Hard to Handle

by Raven Scott

  “We won’t know for sure until we talk to him. But I suspect he lied when you asked about Holt in your meeting, then saw you sitting at the mayor’s table at the charity dinner just a week later and panicked,” Renee guessed. “He must have had Lucky’s contact information from other situations.”

  “But who did Battleford work for? Who was pulling his strings?” Sam asked. “I don’t think it was Fleming. If he was telling the truth, Fleming had nothing to do with Holt’s bribe. So who did?”

  “Like I said, all roads lead to Battleford,” Lucas said as a final picture reappeared at the top of the image map. “Raymond found several direct communications between Patrick O’Toole and our fixer over the last five years. And the cherry on top? O’Toole is the chairman of the board for Clement Media.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Sam managed to hold Kaylee back from seeing her parents for a full day. But by Monday evening, her patience was all gone. He was either going to have to drive her to their house in McLean or there was an Uber driver only five minutes away. She had checked.

  They arrived at the Clement home at a few minutes to seven o’clock. He looked over at her as they walked up the front steps. She seemed nervous and excited, but also worried, and Sam was pretty certain why. For months, all her efforts had been centered on saving her father from some unknown threat that had changed him for the worse. Now that she’d accomplished that goal, what if it was too late to go back?

  The housekeeper greeted them with the same warm welcome, and they found George and Elaine eating dinner at the table with another woman. Sam recognized the guest right away.

  “Mikayla! Sweetheart, how are you?” asked Cecile DaCosta as she jumped up from her chair. It was clear where her son Evan got some of his strong features. The two women hugged, and Sam could easily see the affection between them.

  “Hi, Miss Cece. You look great!” Kaylee said with a bright grin.

  “Well, I do try.” Cecile then looked up at Sam with recognition. “Evan’s friend, right?”

  “Hi, Mrs. DaCosta. It’s nice to see you again.”

  “How are you, young man? The last time I saw you was at Santos’s funeral. You gave me that beautiful pot of orchids,” she remembered, tapping him on the cheek. “They lasted for months and all my friends were so jealous.”

  Cecile gave Elaine Clement a knowing look, and Elaine rolled her eyes.

  Sam grinned roguishly. “I’m glad you liked them. Orchids are my favorite.”

  “Now, I have to get going,” Cecile told everyone. “Talk to you tomorrow, Elaine.”

  After she left the room, Kaylee kissed her mom and dad. They both said friendly hellos to Sam.

  “What was so urgent that you had to see us tonight, Mikayla? Is everything okay?” Elaine asked.

  Kaylee looked up at Sam, and he gave her a small smile of encouragement.

  “I have something really important to tell you,” she began, sitting in the chair next to her mom. “But now that I’m here, I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “Baby,” her mom said in a patient tone. “If you’re pregnant, just come out and tell us.”

  Kaylee shook her head and let out a small laugh. She looked up at Sam, embarrassed. Sam shrugged, casually. The idea was not that upsetting.

  “No, Mom, I’m not pregnant,” she confirmed. “It’s about New York and what I’ve been working on for the last year.”

  Kaylee must have been practicing the story because she gave George and Elaine a succinct summary about Nate Battleford and Anthony Fleming running Ross Construction and Groveland Development, how Battleford had bribed Jason Holt then likely had him killed, then been involved with Mark McMann’s new job at Quinten Laboratories. But she was clearly working her way up to the rest of the story, likely worried about her dad’s reaction.

  “Kaylee, what were you thinking? It was reckless and stupid to put yourself in that kind of danger!” Elaine yelled. “I understand your need to learn the truth, but no story is worth that kind of risk.”

  “I didn’t do it for a story, Mom,” Kaylee finally said.

  “Then why? I don’t understand,” insisted her mother with a hand over her forehead.

  “She did it because of me and Clement Media,” George acknowledged, then knocked back the two fingers of scotch at the bottom of his glass.

