“You have a better plan?” Click asks hopefully as he tries breaking the mounting tension between Jonah and me.
“I do. I have contacts in New York who will jump on this if your information is credible. There are agencies who deal specifically with different types of ethical and environmental infringements. If you tell me what information you have I’ll find the right person to help you.”
“And my family?”
“They’ll likely need to be protected while the process moves forward. Maybe even long term.” I avert my eyes while explaining this. No one wants to think about living that way for an extended period of time, but it’s reality.
“No, I’m not going to do that to them. I’m not going to have them move or change their names because of something I’ve started.”
“Unfortunately the need for that already exists. Every minute you don’t make these decisions, the more dangerous this becomes. The longer you hold this information, the more desperate the company will get.” I hate to be the one to break this news but someone has to.
“And where do I draw the line? Who in my family is safe and who isn’t? Bianca’s sisters and their kids—are they safe? Her parents?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I don’t know to what length your company will go to resolve this and keep the information from being leaked. I don’t know enough right now. You need to tell me. Are we talking about lawsuits they’ll pay their way out of? Are we talking about environmental penalties that will crush their bottom line and put them out of business?”
“I’m not telling you. I don’t even know you.”
“You know me,” Click says, stepping forward with a frustrated tone. “You’ve known me forever and you know you can trust me. We’ve always trusted each other.”
“So by proxy I’m just supposed to trust your girlfriend?”
“No, but you can trust my fiancée, the woman I’m going to marry. You can trust her, because I do.” Click and I haven’t really discussed our relationship status since we left the woods yesterday. I didn’t shout yes from a mountaintop but I didn’t say no either. It’s the first time I hear him call me his fiancée and it catches me off guard.
“And how long have you even known her? You haven’t even been home that long. You run off to do some job somewhere in North Carolina and she comes back with you. That’s not enough for me. You could be blinded by a sexy figure and a great smile.”
In one impressive movement, Click kicks the chair Jonah is sitting in backward so it slams against the desk and tilts back on two legs. “I’m not blinded by anything. I trust Jordan with my life. You’re acting like an idiot right now and my patience is getting thin. So cut the shit and tell us what information you have.”
Jonah slams the chair back down on all four legs and jumps to his feet, nose to nose with Click. “I didn’t ask you for help. You just have to play hero like usual. You never need anyone. You’re always bailing everyone out.”
“I’ve needed you a thousand times, and you’ve always come through,” Click says, shoving him backward and back down into the chair.
Jonah doesn’t make a move to stand again. I’m grateful for that because, while I consider myself a very capable woman, breaking up a fistfight between these two wouldn’t be easy.
“You walk around like you can solve everything, like you don’t ever need help. It’s aggravating as shit,” Jonah mumbles as he hangs his tired head.
“Two days ago I crashed my car, that’s why we look like this,” Clicks says, pointing to his face and then the cut on my head. “It was an accident. A deer ran out from the woods. But you know what? When it was over I didn’t know where I was. I thought I was still deployed. I thought I was back there on the day my Humvee hit an IED, and half my guys were blown up. I thought the enemy was closing in on us and I nearly strangled a man to death. Some poor guy who heard the accident and crossed his property to come make sure we were all right. If Jordan hadn’t snapped me out of it I might have killed him. Every night I go back there. Every night it haunts me. I need help, but you’re right, I haven’t had the balls to ask for it yet.”
“I didn’t know,” Jonah sighs in a mix of anger and empathy. “I didn’t realize you were going through that.”
“I left behind a lot of people there. Some will never come home in one piece. I could use the one guy I’ve always thought of as a brother to have my back right now. Let us help you get through this so you can be around when I need you.”
Jonah spins the top off another small bottle of alcohol and takes it all into his mouth in one swig. He swallows it down with a pained look on his face.
“I want to keep Bianca and the girls safe,” he says, tipping his head back and staring up at the ceiling.
“Then Jordan and I are your best chance.”
Chapter Fifteen
Jordan
“I need to know everything to connect you with the right people. Are we talking environmental, ethical, or personnel infractions?” I ask, sitting on the edge of the bed next to Click and waiting for Jonah to answer.
“All of the above,” a now somewhat sober Jonah says as he takes a swig of hot coffee. Once Click and I convinced him to stop drinking and eat some decent food, the conversation became more productive. “And it’s not just limited to Safron, Inc. There are six major distributors of tobacco in the south. I’ve been able to find incriminating evidence on four of them. I’d imagine the other two are involved but have done a better job of covering their tracks.”
“So give me some examples and tell me how you came across the evidence,” I say as I pull out a notebook and start jotting things down.
“I’ve worked for them since I was eighteen years old. The company was well established even back then but they still had a good ol’ boys atmosphere and some of the head guys took me under their wings. I moved up the ladder pretty quickly for a kid who didn’t go to college. Last year I was promoted to Director of Public Relations. I was reluctant, considering I was in sales my entire career, and didn’t particularly want to be the face of the company or deal with any of those issues. But the money they offered was persuasive. We were doing alright financially with Bianca giving dance lessons part time, but we weren’t putting away as much money as we should have been. I just wanted my kids to have a chance to have more than I had. I wanted Bianca to have the job she loved, even though it didn’t bring in much money, without having to feel bad.”
