by A. J. Thomas
“Well, complicated or not, I’d still like to meet him when things calm down,” his mom said with a bright smile.
Nate had every intention of ditching his family as soon as he politely could, but as soon as they’d finished the coffee, he found himself following his parents to Moody Gardens, where they had lunch in the restaurant at the top of the hotel overlooking Galveston. They talked and laughed together just like old times, even without Matthew there. By unspoken agreement, they all avoided mentioning Thanksgiving, but the warmth and ease he felt sitting with them all again almost made up for it.
He was hoping, when his phone vibrated while his parents talked about dessert options, that it was Sean, but he didn’t recognize the number.
“You mind if I take this?” he asked, to a round of shrugs. “Nathan Delany,” he said, answering.
“Delany, Richard Harrison. Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“No, Harrison, what can I do for you?”
“In light of recent events, I wanted to personally reach out and touch base with you. Things have gotten kind of crazy, but I wanted to ask if your client has had a chance to consider our offer?”
“I presented it to him, but it has been an interesting week.” He stared at his bandages. “Plus the holiday and all.”
“Of course. I can’t express how astounded I am, shocked even, by Lancaster’s behavior. As we both know, there was more between Lancaster and your client than just what’s come up in this case, and I can assure you that no one at Confederated knows what the hell he was thinking. Whatever his motivation, I’m sure it was entirely personal, and he was certainly acting on his own.”
“Was he?” Nate asked, stifling the confused series of questions he almost shouted.
“Absolutely. However, given that his actions could be so easily misconstrued as something done on CPG’s behalf, my client wanted me to increase our offer as a show of good faith.”
“In exchange for a release of liability, I assume?”
“And a nondisclosure agreement from you and your client both. I’m willing, given the way this circus has exploded, to jump right to the highest amount I’ve been authorized to offer—twenty-five, with consideration for you as well.”
“Because if we settle, the case ceases to exist, and federal witness-tampering charges become moot. If there’s no case, and no victim, then there’s nothing to tamper with. And that means no criminal culpability for you or your client. Are you seriously convinced you can buy your way out of this for less than half of the amount we demanded in the complaint?”
“No jury is going to award Wilkinson the full amount you demanded. It’s outrageous.”
“It’s the actual amount of damages. And don’t you dare tell me the damages for pain and suffering are excessive, because it took eight minutes for that cable to saw through him. Eight minutes of being ripped apart. I don’t need to bring up the events of the last week in court. The events from the day of the accident are sufficient to support his claim. I promise you I am more than willing to read the trauma surgeon’s report of his initial injuries to a jury. Slowly, so every single detail can sink in. When you’re prepared to offer forty, you know how to get in touch.”
“Look, you know how this works. I can go back to CPG’s in-house counsel, and I can give them your counteroffer, but I’m going to tell you straight out that they aren’t going to settle for over seventy percent of your reported damages. Anything higher than that, and their cost-benefit analysis shifts and makes the risk of going to trial worthwhile.”
“I know that my client is genuinely angry. He doesn’t care about the risks and benefits—he wants his day in court. But if you get me a formal offer for seventy percent without waiving his right to patent his pump system, I’ll….” Seventy percent was thirty-five million dollars. It was several times over what Sean had initially authorized him to accept, but after last night it felt like selling out. He caught his dad’s gaze from across the table.
“His best interests,” Emmitt said.
“I’ll recommend he accept.”
“You know I can’t do that. If he will sign the waiver, I can get you seventy percent.”
Nate almost cursed, wishing they’d just let the damn patent issue go. “I’ll present any offer to him, but there is no amount of money that’s going to convince him to give CPG his design. If the only way my client can recover for his injury without losing his right to patent his own invention is by going to trial, he’s committed to doing it.”
“Present him our offer. Let him get a good idea of the amount of money that’s on the table. It’s damn near what he’d make licensing the right to use that damn invention as it is.”
“He’s well aware that this isn’t an either-or deal unless he agrees, and he’s not inclined to. But I’ll see what he says.”
“Should be in your inbox shortly. Let me know?”
“Yeah. I’ll get back to you by Monday.”
When he set the phone down, he stared at his father. “Thirty-seven.”
Emmitt pursed his lips. “But the waiver’s still included?”
“And there’s…,” Nate said.
Steven was staring at him, mouth agape. “Is that for real? I mean, you were talking about thousands of dollars, right?”
“It’s really not something I can discuss with anyone but Dad. Either way, something’s wrong. He just came right out and implicated Sean’s boss in last night’s assault, like he’d already been arrested, tried, and found guilty.”
“Have you checked in with the police yet today?” his dad asked.
“You woke me up. When would I have had time to talk to the police? I’ll do it now, after I call Sean. I….” He looked around the table, wishing he could stay. “I’m sorry, I need to go.”
“Forward me the offer, just in case?” Emmitt asked. “I’m more likely to spot anything amiss than you are at the moment.”
“I’ll send you a copy,” Nate agreed. He said goodbye quickly and called Sean on the way to his car.
Sean answered on the third ring. “Now’s not the best time.”