  “What?” Elaine demanded, looking between her husband and her daughter.

  “Dad?” Kaylee whispered as her eyes locked with her father’s, noting his calm resolve and pained awareness. “You know about Patrick O’Toole?”

  She sat back in her chair, and Sam pressed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  “I’ve known for a long time,” confirmed George. His face had fallen and looked very tired.

  “What about Patrick, George?” Elaine asked. “I don’t understand any of this!”

  “Tell us, Dad. Please!” pleaded Kaylee. “It’s time.”

  “Patrick and I have known each other for years. We started up a small magazine back in the day, as partners. We were still in college. But Patrick didn’t see the potential and we had different ideas about how we should move forward. So, after college, he went to work in the cement business and let me run the paper. The more I expanded and increased profits, the less he was willing to take a buy-out for his share. Finally, he was willing to negotiate. He had an investment he wanted to make. So we made a fair deal, but he kept five-percent ownership and the role of chairman of the board.”

  “I know all that, George,” Elaine reminded him. “We talked about it at the time.”

  “That part was fine, Elaine. And we worked well together for some time,” George admitted. “Until I discovered he had set up companies like Quinten. Companies that were supposed to be independent researchers. But the whole purpose was to convince the government and other builders that newer cement products were better. And since Patrick’s cement companies made this superior type of cement or concrete, he’d win more contracts than his competitor and at higher costs.”

  “I don’t understand. If he’s better, what’s the problem?” Elaine asked, looking at the others.

  “Mom, it’s like your doctor telling you that you need a specific kind of medicine or you’ll get sick,” Kaylee explained using an analogy. “You trust your doctor so you buy the medicine from the pharmaceutical company that makes it. But the pharmaceutical company pays the doctor to tell everyone they’ll get sick. They’re manipulating the marketplace to create a demand for something only they can provide. It’s very deceptive or, in some cases, illegal.”

  “How long have you known about this, Mr. Clement?” Sam asked.

  “About twelve years. I didn’t approve, but I didn’t think it concerned me,” he reflected. “Patrick knew how I felt and we didn’t talk about it. Until a reporter from one of my papers questioned Patrick openly about his affiliation with one of these research companies and Patrick asked me to make sure the story never went to print. It seemed harmless. The business was much smaller then, and I couldn’t afford to make any enemies. Patrick said it was win-win since I was protecting my own reputation. So I did it. Maybe he was right.”

  George paused and looked down into his empty glass as though he wished there were more in there to drink.

  “Patrick never let me forget it, but he never asked again. He didn’t need to since he had become really good at greasing all the right wheels.”

  “Until Kaylee’s story about spending at city hall got killed,” Sam concluded.

  George nodded. “I knew it was him behind it because it had Patrick’s approach written all over it, even if he was too big to get his hands dirty anymore. I thought firing Jason Holt would fix the problem, but a few days later, Patrick came to see me. He knew that you were the one who wanted to write the story, Mikayla, under your pen name.”

  “Oh, Dad,” Kaylee gasped, covering her mouth.

  “So, basically, he expected me to just stand back and let him use my company to further his interes
ts. Of course, I refused and he threatened to destroy me if I didn’t cooperate. I threatened to go to the police with everything I knew about his operation. But I knew he had no limits and I couldn’t take the risk that he would hurt my family.”

  “What did you do, George?” asked Elaine. Her eyes were filled with shock and sorrow, but she grabbed her husband’s hand tightly in hers.

  “I made a deal with him. I wouldn’t go to the police if he didn’t use my papers for his corrupt practices.”

  “But you also stepped down from the CEO role at that time, Mr. Clement. Was that part of the deal?” Sam asked.

  “No, I made that decision on my own,” he whispered, still looking down. “I started that first magazine as a voice for the truth, and I built a whole media business based on that. How could I continue to run it if I was complicit in criminal activities and cover-ups? I couldn’t do that on top of everything else. So I stepped down. But I stayed on the board because I wanted Patrick to know I was watching him. I might not be CEO, but Clement Media still had my name on the door. I was not going to let it all go to shit.”

