Buried Agendas

by Donnell Ann Bell

  “If I were you, I’d be glad mine were the only ones,” Gray added. “They corroborate your story to the letter. Look at the direction they face . . . away from the body. You claimed you backed into a pair of boots. Your footprints telegraph your movements. You saw the body, you got the hell out.”

  With palpable relief, Brad found himself shaking.

  His cell phone rang. “Since I’m not going to jail for the time being, I assume I can take this call?”

  “Be my guest.”

  Brad pressed the on button. “Jordan.”

  His father greeted him. “Brad.”

  “Dad? Welcome home.”

  “I need you to stop by the house as soon as possible. Have an issue to discuss. It’s important.”

  Brad gazed up at the beam. The deputy was untying the rope that had recently held Murdock’s body. Brad thought of Leo entombed in an unmarked grave. Whoever had resorted to such desperate means had done so twice, and no doubt would act again.

  His mind turned to Diana, and a new trace of sweat beaded his brow. “Can it wait, Dad? I have an urgent problem as well.”

  “Of course it can.” Disappointment laced his father’s voice. “It’ll have to. Call me if you need anything.”

  “Thanks, I will. Glad you made it home safe.” Brad switched off the phone and joined Gray at the barn’s entrance.

  “Do you need me for anything else?”

  “Nope. But with all these murders going on, be sure to keep in touch, and be careful. Where are you heading?”

  “To the plant,” Brad said.

  “What for?” Gray asked.

  “To tell Diana today’s her last day.”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  MID-AFTERNOON, JOHN returned to the barn to finish up the job he’d begun last week, wrestling with serious second thoughts. With the holes dug, John maneuvered the wooden posts into the wet cement, wishing life could be as easily repaired.

  Naturally, when John had called Brad to come home, and he couldn’t break away, John had no choice but to understand.

  During the length of his career, he’d been forced to make tough decisions in which he’d rarely backed down. But this situation was different—never had the recipients of his verdicts been family. John was madder than a banshee at his dad. But Clayton was in no condition to face the wrath Brad would unleash once he learned of his grandfather’s treachery.

  Holding the post in place, John clenched his jaw, pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his brow and neck. Now that he’d had time to think things through, it would fall to John to tell Brad the truth. His stomach knotted at the realization.

  A door slammed, and with a free hand, John shaded his eyes to see Gloria running in his direction.

  “Señor, Señor Jordan,” she yelled breathlessly. “Come quick.”

  John let go of the post, ripped off his gloves and rushed to the young woman. She stumbled and he grasped her shoulders. “What is it?”

  “Your father, señor. Something is wrong. He is in your office. Come quick. I call Señora Reid. She is on her way.”

  Leaving Gloria behind, John ran toward the house. Once inside, he was like a man possessed to get to his dad.

  “Dad? Dad?” John’s screams carried through the house and as he arrived at the open doors to his office, at first he couldn’t understand Gloria’s concern.

  With the help of his cane, his father leaned against the window. From Clayton’s vantage point, he’d apparently been watching John cement the posts.

  But as John approached, he saw the cause for alarm. Spittle ran from Clayton’s mouth and his eyes were glassy and dazed.

  John placed his hand on the old man’s arm, discovering it cold and clammy. “Dad? Can you hear me? Let’s go sit down, what do you say?”

  His father didn’t respond.

  John’s hand moved to Clayton’s wrist. His heartbeat was so faint John could barely locate a pulse.

  “C’mon, Dad. Let’s go sit down,” he said again, and this time for a millisecond, his father’s gaze held light. Then, as if activated by a switch, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed in John’s arms.

  No. Don’t do this to me. John lowered the crumpling mass to the floor. Don’t you dare die and saddle me with this guilt. You deserved everything I said and more.

  Paralyzed by guilt and fear, John barely heard the footsteps that padded into the office.

  Faith gripped his arm. “Let me get to him, John.”

  He heard her request, but immobility seized him. When he merely blinked, she pushed him aside. “Help me straighten him, John.”