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“I just got off the phone with the cops, who insisted they can come to me if I can’t get my ass to them. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“I think I can shed some light on the subject. How about I pick you up and we go together?”
“Yeah, okay. I wanted to ask about citations and stuff anyway.”
“Citations? Never mind, we can discuss it when I get there.”
After he got off the phone, he clicked the button to unlock his car, glancing around the massive parking lot to find it. It beeped a few spots away. He paused before climbing in and looked up at the Moody Gardens pyramids.
Like so many resorts on the island, Moody Gardens was composed of a dozen tourist attractions and restaurants in addition to the massive hotel at its center. Some, like the swimming pools and waterslide, were normal for hotels in the area, but it did offer a few perks other resorts didn’t. Three giant glass pyramids lined the edge of the property, and each housed something different, including a museum with rotating exhibits, a rainforest aviary, and an aquarium.
There was no chance they could finish up at the police station and get back to Galveston before the aquarium closed, but he couldn’t imagine a better way to spend his tomorrow than watching Sean obsessively draw everything in the place.
BRUCE LANCASTER had been arrested, and in a tiny interview room with Nate and Sean, the detective in charge of his case looked like she wanted to pull her hair out. “He was the last person to check out the SUV involved in the hit-and-run. The knife found among his belongings has traces of human blood on it. We’ll proceed if the DNA on the knife matches Mr. Delany’s, regardless of whether or not you want to cooperate. The only alibi he was able to offer didn’t corroborate his story. So… what the hell?”
“It wasn’t Bruce Lancaster,” Sean said again.
“How can you
be sure?”
“Because Bruce is stronger than whoever attacked me last night. Bigger, too. Bruce could have lifted me up easily, and whoever tried to strangle me couldn’t manage it. I didn’t really think about it until this morning, but there’s no way that guy was Bruce.”
The detective looked at Nate as if silently begging him to talk some sense into his wayward client.
“Sean, is it possible you’re letting sentiment cloud your judgment and your memory of the attack? Or that Bruce might have gotten out of shape?” Nate asked, then winced at how that sounded. Talking Sean into agreeing to testify against Bruce by questioning his credibility in front of the police might have been the stupidest thing he’d done all day. The glare the detective shot him said as much.
“No,” Sean insisted. “I’m not being sentimental. The guy who attacked me only managed to hold me off the ground for a few seconds before he dropped me. Bruce is physically stronger than that. And he wouldn’t do it—but those CPG bastards wouldn’t hesitate to try to frame him for it. This way they can fire him without all the shit he did becoming public. The settlement offer is meant to make sure I don’t talk about it, and the assault has to be a setup to discredit him.”
“Are you suggesting that Confederated Petroleum and Gas is conspiring to frame Bruce Lancaster?”
“Yes!”
Nate leaned back in his chair and sighed. Sean had latched on to his own conspiracy theory so hard that nothing he could say was going to sway him. It was almost sad, how badly Sean wanted Bruce to be innocent. It was also a stark reminder that while he and Sean had had a bit of fun over the last couple of days, Sean had been in love with Bruce for a long time. There had never been any kind of official end to whatever they had—there’d been no closure of any kind.
That didn’t make Sean’s unquestioning devotion to his ex any easier to stomach.
“I’ll testify against him,” Nate said, steeling himself to face Sean’s reaction. Sean didn’t explode beside him, but instead he froze. As he had the night of Nate’s first tattoo session, he became so still and cold it was almost painful.
“I’ve got a copy of your statement here, and the investigative citation, and the petition to prosecute. Sign in the highlighted spots, and someone from the District Attorney’s office will be in touch about how the case will proceed.”
Nate scrawled his signature as best he could with his left hand.
“Thank you, Mr. Delany, I appreciate this. Mr. Wilkinson, if there’s no way I can convince you, then I’m sorry for wasting your time. Can you two find your way out on your own?” The look the detective gave Sean was somewhere between contempt and pity as she left the interview room.
“Sean, I’m sorry,” he said honestly.
Sean didn’t look at him. “You don’t believe me.”
“I believe you’re too emotionally invested in Bruce to accept the truth.”
“You think I’m making this up just to protect him.”
It wasn’t a question any more than Sean’s first statement had been, but Nate answered anyway. “I think you still care about him. I think it hurts to face the reality that he would rather see you dead than be forced out of the closet.”
“I can’t believe you. After everything this last week, you think I still have feelings for him?”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Nate tried. “He was a huge part of your life for a long time. It’s normal to feel defensive when someone questions that. But they wouldn’t have arrested him if they didn’t have enough evidence to prosecute him.”
Sean shook his head. “It’s not that I want to protect him. I don’t. But I don’t want to let CPG get away with this. They’ve already ruined my life—I can’t let them ruin his life too. At least I can talk to him about it and figure out what actually happened.”
“He’s in jail,” Nate pointed out.
“That doesn’t mean I can’t talk to him, just that I’ve got to call ahead and figure out how.”
“Sean, this is crazy. I don’t think CPG is behind any of this. They offered you the money because they’re worried Bruce’s attack will be linked back to them if the press gets ahold of it, or just that it’ll draw more attention to your civil claim and their stock prices will tank because of it.”
