“To being self-serving assholes?” She snickers.
“For starters.” His smile fades into a straight line. “Look, Lia, if you don’t want to stay here in Southampton, then you may see my security team around your apartment. Just let them do their thing. These guys are dangerous, and I can’t take any chances.”
“Sure.” She pouts. “Do you have any idea who did this yet?” Her tone carries an air of impatience.
“Yes,” he says calmly.
“You do?” I ask.
“Of course. I have to wait for my lawyer’s investigation, but we have some idea. Just think back to our dinner date the night this happened. One of the board members had just learned that you had not signed the contract yet.”
“Yeah, he looked rather…intrigued,” I recall.
“To say the least. And why would he have a newly hired manager there ready to receive shares of stock? My old college buddy, of all people?”
“You said new hires didn’t require your approval,” I reply.
“They don’t. But they always ask for my approval, sweetheart.”
“Ooh, sweetheart, now.” Lia grins.
“Stay focused, Lia.” I narrow my eyes at her in a playful glare.
“Brian McMillan. I’m having my lawyer check him out as well,” Kalin mutters. “None of it really makes any sense.”
“But he’s your old college buddy,” I reply.
“Maybe so, but I haven’t seen him for years. Not since we graduated. Why is he suddenly back now, without telling me?”
I shrug.
“The police haven’t even tied the ransacking and the truck incident together,” Lia grumbles. “How can you expect them to tie the rest of this together?” Her brows pinch with disbelief.
“We’ll give them some help, Lia. I’ll make their job easy for them.” His mouth curves into a satisfied smile. I know even now that Kalin is not thinking about himself, but about us. I take a deep breath and let the comfort of his words chase away the fear and uncertainty that have been preying on my mind.
The nurse opens the door and peeks in. “Your lawyer is here to see you, Mr. Davis.”
“Perfect timing. Thank you.” She smiles and ducks out. “See, ladies. Everything is falling in to place already,” he beams.
“Kalin, are you turning your nurses into your personal assistants?” Lia folds her arms and smiles.
“Don’t use your charm for evil, Kalin,” I say. Lia and I burst into a fit of giggles.
Lia heads to the door. “I’ll see you guys later. I have to go to work.”
“Thank you Lia.” Kalin waves at her and smiles. “Thank you for the beautiful flowers.”
“Anytime.” She grins and closes the door.
“Do you want me to go?” I ask.
“Actually, I want you to stay, if that’s okay.”
“Really?” I ask.
“Yes. I want you to hear everything. You’re my confidant, Annabelle. You’re my safe.” Kalin reaches for my hand and presses it to his mouth. The warmth of his kiss rushes up my arm. “Among other things.”
My eyes lock on his, and I am caught between the sensual heat of his gaze, and the meeting before us and all its implications. “I better get ready.” I tug my hand from him, but he tugs my wrist to bring me back to him. His arm slides around my waist and he pulls me toward him. He plants a hot kiss on my lips, melting me in place.
My cheeks flush, and I shift away from him as Larry Atkinson strolls into the room with a briefcase in one hand and a computer bag in the other. With laugh lines around his eyes and a mouth that relaxes into a smile, his face is good natured and calm. His thick gray hair is flecked with hints of dark brown from his younger days, and combed back sleekly. He has sterling silver cuff links with a picture of a sailboat on a blue sea, and I remember that Kalin mentioned he loves to sail.
“Hi, Mr. Atkinson.” I say, extending my hand to him.
“Hello. You must be Annabelle Ried. It’s nice to meet you. Kalin speaks very highly of you.”
“He has to or I won’t feed him.” I titter.
“That would be exceptionally painful, as she’s a wonderful cook.” Kalin chuckles. “Annabelle is also my marketing assistant. At least that was the plan before all this happened. Now she is helping me recover.”
“Just another reason to treat her right,” he smiles.
“Indeed,” Kalin mutters.