  “Gloria,” Faith yelled. “He’s not hearing me. I need you.”

  Immediately, the young woman was beside Faith, shifting Clayton’s body to a workable position.

  “Call 9-1-1, John,” Faith said, then tilted Clayton’s head back and checked his breathing.

  John stood watching, but couldn’t seem to move.

  “John!” Faith snapped. “I need you. Call 9-1-1.”

  Like a robot booted to life, he stumbled to the desk and placed the call. When he returned, his heart was hammering.

  Tirelessly, Faith worked over his father, breathing into his mouth, then pushing down on the center of his chest. Alternately, she performed these movements, never wavering in her quest.

  If she found the task repugnant, she didn’t show it. How ironic. The woman Clayton had held in such low esteem suddenly became his lifeline. A woman he wouldn’t have hesitated to destroy.

  John squeezed his eyes shut.

  “Stay with us, Mr. Jordan,” John heard her say. “You’re tougher than this. Stay with us. Stay with those who love you.”

  What have I done? John’s throat choked with agony.

  Caught between life and death, Clayton’s face turned gray.

  John stepped close and knelt beside his father. “She’s right, Dad. No matter what, I love you. Don’t leave things unsettled between us.”

  Seemingly oblivious to John’s ramblings, Faith continued CPR. The woman he’d long admired pressed her mouth to Clayton’s again, then switched to his torso to pump.

  His father’s chest began a rise and fall, and, briefly, he opened his eyes to focus on Faith.

  “Think of your family,” she said, coaxing him with the will to live.

  If Clayton understood what was happening, John never knew. His father closed his eyes.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  DIANA STIFLED A moan. She was coming to. The throbbing in her head told her so. From the bottom of her chin to the top of her cranium, she hurt. And the rest of her wasn’t much better off.

  I’m thirsty. Cold. Where am I?

  She wanted to open her eyes, but she didn’t dare. Footsteps shuffled around her. Better to keep her eyes shut and learn something. Heck, better to keep her eyes closed and stay alive.

  Struggling to separate reality from the fog in her brain, Diana lay quietly. But the urge to shift positions had become overwhelming. She couldn’t. Her hands were bound behind her back, her ankles tied together. That realization caused an adrenaline surge and a jumpstart to her heart.

  Panic-stricken, her eyes flew open. The wig lay close by. Beside it, her glasses and cell phone lay shattered. Someone in black stood over her. Allowing her eyes to adjust to the light, Diana blinked several times before focusing on a man’s angry face.

  Buddy. She gasped. Buddy was her jailer?

  Without all his theatrics and the hair dye, he looked almost human. But not fully, she reminded herself. Quite possibly, she was staring up at Leo’s killer.

  From what she could gather, her prison consisted of concrete, from the slab she lay on to the thick walls surrounding her.

  A quick glance over her shoulder earned he
r a view of an immense steel tank, and from its presence and acrid smell, she concluded her environment was some kind of containment vault.

  She cleared her throat. “Where am I?” The question cost her precious hydration, and she licked her lips.

  Suddenly, the cocky boy who’d harassed her at every turn stepped back. “I’m not supposed to talk to you. Vic told me to gag you as soon as you woke up.”

  “All right, we won’t talk,” she said cautiously. “But I’m thirsty, Buddy. Can I at least have something to drink?”

  His eyes narrowed with indecision. Finally, he relented and crossed the concrete dungeon, returning with a half-empty bottle of water.

  He knelt, helped her to sit upright, and held the container to her lips. Diana drank greedily.

  “This is all there is,” he said. “It’s mine, but it’ll have to do. Walt’ll kill me if I leave you.”

  Walt? Not Vic? “Who’s giving the orders, Buddy?”

  “Shut up,” he growled. “They said you’d try to talk your way out of this. I’d better do as they say.” Buddy picked up a rag, then hesitated. “Why’d you do it?”

  Her mind rebelling against being gagged, Diana lifted her gaze to his. “Why did I do what?”