“Maybe the press should be talking about it. They investigate shit all the time, they can find out the truth.”
“I’ve got to warn you that if you discuss the case with the media, I’m pretty sure they’ll retract the settlement offer. And if you go to the media without evidence, I can almost guarantee they’ll sue you for defamation.”
“Fine. I’ll find evidence! I guess I should have figured you wouldn’t trust me.”
Nate closed his eyes, trying to detach himself from the emotional upheaval warring inside him so he could deal with the situation. He’d said nearly the same thing to his own father all those months ago when he quit. “Sean, I didn’t—”
“Don’t bother,” Sean cut him off. “Just don’t bother.” He pushed himself up from the table, grabbed his cane, and headed for the door.
Nate followed him, grateful that Sean couldn’t actually outpace him.
“What are you doing?”
“Going with you. I work for you, remember? If you want to look into it, we’ll look into it.”
Chapter 13
SEAN’S KEYS and phone, along with everything else in his pockets, went into a tiny locker along with Nate’s stuff. He wasn’t even allowed to bring in a pen. He eyed the line for the metal detector nervously. Between his cane and his metal leg, he didn’t have any hope of making it through without setting off some kind of alarm.
He fidgeted as he waited, hoping someone else might have a similar issue so he could watch how they dealt with it. The guards by the metal detectors gave specific instructions, occasionally directing people away from the detectors and sweeping handheld wands over their bodies. The group ahead of them had a snugly wrapped baby in a car seat, and the guards even searched the baby and pried the padding and cover off the seat.
He felt Nate’s hand against his waist. “Just be honest, and it’ll be fine.”
“Easy for you to say,” Sean grumbled.
“Step on through,” the guard said, offering him a polite smile and a nod toward the machine.
“I’m going to set this off,” he warned. “I’ve got a metal prosthetic.”
The guard nodded, apparently more comfortable with the idea than Sean himself was. “If you’ll come with me, we can screen you right over here.”
He awkwardly followed the guard into a tiny closet that was open on one side and had a curtain for privacy. “Stand with your arms straight out and your feet apart,” the guard said, turning on the wand in his hand.
The guard swept it over Sean’s body quickly, watching it beep both times it swept over his legs.
“I’ve also got two pins in my right leg.”
He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but a sympathetic grimace wasn’t it. “Ouch. All right, I need to visually check your prosthetic. Would you please raise your pant leg?”
Sean lifted up the left leg of his jeans to the top of the liner. The guard swept the handheld metal detector over the section of denim in his hands, then nodded. “Okay, now I just need to inspect your cane. Do you require a chair?”
“No, I’m okay if I don’t move,” he said, handing it over.
Taking his time, the guard tried to pry off the rubber foot and take apart the handle, then ran his hands over the length of the cane before finally handing it back.
“I guess you’ve probably dealt with this kind of thing before?”
“More than you’d think.” The guard was oddly reassuring.
Nate was waiting for him in the lobby, his expression unreadable, just like it had been all day. Sean still wasn’t sure if he should feel guilty for putting that blank look on his face or angry at Nate for thinking that he’d drag Nate along to see Bruce if he wasn’t over their affair. Last
night he’d realized he would have reacted worse if their roles had been reversed, but he didn’t know how, or if, he could fix things.
The guard opened up a teal metal door and gestured for everyone who had been screened to go through. Inside was a long, narrow room made of white cinder blocks. A series of tables and telephone stations were erected right down the middle of the room, glass and cinder blocks extending from the floor to the ceiling. Two metal stools were bolted to the cement floor in front of each telephone, and short cinder-block partitions provided at least an illusion of privacy.
Men in orange jumpsuits sat behind the glass. There by the third telephone was Bruce. He had dark bags under his eyes and looked like he hadn’t shaved in days, and the glare he leveled at Sean was bitter and angry.
He sat down on the stool, expecting Nate to sit down. Nate stood behind him, a solid frozen wall in a black suit.
Bruce grabbed the phone off the wall and looked meaningfully at the phone next to Sean.
“Hi,” he said. “I know I’m probably the last person you were expecting, but—”
“What the hell happened to your eyes? Are you okay?”
“I was attacked and strangled Thursday night. The cops seem convinced you did it.”
Bruce’s eyes narrowed furiously.
“I know it wasn’t you.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m alive. How about you?”
“No one’s been particularly clear about what I’m being charged with,” Bruce growled. “Julia was supposed to call an attorney, but….” He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “I would never hurt you like that.”
“I told you, I know you weren’t the one who attacked me.”
“It’s nice to know at least one person in my life still has faith in me.”
Sean almost cringed. “Yeah, about that. I know you didn’t attack me Thursday night, but I can’t say the same about the hit-and-run.”
“Hit-and-run? What?”
“A CPG company car plowed into my Jeep… would have crushed me if I’d been in it.” Sean watched the confusion in Bruce’s expression give way to horror. “They say they’ve got evidence, so I wanted to come ask you where you were on Tuesday and Thursday.”