Truth and Humility

by J. A. Dennam

  Truth and Humility

  A Novel

  by

  J. A. Dennam

  Copyright © 2012 by J. A. Dennam

  Cover art by Julie Rice

  Cover design by Julie Rice

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I would like to thank my husband, my love, for introducing me to the craft of destruction that is “junking.” This story would never have been born without the experience. Not only are you my jack-of-all-trades, you are a priceless source of information as I attempt to accurately interpret the complex world of man. You. Are. Spartacus.

  To my friend and local librarian, Kathy, for offering her valuable input. It’s a better book because of you!

  And to my editors...I want your job! But, I suck at it. Thank you for making me look good.

  Most importantly, I would like to thank my fans. You are the reason and my justification for feeding this obsessive-compulsion of mine. If you enjoy the book, please don’t hesitate to leave a customer review. In return (and with the help of your email address) I will be happy to gift you with a free copy of one of my other novels.

  Other novels by J. A. Dennam

  FLESH OF ANGELS – FLESH series book 1.

  FLESH OF THE FATHER – FLESH series book 2.

  You can contact J. A. Dennam via email at:

  jadennamauthor@yahoo. n>com

  www.JADennam

  Like J. A. Dennam on Facebook

  Follow J. A. Dennam on Twitter

  This novel is dedicated to my husband, Steve.

  You are more responsible for this book than you know!

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Epilogue

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Prologue

  A slight breeze tickled the grass. The airy waves kept in stride with the young girl who cut through the meadow on her midnight jaunt toward the pond. Such a warm August night was meant to be experienced outdoors, though all children were supposed to be long in bed.

  But as was Danny’s motto since cresting the ripe old age of seven...what her parents didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

  It was the only time of day she could enjoy the outdoors without suffocating in the unbearable heat. And the best part of being alone was that she could get away with only wearing a pair of cut-off shorts and flip-flops, relish in the feel of the occasional breeze on herifys bare chest.

  The moon was high and full, illuminating the pond and everything above it in a mild blue. Her brother’s tree house was coming along nicely, nestled high in a towering black-walnut tree that was impossible to reach from the ground. Some day she would convince him to allow others access by adding steps. But until then, only the two of them – the youngest and most nimble of the family – were capable.

  Naturally spring-fed from the abundant underground cave systems, the small basin of water was kept cool and crystal clear. The flat rock surrounding it was steep, partly jutting over the deep end making it perfect for jumping. Add the plentiful watercress and other exotic plants of the Ozarks, God may as well have painted a private masterpiece...just one of a few on Bennett land.

  The surface was supposed to be disturbed only by naturally moving, soft splashing water. But much to the girl’s dismay, her midnight watering hole was already occupied. It suited her just fine to remain in the shadows, undetected just long enough to find out who else was out of bed when they shouldn’t be.

  A head popped through the surface, waited. Then another head emerged as well.

  “Hey, Austin, I got one!”

  “Let me see.”

  The girl’s breath came up short. Her brother was easy to recognize. His short brown hair matched her own, the voice recognizable. But what in God’s name was Derek doing with that boy again! Catching frogs and skinny-dipping she could relate to. But there were just some people you didn’t do it with. Getting her first look at the Cahill boy, her eyes only noted the black, slicked hair while her ears noted the voice, slightly cracking with change.

  Wasn’t he the same age as her brother? Derek’s voice hadn’t started to change.

  Did rich boys mature faster? Of course they did.

  Angry, she searched the ground for a missile, picked up an acorn and strategically aimed it at the enemy. It sploshed harmlessly into the water, but close enough to warrant attention.

  “Hey!”

  She ducked the boys’ suspicious gazes until all was forgotten, then chose another missile. This time it hit it’s mark and the hollow thunk put a grin on her delicate face.

  “Ow!”

  “What the…”

  This time she knew her brother and that blasted boy were swimming toward the bank, ready to investigate. Her cover was blown, but the shadows still afforded her the advantage long enough to gather their clothes in her arms. Heavily laden with britches, underwear and tennis shoes, she slinked further back under the heavy canopy of sugar maplthef sugares, but shouted a parting farewell. “You got a long walk home in your birthday suit, Cahill boy!”

  Anger laced her brother’s tone as the boys topped the bank. “Danny? Is that you?”

  Her eyes widened at the sight of their nakedness. They were both thin, lanky, pasty white in the moon glow and their twelve-year-old boy parts were swinging as they strode purposefully in her direction. Living with eight brothers, it wasn’t anything she hadn’t seen before. But never had her sight beheld a naked Cahill. It was too much.

  At a stuttering loss for words, she dropped the clothes and ran. Their laughter followed her back through the meadow until the pond and her plans to use it were far behind her.

  Austin watched Derek’s little brother until the boy’s bare moonlit back was no longer visible. Worried, he chewed his full bottom lip. “Is Danny a threat?”

  “Nah. I own the little peckerwood.” The affection in Derek’s voice was not missed as they picked up their scattered clothing and headed back toward the water.