  The room was quiet for a minute or so after his last statement. Sam felt sorry for the older man, but he was more concerned about Kaylee. She had pursued this whole thing to save her father from some unknown coercive wrongdoer. And now she was seeing that he didn’t need saving, except from his own conscience.

  “Dad, we think Jason Holt told Mark McMann everything he knew about the bribe he’d been offered, and then McMann told Patrick O’Toole. Is that what happened?” Kaylee asked. It was the one thing she and Fortis had not yet been able to confirm.

  George nodded as he struggled with his emotions.

  “Why? Mark had worked with you for years. Why would he do that?” she asked.

  “Yes, Mark and I have known each other for a long time,” George agreed. “He started as an eager reporter, always ready to follow a good story. And he was the one who interviewed Patrick about his relationship with research and development companies.”

  “It was Mark’s story that you buried,” Kaylee whispered.

  “He didn’t know why at first, but I think he figured it out over time. As Patrick’s reach expanded, so did his criminal activities, and I suspect Mark tracked it all,” George speculated. “I think I tried to make up for it over the years, giving Mark bigger positions in the company. But I guess the situation with Jason presented an opportunity, and he took advantage of it.”

  “Do you know why he went to O’Toole with what he knew about Holt and Kaylee? Why not Anthony Fleming? Those contracts that Kaylee was asking about were billed by Groveland, not any of the cement companies that O’Toole owns,” Sam asked.

  George finally looked up.

  “Because Mark knew that Patrick also owned Groveland.”

  Sam rocked back on his heels. It was the last piece of information that they needed to round up everyone responsible in this criminal enterprise and close out the mission.

  “What happens now?” Elaine finally asked after a deep breath. “Kaylee, you said all those other people at those building companies are now under investigation. Will that include Patrick and Mark McMann?”

  “It depends on what we can prove, Mom,” Kaylee explained. “These people are very good at burying their activities under layers of fake companies and aliases. So, I don’t really know.”

  “The good news is that Fortis has a pretty big collection of data on all of them. We just didn’t know exactly how to put it all together. But with the information you’ve just provided, George, we do now,” Sam added. “We’ve seen bigger criminals than Patrick O’Toole fall from much higher positions. Are you willing to go on record with what you’ve told us?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Is George in trouble, here?” Elaine finally asked, stammering to get the words out.

  “I don’t think so, Mom,” Kaylee tried to assure her, but then looked up at Sam for further assessment.

  “I don’t think so either,” Sam agreed. “There’s no hiding that O’Toole was the chairman of the board for Clement, but I think the State Department and FBI will be much more interested in what you know than anything you may have done. And considering the threats that were made to Kaylee recently, no one would fault your actions.”

  George nodded. “I knew this day would come eventually. The truth always comes out. That’s why I stepped down as CEO. That would have been the worst consequence to my actions. So as long as my family was safe from harm, it was worth the sacrifice, and I did it on my own terms.”

  Kaylee stood up and walked over to her dad, sitting in his lap like a little girl. Sam’s stomach clenched at the compassion and understanding in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Dad,” she whispered, hugging him close.

  “I’m the one who’s sorry, baby girl. I will forever regret the danger you were in because of my cowardice.”

  Sam could tell that the family needed some time alone. He quietly slipped away from them, to the kitchen, where he called Evan to provide an update on what he had just learned. “I want the information against Patrick O’Toole to be as airtight as possible. Clement is willing to tell the authorities what he knows, so let’s see if McMann will do the same.”

  Kaylee stayed with her parents for another thirty minutes or so; then she and Sam returned to his house. She was quiet during the drive, and Sam didn’t want to interrupt her thoughts. Her father’s story was a lot to absorb on top of everything else they had already discovered. She might not be ready to talk about it yet, but Sam thought she seemed more at peace.