  “Come on to me. Say you’d go out with me. Why’d you come here in the first place?”

  “I’m a journalist, Buddy. I received a letter from Leonard Winters, the man you killed, stating people were going to die. I came here to help.”

  Buddy’s eyes filled with indignation. “I never killed nobody.” Although he said the words with emphasis, he kept his voice low. Still, their voices carried throughout the empty chamber.

  “Prove it,” Diana said. “Pretend I’m the sheriff. You’ll be talking to him soon anyway. Tell me why I should believe you.”

  Shaking, Buddy stood and walked several feet away. “See this ladder? Yeah, that’s right. We’re underground. Nobody can find us down here.”

  Diana’s heart thudded painfully. Metal rungs extended from the floor to the ceiling, connecting to a trap door-type opening. As far as she could tell, the exit appeared to be the only way out of this ghastly chamber.

  “The night it rained,” Buddy explained, “Vic tells me to go get Leo. So I do. I bring him here.” Motioning behind her, Buddy added, “That tank behind you, it’s empty, and except for an occasional inspection, no one comes down here.”

  An empty tank, thank heavens. Diana shook with relief. She’d envisioned horrible chemicals leaking from the vat into her lungs. But if Buddy wasn’t wearing a respirator, perhaps the odors were remnants of when the tank was still in operation.

  Buddy continued, “The boss and Leo have a talk. He practically pisses in his pants he’s so freaked. But by the time Vic is through, Leo agrees to leave, and says he’ll keep his mouth shut.”

  Buddy’s version matched Vic’s account in his office precisely.

  “What went wrong?”

  Buddy glared at her, but after a moment, he continued to speak. “Walt Bingham shows up. In the last two weeks, the dude’s gone haywire. He threatens Leo again. I try to explain that Leo’s agreed not to talk, but Walt won’t listen. He goes crazy and slams Leo up against the tank.”

  Diana fought back the image as well as angry tears.

  “Walt’s three times Leo’s size, so when Walt looks like he’s gonna hit Leo again, Leo takes off. He climbs the ladder. About three-fourths the way up, he loses his grip.” Buddy lowered his head. He released a shuddering breath and his chest heaved. “I was standing too far away to grab him. He fell.”

  With a sweep of his black boot over the concrete floor, Buddy motioned to a rust-colored stain. He lifted his gaze to Diana. Anguish covered his face. “Like I said, I never killed nobody.”

  All at once, her jailer looked very young. “How old are you, Buddy?”

  His voice cracked. “Nineteen.”

  “You’re not a murderer. I’ll help you. But you have to help me. If you’ll contact the sheriff or get to Brad Jordan—”

  Desperation framed Buddy’s face and he staggered toward her. With her hands and feet restrained, and uncertain what he meant to do, Diana shied away from him.

  “Candy . . . I mean, whatever your name is . . . you don’t know the whole story. I helped get rid of the body, but today—”

  The hatch door swung open, and someone descended. Moments later, Michael Montoya stood in their midst. Taking in the scene, his eyes narrowed. “Get away from her, Buddy. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “I haven’t touched her,” Buddy said. “I was about to gag her.”

  Michael advanced on the younger man, grabbed the rag from his grasp and jabbed Buddy in the chest. “What’d you do to Allen?”

  Allen? Fear coursed through Diana’s body.

  “Walt happened. Allen wanted to go to the cops.” Buddy shoved Michael away. “Get off of me.”

  The Hispanic man’s dark eyes flared. Judging from his tight-lipped countenance, and the scene she’d witnessed in Vic’s office, he hated this predicament as much as Buddy or she did.

  With the bonds biting into her wrists, Diana found the idea of being gagged even less appealing. Unsure how far she could goad these two, nevertheless, she had to try. “You both are smart men. How did anyone ever rope you into this?”

  Buddy opened his mouth to speak, but Michael fired a warning glance at the mailroom employee. Then to Diana, Michael spat, “Shut up.”