“May I sit here?” Mr. Atkinson says, pointing to a small circular table.
“Please,” Kalin insists. “Annabelle will be taking notes for me while I’m hooked up over here,” he smiles.
“How much longer?”
“The doctor says about one more week,” Kalin moans.
Larry has a lively demeanor and gives Kalin his full attention. “Not soon enough, Kal?” His brows lift in vibrant fashion.
“I know I should consider myself lucky, right?”
Larry takes a seat to face him. “I’ll say,” he booms.
Kalin cocks his head and glances at me before returning his gaze to Larry.
“From what we found—the markings on the vehicle, the skid marks on the road, and the repeated rams into your vehicle—I would say in all confidence that they were certainly trying to kill you. Not injure you, or scare you. Kill you. Now why that did not happen is beyond me.” He peers up at Kalin from his stack of notes. “The truck had no trailer to weight it down. No payload. This style of tractor is aerodynamic and fast enough to ram you several times with all twenty thousand pounds of it.” Larry shakes his head. “You shouldn’t have survived.” Larry turns his attention to me. “Neither one of you.”
My mouth drops open and I feel my stomach lurch. “But I got out unscathed, except for a couple of cuts to my face and arm.”
“The area where you were sitting was just about the only area that wasn’t crushed completely. The violent rolls and the landing crushed most of the vehicle that was not otherwise mauled by the severe impacts from the truck.” Larry turns back to Kalin. “I am sure you doctor informed you of the mortality rate for a lacerated left ventricle of the heart?”
Kalin takes a deep breath. “Most patients don’t make it to surgery.”
“And you have one more week until you walk out of here.”
“Okay, Larry.” Kalin juts his chin at him. “I get it.”
A soft smile moves over my lips, thankful that Kalin is alive. “Did we mess up their plans?” I ask with delight.
Larry’s eyebrows lift high on his forehead. “I’ll say, Annabelle. This isn’t something they planned for well.”
“Why didn’t they just jump out of the truck and finish us off? Shoot us dead. No more risks.”
“That wouldn’t fit well with their story now, would it? The events were clearly manipulated to make it appear like this was Kalin’s fault. A couple of bullet holes in him and you would throw a bit of a curve in their tale.”
“It’s already ridiculous.” I frown.
“Yes, but plausible. And that’s the key.”
“What have you found out about the board members?” Kalin asks.
“We conducted a background investigation on each of your board members as you requested. Standard stuff. I’m sure your HR department did a thorough job with this. Education and listed experience all checked out for your board members.”
“How about the guys that we just happened to see at the restaurant that night?” I ask.
“Yes, Jeff Corman and Brian McMillan,” Larry confirms. “Jeff hired Brian from ProEast Energy. So we did some checking into ProEast Energy. It turns out that they are involved in a giant fracking project on the East coast.”
“Hydraulic fracturing?” I ask.
“Yes. It’s a technique that breaks up shale formations to extract the oil and the gas. Do you recall a fellow by the name of Dale Huntington in college, Kal?”
“Of course,” Kalin replies. “He went to school with me as an undergrad at the University of Illinois.”
“Do you happen
to know what he did after college?”
“Not really. I started graduate school and I guess we lost touch.”
“Right. He graduated when the financial crisis was hitting everyone hard.”
“That’s one of the reasons I went to graduate school. From there I planned on starting my own company.” Kalin’s eyes slide to mine, and a small smile tugs at his lips. I return the smile while taking notes.
“Dale did not seem to fare so well. He was unemployed for several months after graduation. He also had a couple hundred thousand in student loans to pay off.”
“Oh, the memories.” Kalin sniffs.
“The fracking boom started taking off in Pennsylvania and Ohio, part of which sits on top of a large natural gas find.”
“Shale?” I ask.
“Marcellus Shale Formation—one of the largest untapped natural gas reserves in the world, and right next to high-demand markets along the East Coast. Companies couldn’t get enough drivers and workers needed for the movement of chemicals and sand required for the hydraulic fracturing process. Dale could make almost as much working in the field as working in management, and started working to ship sand and chemicals needed at the work sites.”