  It was after ten o’clock when they walked into his place. Niko ran up to the door, ready for his walk as always, and they went together around the block. Still, Kaylee did not talk, and her silence was starting to feel like a barrier between them.

  In his bedroom, Sam sat on the edge of his bed and listened to her freshen up in the bathroom. Maybe your usefulness is gone? It was an ugly, insecure thought, and Sam didn’t really believe it. Yes, she had been manipulative and deceitful with him in the beginning, but her reasons had been clear. But once that thought had been whispered by his inside voice, it became harder and harder to blindly dismiss.

  “I know how difficult that must have been for you, Kaylee,” he stated when she came back into the bedroom wearing his favorite CLAN MACKENZIE T-shirt. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  She was standing still in the middle of the room, just out of his reach, rubbing the back of her hand over her eyes. Then her shoulders were shaking as her back curved forward in pain. The soft, whispering sobs followed. He immediately went to her and pulled her up against his chest. He could feel her pain deep in the pit of his stomach, and it hurt. Sam knew that if he could absorb it all for her, he would. He would do anything for her.

  “Don’t cry, lass,” he pled, trying to swallow the giant knot growing in his throat.

  He continued to hold her tight, running soothing caresses down her back until the worst seemed to be over. She wiped her face, but wouldn’t look into his eyes. Sam knew she needed patience and understanding. He coaxed her into bed and under the covers, and pulled her close after turning out the lights. She sighed deeply while wrapping her legs over his and burying her face against his chest. He stroked her arm lightly until they fell asleep.

  Kaylee slept in on Tuesday morning, and Sam decided to work from the house in case she needed anything. He was sitting in the living room on a call when she came out of the bedroom. She paused when she saw him as though surprised, and her professional clothing suggested she had somewhere to go.

  Sam approached her in the kitchen when his call ended. She was making toast and a fresh pot of coffee.

  “Did you sleep well?” he asked politely, leaning casually against the counter across from her.

  “Too well, I guess,” she replied. “You should have woken me.”

  “No harm done. Unless you have somewhere you need to be.” His stomach tingled in warning.

&n
bsp; She turned so her back was to him and poured a cup of coffee.

  “I do, actually. I’m going back to New York today.”

  CHAPTER 29

  He shouldn’t have been surprised. Everything that Sam knew about Mikayla Stone-Clement suggested this moment was inevitable. Yet, he stood there without a plan for how to deal with it.

  Kaylee sipped her black coffee before turning to look back at him squarely.

  “Why?” he asked. There was no point in beating around the bush. He had nothing to lose.

  “I have some things for the building company that I need to do in person,” she explained.

  “I mean why today? Why so quickly?” he insisted.

  His tone was calm and even, despite the turmoil inside him. But it wasn’t anger, just sharp disappointment.

  “Today is as good a day as any,” she said. “Things with my dad are out in the open, and there’s nothing more I can do about it. Whatever happens now is completely out of my control, and that’s fine. But, I can’t live in limbo, living with no objective or purpose. So, I had to make some decisions. I have to move on.”

  She sounded firm in her stance, without any room for discussion. Like her decision had been made and he was not part of it.

  “Move on from what exactly, Kaylee?”

  “From everything,” she said simply. “Everything about my life in the last four years has been about living up to my obligations and supporting my family. I’m not complaining about it. It hasn’t been a hardship or anything. It gave me a clear purpose. But now I don’t have to do it anymore. There are no expectations from anyone that should dictate how I live my life. That was exciting, until I realized I have no idea who I am or what I really want to do with my life going forward. But I have to figure it out. So I had to draw a line in the sand. Pick a day when my life stops being all about my family and starts being more about me again. That day is today.”

  “Does that mean that you’re moving on from us, also?” he asked, needing to have complete clarity.