  She had nothing to lose. “Why should I? From everything I’ve seen, your bosses plan to kill me. What I don’t think you understand is that you’re next.” She scoffed. “They can’t afford to keep you alive knowing what you know. Even if you don’t believe I know what I’m talking about, at least tell me why I’m going to die. What’s PR50?”

  From the looks on their faces, she’d planted a sliver of doubt. But was it enough?

  Michael glanced at Buddy and toward the hatch cover.

  Then focusing on Diana, Michael said, “PR50 is nothing more than a test name. It started out as one of Leo’s innocuous products until Neil took him off the project and gave it to Allen. But along with the assignment, Neil handed Allen a ton of pressure.

  “I think overwork and stress contributed to Allen’s error. He made PR50 work, all right. He also created a substance banned by the EPA.”

  “So it was a mistake,” Diana said. “Why not admit it and move on?”

  Michael twisted his mouth into a smirk. He shook his head. “You make it sound easy. Because of PR50’s toxicity levels, no hazmat disposal site would touch it.”

  “What is PR50?”

  “Nasty shit,” Buddy said.

  Michael rolled his eyes. “Its molecular compound is made up of chlorine, hydrogen, and carbon. It was marketed under several trade names before it was banned years ago. People used it to kill ants and termites, and, man, did it work. Trouble was, the product killed people, too, maybe not as fast, but with long-term effects like leukemia, cancer, and other respiratory junk.” Michael shrugged. “The list goes on. Maybe Buddy had it right the first time. It’s nasty shit.”

  Bile rose in Diana’s throat. “And you’ve been dumping this menace?”

  “People have dumped forever,” Michael argued. “Even though we caught the problem during the first batch, the damage was done.” He ground his teeth together. “The government gave us no choice. We had no disposal site. You ever deal with a bureaucracy, lady? There’s no room for error. For twenty measly drums, be prepared to be fined in the millions, and get ready for someone to go to prison.”

  Her head reeling from the information, Diana asked, “Where’d you take it?”

  “Hundreds of miles from the nearest town,” Michael said, making the statement like the location qualified him for a medal.

  �
�Right now,” she countered. “But what happens in the future when an area’s developed? And what if it seeps into the groundwater?”

  Michael shifted uncomfortably and averted his gaze. “There’s nothing out there but desert.”

  “What about Neil Jordan? How much does he know about this?”

  “He knew about Allen’s mistake,” Michael said. “But Neil deals mostly with the stockholders and the board of directors. He leaves the day-to-day operations to Vic. Vic convinced Neil that he’d found a site that would dispose of the problem, and asked for a five million dollar budget to take care of it.”

  Frowning, Diana said, “But you said no disposal site would . . .”

  Michael lowered his head. Buddy stuffed his hands in his pockets.

  “Oh.” Her jaw dropped. Of course. The scenario made sense now. Vic had mentioned a bonus. With a five million dollar budget, and no actual disposal site, the people involved stood to make a hefty profit.

  “And the Mexican nationals?” Diana asked. “Why involve them?”

  “They work fast, cheap, and don’t leave a paper trail. They were happy to do it, and no one got hurt.”

  Considering Liz’s patient, and the others Brad claimed Liz mentioned, Diana wanted to point out otherwise. Yet neither seemed ready for an ethics or morality lecture, and time was running out. They’d answered her questions because they didn’t expect her to live much longer.

  Part of what Buddy and Michael had done was out of greed. The good news was, they weren’t entirely rotten.

  Buddy hadn’t wanted Leo to die. And Michael? He’d divorced his wife to keep her safe. Could Diana play on these elements to gain her freedom?

  Michael glanced at his watch and held up the gag as he approached. “Sorry, Ms. Reid, you seem like a good person. I wish things could have been different.”

  Diana’s eyes went wide. Breathless, she scooted away from him to make one last effort. “Please, don’t let them drag you down any further. You do this, Carmen will never forgive you. Never, Michael. Think of your wife.”

  Easily overpowering Diana in her bound state, Michael stuffed the gag into her mouth. “I am thinking of her. She’s all I think about.”