He drops his heavy head into his hand and groans in frustration. I know he’s thinking, as I am, how far from that Bianca is right now. “It wasn’t long before I realized the job was an empty token position; I literally didn’t do anything for the first month. When I approached the vice president of the company he told me I’d be plenty busy in the near future and to just keep showing up for work. Then one day I was so bored I started digging around and found dozens of documents with my signature on them. Things I’d never signed. Things I’d never even seen.”
“They were setting you up to be the scapegoat?” I ask, feeling a small pang of guilt for having done this to people in my own cutthroat past. Not to the extent of forging anyone’s name but just setting up the pins and letting the scapegoats knock them down. People walked right into the traps that were set for them.
“Exactly. Those documents were associated with a clinical study regarding the effectiveness of a drug used to help patients stop smoking. They were instructing lobbyists to interfere with the studies and skew the results. Planting fake patients and doctors on our payroll. When I dug deep enough I found there were memos from outside parties who had grown suspicious. They were coming in right around the time I’d been appointed to my new job, though on paper the company had backdated my promotion to make me culpable for these documents. They were setting me up.”
“Why would they choose you for something like this? You’ve been a part of the company for so long,” Click says, clearly wracking his brain to make sense of this.
“I’ve always been a little bit on the o
utside there. I’ve got no higher education and no pedigreed upbringing. I think they’ve always thought of me as a hard worker and an asset but never as one of them,” Jonah explains, trying not to appear bothered.
“Interfering with a clinical trial is serious business, but it’s not a large enough scale to really impact a company the size of Safron, Inc., is it?” Click asks, directing his question at me rather than Jonah.
“It shouldn’t be enough, though it might warrant further investigation, which could result in more infractions found.” I try to put a positive spin on the complicated situation.
“That’s not even the evidence I have,” Jonah says, perking back up as though he finally feels eager to share. “It’s so much deeper than that. Once I knew I was being set up it changed everything for me. I didn’t confront anyone. I dug deeper. I found so many secrets. They’ve interfered, either through lobbyists or directly, with hundreds of clinical studies, ranging from drugs used to help quit smoking to inflating the side effects associated with vapor cigarettes. You know, the ones that don’t use tobacco. They spread those results like propaganda through every outlet they could. In the last six months it impacted the sales of those products by over twenty percent.”
I bite at my lip as I realize who will be the best contact for dealing with this information. I’d been so good at separating my work life from my personal life over the years, but Wes Grimley was one of the few exceptions. We worked together when my company acquired a medical research and development company that had lied in order to sell a product so they could stay in the black. They were on the verge of being exposed when my company swept in with the promise of running damage control then turning a profit. Wes was my contact at the FDA and we worked closely for weeks trying to sort out how to separate the very valuable clean data from the false and misleading data. I, of course, was trying to invest the least amount of my company's money while Wes was trying to scrutinize every detail. That’s his job. It was heavy negotiations and lots of arguing. We were both cut from the same cloth in many ways, though we were fighting for different sides. Ultimately when he asked me out, against my better judgment I said yes. I think I’d confused the chemistry we had at work for something it wasn’t. A knot is tightening in my stomach as I realize he’s likely the best person to contact to help Jonah with this part of the scandal. He’s incredible at his job and well respected in his field.
“Well I have one contact at the FDA Compliance and Regulatory Office. With enough evidence he could blow up the scandal. It could be enough to take down the hierarchy at the company, maybe rattle investors. But it’s not likely to catch everyone involved in that net,” I offer, putting aside my own messy history with Wes and trying to look at the bigger picture.
“There is more, so much more,” Jonah says, taking in another swig of his coffee. “There is environmental stuff too. With the impact to the bottom line from the changes in the industry, every one of our plants has begun to cut corners. Small at first but now it’s out of control. They’re dumping waste products, and there is extreme runoff from at least two of the plants that have destroyed a large area and contaminated drinking water for two counties. They’re paying off the officials in charge to keep it quiet. No one has caught on to the statistics yet, but it’s impacting the health of many of the people who live in those areas.”
“That’s big,” I agree. Jonah’s energy is feeding my resolve to help him with this. “I’ve worked very closely with the EPA over the years. We’ve invested in a lot of companies with significant issues that needed to be cleaned up. Nothing as bad as you’re saying, but I have people who’d be very interested in breaking this case open, too.”
“How do you know you can trust these people? What if they can be bought?”
“Trust me, they can’t be.”
“But how do you know?” Jonah stresses.
“Because I was on the team that, in one way or another, tried to buy them. These people never played ball. No matter how much my company tried to strike deals they always stuck to their ethics. They’re straight shooters and dedicated to their job.” I consider casually stating that I’d dated someone who could assist. Guilt is threatening to swallow me up, as I omit this information.