“He was a truck driver?” I ask in a tone of disbelief.
Larry sits back and nods. “He got his commercial driver’s license and started working at the fracking sites scattered across the East. He was making as much as a typical business major, if they even had a job. Wall Street companies were laying people off and battening down the hatches for a financial fallout, and even tech companies were freezing hiring for the first time. Meanwhile the new energy boom from fracking was creating a big demand for jobs, and companies couldn’t get enough workers. Dale used his earnings to pay for his truck, used it as his residence, and paid off his student loans. In the meantime, he was still applying for management positions across the U.S. without much luck.”
“He was being industrious, and doing what he had to do to survive.” Kalin tugs at his bottom lip and glances at me. I stare at my computer and grimace, knowing that both of us are questioning where this is going.
“Dale worked on these job sites trucking sand, chemicals, and water for about two years. He worked with a company called Troy Industries at one of the Northern Pennsylvania fracking sites. Are you familiar with some of the chemicals they use in fracking?” Larry’s eyebrows spike up.
Kalin shrugs. “It’s not really my forte, but I know that much of it is undisclosed. The industry uses some loophole to avoid disclosing the chemicals that they use. Why?”
“There’s a reason for that. These work sites can be highly toxic. Breathing the sand alone, or silica dust, can be deadly to the lungs. Throw in a toxic dust cloud that he was exposed to for two years, and you have the recipe for some serious health problems.”
I take a deep breath, and Kalin rubs his hand over his jaw and lifts his eyes back to Larry. “Like what?”
“Like silicosis, scarring of the lungs, and lung cancer.”
“No.” Kalin’s shoulders drop and his face loses some color.
“Dale was diagnosed with silicosis and lung cancer. He was insured, but it just wasn’t enough to cover the enormous medical expenses. He still had to pay out of pocket. Not only that, but there was no hope for him outside of experimental drug treatments. His insurance company refused to pay for them. He was in the hole hundreds of thousands of dollars for medical treatment. He was desperate, and he was dying.
“Desperate men do desperate things,” Larry continues in a drab tone. “Brian McMillan is a manager at ProEast Energy and gets wind of this while you’re in Europe. He offers to pay hire Dale and pay all medical expenses, including for experimental drugs. It was part of the employment contract when Dale was hired at ProEast Energy.”
“How generous of them. And convenient.” Kalin presses his lips together and glances down. “Please continue.”
“Shortly after this, they get a call from Jeff Corman, who is already on the board at TALVIS. He wants to bring both Brian and Dale over to TALVIS in your absence while you are still grieving over your fiancée’s death.”
Larry peers up from his notes and locks his gaze on Kalin. “Let’s just say the employment contract is rather…um…generous.”
Kalin strokes his chin with his fingers. “How generous?”
“Part of Dale’s employment contract, which I received from both companies, was to pay for his medical costs. That amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars. It was worth many times his salary alone. In addition, it covered experimental drugs, which seemed to have been somewhat effective. It also included a one percent stake in the company.”
“One percent? Jesus. Dare I ask what the other part of the deal was?” Kalin asks.
“Let’s just say I don’t think they would put that part in writing,” Larry mutters.
“Why didn’t they just hire him at TALVIS directly if this is what they were up to all along, instead of hiring him at ProEast Energy first?”
“To cover their tracks. They wanted him to have a few months of management experience. He does have a business degree, and all three of them came from ProEast Energy Corp, so it looks ordinary. Jeff knew Brian there for many years, and hired him with a five percent stake.”
“He mentioned that at the restaurant,” Kalin recalls.
“Brian probably failed to mention that he hired Dale as a senior manager at TALVIS with a one percent stake in the company.”
Kalin stares ahead with an expression of disbelief.
