashley or whatever last name she uses now that she’s remarried.”

  “Go on.”

  “I read where her Green Tree team was picketing a fracking site in Pennsylvania, some of their members were accused of dumping pollutants in the water before testing it. The case wasn’t proven, but what if they did something like that here? Dumped typical toxins you’d find with a fracking leak, then come in here with their picket lines and accusations, just hoping someone tests the water. I know, I know, you’re going to say I’m probably just trying to keep Royce in the clear again, but there are all sorts of possibilities here.”

  “You and Woody were friends, but Royce is like a father to you, isn’t he?”

  He sighed. “Yeah. Brad more or less said the same thing. I lost my dad early, but Royce was always there. Helped my mother out with money before she died. Never missed my birthday, helped pay for me and my sisters’ college educations, took me to Europe when I was still in my teens. Not the usual backpacking, either, ritzy hotels. Of course, then he offered me the partnership at Lake Azure. I’ve learned a lot from him. And I’d bet a lot I’m never going to learn he�
�s doing something bad with the fracking, not intentionally, not risking harm to this area or hurting people.”

  “I understand. But you’re going to keep looking into it, right? I mean now that Gabe knows—”

  “And you. And Clint Parsons, who’s coming out Saturday to do official sampling. Sure, I’m going to pursue it, and I’m going to prove if the water’s bad, that Royce had no idea about it. I’ll warn him right away then so he can be proactive and have things on the road to recovery by the time word gets out. I could help him with that, like I’ve helped patch up things before. Char, I repeat, it doesn’t make one bit of sense that he’d intentionally let local water go bad, not with the stake he has in the Lake Azure community. I’m holding to that—and I’m holding to you, if you’ll let me.”

  “I’m not trying to get away, believe me. But how about this? Kate’s back. She called and asked me over for dinner tonight, and Brad’s going to be there. She’s in protective-older-sister mode, wants me to spend the night there. She thinks since she was out of town and had nothing to do with my getting Grace away from Bright Star that it’s a safe place for me to be instead of at Tess’s, even with the sheriff there. And she apologized ahead for Brad’s tendency to drink too much. He’ll probably talk about his work and maybe I can steer the conversation around to finding out more about the fracking site and the water disposal. Matt, she invited you, too, but if you weren’t there...”

  “Brad wouldn’t be staying all night, too, would he? You know he’s got a place now at Lake Azure.”

  “She said I could have the guest wing all to myself.”

  “I want to have you with me, protect you myself, but changing venues does make sense. Look, the protestors are back,” he muttered as he pulled off the road onto the Lake Azure grounds. “And damn it, look at that sign on the end.”

  She gasped. It was as if Matt had been psychic. TEST THE WATER, it read, and the poster on a stick bouncing up and down right next to it said, TOXINS KILL.

  “Maybe you’re right about them tampering with our water,” she said.