“Wait, so you used to be like the people at Safron? Trying to play the system and hurt people?” Jonah asks, and I can feel Click leaning in, ready to come to my defense. I cut in before it becomes necessary.
“I was responsible for making my company money and protecting them from scandals. I never sent any thugs after anyone, I never paid someone to overlook dangerous drinking water, but I walked that fine line. When I met Click in Clover I saw a glimpse of a small town that could either be crushed or saved. That power was in my hands and it changed me. I’m not proud of my career up until then, but I made the right choice. And the one benefit I have is, along the way, though they were thorns in my side at the time, I met a lot of influential people who were trying to do the right thing. I know they’d be ecstatic to hear from me with this kind of information for a change.”
That might be a bit of a stretch as far as Wes is concerned. After a couple months of dating I stopped returning his calls. I completely blew him off. I’d been assigned to my next project and the sparks between us were truly just limited to the work we were doing together. When the back and forth tug between us no longer had a purpose, things fizzled out. I could have handled it better, but it wasn’t in my nature to deal with other people's feelings very well. I’m hoping now that I’ve evolved he’ll be able to see that and whatever old tension might be between us will take a back seat to this incredible industry-changing information I’ll bring him.
“There is one more thing. The tobacco industry changed dramatically in the nineties when litigation took place and required cigarette packages to carry labels warning of health and addiction risks. Prior to that, these companies had more money than they knew what to do with. When the crackdowns began, Safron fell in line with the rest, or at least they appeared to. They changed their marketing campaigns in order to look as though they weren’t still targeting kids. They paid out every lawsuit and adhered to every tax increase and legal stipulation. But over the last few years, they’ve been pulling the strings and getting officials put in strategic positions in order to regain some of the foothold they’ve lost. They’re desperate.”
“What other types of things have they done? Do you have more evidence?” I ask, scratching things down in my notebook again.
“They’ve begun shifting the formula in their products. Slowly increasing the amount of nicotine and, in turn, making them more addictive. They’ve found a way to get all of this past the FDA.”
“That’s a good way to keep yourself in business. Get more people hooked,” Click says with a grimace.
“Exactly. It’s all regulated, but over time they’ve handpicked and paid off the regulators. It’s been a slow process, and, judging by the information I found, it was painstaking, but it has paid off. They’ve made back the billions they were losing. I have a flash drive with documented internal memos, lists of lobbyists and officials on the payroll. I spent three months gathering every ounce of proof I could while acting like the dope they needed me to be.”
“You did a fantastic job,” I tell Jonah. I miss some of the excitement associated with the work I used to do. While I haven’t spent much time on the admirable side of things, I know I’m good at what I do, and I feel like I could really help.
“Now the real work begins,” Click says clapping his hands together. “Someone needs to convince Bianca and the rest of my family for their own protection they need to leave Sturbridge.”
“Where will they go?”
“Hopefully when the ball gets rolling the federal agencies involved will help provide protection, but in the meantime I have a beach house in Florida they could stay in. No one knows I own the property. I keep it as a little spot I can run away to if needed.” I feel Click’s eyes dart toward me as I explain this.
“I didn’t know that you had that,” Click says, looking a little hurt as though I’ve kept it a secret on purpose. His reaction confirms that telling him about my history with Wes is a bad idea.
“It’ll be big enough for everyone?” Jonah asks; saving me from having to give Click any kind of explanation for why I hadn’t mentioned the property.
“It’ll be tight, but we’re only talking a few days to a week, I hope.”
“Ma will never go for this. She’d rather set her house up like a fort and defend it to the death than leave all her precious stuff there,” Click offers, and I get a lump in my throat thinking about how much Corinne will hate everything I have at the beach house. It will surely not be good enough.
“I can convince your mom if you take a crack at Bianca. She won’t have anything to say to me right now,” Jonah says, looking sad at the thought of his wife and the status of their current relationship.
“Looks like you two have your work cut out,” I laugh and begin planning where I can be when Corinne is told of this plan, because I sure as hell don’t want to be at her house.
“I’m not sure what you think is so funny. You’re coming with us to tell them,” Click asserts and Jonah nods his head in agreement.
“Great,” I grumble as I roll my eyes. “They already hate me.”
“They don’t hate you,” Jonah interjects with some warm empathy in his eyes.
“How do you know? You haven’t been at the disastrous dinners.”
“Trust me, if they hated you, they’d have run you out of Tennessee by now. The fact that you’re still welcomed back at their house is telling. I got kicked out weekly when Bianca and I first started dating.”
“How comforting.”
“Now, after you tell them they have to pack their bags and leave town, they might hate you.” Click laughs as he exchanges a funny look with Jonah.
“If it counts for anything, I hate both of you.” I throw a punch into Click’s shoulder and immediately regret it. It certainly hurt my hand more than it did the rock-hard muscle of his arm. I fall back onto the bed and hold my aching hand and pout. “Jerks!”
Facing Home (The Clover Series Book 4) Page 9