“You think the unspoken part of this agreement was to hire Dale to kill Kalin?” I glare.
“Why else would they give a college grad with virtually no experience except for driving a truck a one percent stake in the company, not to mention all the paid medical expenses that bought him some time? The other half of the deal remained unwritten.” Larry folds his hands over his notes. “I think we can safely assume what the rest of the agreement was.”
“Yeah, to get me out of the way and buy out my interest. Son of a bitch,” Kalin fumes.
Chapter Nineteen
I walk into the office the next morning and retrieve Dale’s records. The last two companies he worked for were ProEast Energy and Troy Industries. His only management experience was a few months under the tutelage of Brian McMillan at ProEast Energy before being hired here with Jeff.
I am startled from my thoughts by a knock on the frame of my open door. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything. I could come back,” Madison says with a bright smile.
“Oh, hi Madison. No, I’m just getting updated on what’s going on.”
“Orange? Isn’t that an HR file?”
“Yeah. Kalin asked me to check up on a few of the changes taking place in the company since he left.”
“As soon as you’re done, we can get started on our secret plan.” She bunches her shoulders and claps with a wide grin.
I shake my head and grin. Her excitement is infectious. “Secret plan?”
“Getting our biggest clients back.” Her smile disappears into a concerned expression. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. You know, it’s just all this stuff with Kalin, and trying to sort it all out.”
“You can’t think about that stuff all day, Annabelle. It will drive you nuts.”
“You’re probably right.”
“C’mon, let’s go over the results for Kalin, and then we can talk over lunch.”
“Sure. I have to meet Kalin at the hospital with his lawyer. Legal stuff.” I grimace. “Then I can meet you for lunch.”
“No wonder you’re preoccupied. Anything you want to talk about?”
“Not right now. Maybe later. Let’s get this project done.” I put on my bravest smile.
“Yeah. Okay. It’s not pretty. We’ve turned into our own worst enemy. We lost that personal touch with our best clients.”
Why should they care? The board planned on plundering or selling the company anyway, and
making off with the profits.
“It’s hard to restore trust once it’s been lost.” I frown.
“That’s why we can unveil our secret weapon. Come on, I want to show you what I’ve planned.”
I slip Dale’s folder in my top drawer and walk with Madison to her office. I pull up a chair next to her at her computer, and we review the survey results that Kalin instructed us to gather from our largest former clients to find out why they left TALVIS Advertising.
“By a long shot, the biggest reason clients left was loss of trust. Worse, loss of trust is the biggest problem to have with clients…unless,” she points her index finger up while staring at the screen, “unless you plan on undergoing major changes in management.” She turns to me and smiles with excitement. “We can just blame the new management, and tell them Kalin’s coming back to clean the mess up,” she grins. “The new TALVIS will become the one they’ve always known.”
“Do you think that’s all it will take?”
“Kalin’s reputation is known all over the industry. That’s all it’s going to take. That, and a little cleanup from this news story they’ve been running.” She clicks on a web site to bring up the article about Kalin’s accident. Reckless Driving May Have Been Factor in Davis Accident.
A weight drops from my chest to my stomach every time I see the article. “You know, it’s very convenient that this article, based on nothing, is getting so much air time even as they try to get rid of Kalin on the board.”
Madison turns toward me with a wrinkled brow. “You think they are doing this on purpose?”
“I think it’s Plan B. He wasn’t even charged with anything, but it doesn’t matter. Just put it in the paper and it sticks.” I flail my hand at the monitor in annoyance.
“I wouldn’t worry about them. I’m surprised they did that to someone like Kalin. He can destroy them,” she says with wide eyes fixed on me. “Kalin knows how to use the media.”
“You mean for profits.”
She smiles at me. “Kalin’s right. You’re a fast learner. And we’re going to have this company in tip-top shape by the time he returns. What did you mean by Plan B?”
“I don’t think whoever did this thought he would live to do something about it,” I glower.
Undeniably His Page 19