  “It must be nice having so many brothers.”

  Derek didn’t bother correcting his friend. So far, Danny was more boy than girl. “Not always. But the way you talk about your sister, I wouldn’t want to trade places with you.”

  “Man, you have no idea.”

  They hopped onto a section of flat rock and laid down on the cool surface. Enjoying the lukewarm breeze on their water-cooled skin, they lay there, hands under heads, and marveled at the sky. The stars were amazing toward the western horizon. The trees blocked most of them, but the trees were pretty too as the leaves gently turned in the moonlight.

  A deep sigh. “I wish we could hang out without having to sneak aro
und.”

  “In a few years we can do what we want and our parents can’t do anything about it.”

  “That’s true. But you’re my best friend, Austin, and you only come around once a week.” Derek found a loose stone and he launched it into the water without sitting up. “You’re so lucky. If I knew my parents wouldn’t skin my hide, I’d sneak the car out and come visit you in the middle of the night.” He turned his head to grin at Austin who was already grinning at the sky. “I can’t believe you get away with it.”

  “Tom caught me once, but he wouldn’t dare tell my old man.” Austin now turned his onyx eyes on Derek. “I own him, too.”

  Derek laughed and re-sought the moon. “Must be nice being rich. You can get away with a lot.”

  “Your family’s rich, too.”

  “Not the same way. We still have to" ftill ha work for our living and my dad says that’s how it all started. The feud, I mean.”

  “I heard the stories, too. Something about the Cahill side inheriting more of the family fortune than the Bennett side about fifty million years ago.”

  “I was always told the Cahills stole that inheritance because Niles Bennett died first. Nellie Cahill, his second wife, changed the will after he died, leaving all the Bennett money to her own family.”

  “I was always told it was Cahill money to begin with and the Bennetts tried to use their father’s marriage to Nellie to claim half of the money.”

  “And it was fifty million years ago! I just want to tell everyone to get over it already.”

  “Me, too. But I guess so much has happened since then, it’s not about the money anymore. Fires, sabatoge…”

  “Spying, murder…”

  “Theft and kidnapping…” Austin sighed at the stars and ran a hand through his thick wet hair. “Old people sure like to fight.” He then looked at his friend again. “We’re gonna be different, aren’t we Derek?”

  “Yep. We aren’t gonna get sucked into this stupid feud like everyone else. Maybe we should just make a pact never to talk about it.”

  “Or our families. That way we won’t ever fight about rumors and stuff that we hear.”

  “Hey… that’s a good idea, Austin. It ends with us, right?” Derek held his fist out.

  “Right.” Austin bopped it with his own. “Besides, if I didn’t have you to talk to, I’d go crazy. Nobody else understands what I’m going through with this Rena chick. She just won’t leave me alone.”

  “No matter what you do or what you say. I threw snowballs at Betty Shaw to get her to quit following me and her mother told her it was because I liked her. Sheesh!”

  “I guess it didn’t help that you carved her initials into that tree in the schoolyard.”

  “Yeah. I wasn’t thinking.” Derek’s look turned whimsical. “I’d give anything if Brynn were the one chasing me around. There would be no running involved.” Brynn Swanson, with her soft blond hair, knockout smile and cute little dimples. She was already starting to grow boobs. It was her initials he carved into the tree. DB + BS. Brynn was always catching him gazing at her with hearts in his eyes. It was pretty obvious to everyone that he was totally in love with her… everyone except Betty. His look turned sour as he thought about Betty with her flame red hair, freckled face and buckteeth. “Now every time I turn around, I see Betty with her puckered lips pointed at me. Yuck. Like "48 I’d ever kiss that!”

  Their laughter carried into the woods.

  “Girls are nothing but trouble.”

  Chapter 1

  Fourteen years later:

  It had been another busy day for Cahill Demolition. They were sorely understaffed and Austin had just pulled a double shift with a handful of his crew to make up for the loss. While he directed many of the demolition jobs himself, there were too many to handle alone. Austin often called upon hired help to manage the jobs he couldn’t, but the salvage yard was his alone to run. And it was important that particular crew had a good boss, for reasons no one else understood.

  To ease a restless need, he worked hard, as hands-on as any one of his dedicated demolition crew, and triple that of his salvage crew. His mother’s incessant crowing about hard labor had him chewing holes through the side of his mouth. Really, Austin, you have people for that. Well, he didn’t want people for that. If anything good came out of his friendship with Derek Bennett, it was that he learned to appreciate hard work.

  And there was just something satisfying about tearing the shit out of stuff.

  “Here’s the batch I gathered today, boss.” Tom Barthaw, with thirty-two years under his belt, was Cahill Corporation’s oldest foreman. The man made an appearance in Austin’s office just long enough to hand him a small stack of applications. And since the couch beckoned, he lowered himself to it just for the opportunity to bend joints, work the stiffness from arthritic knees. They were bothering him more and more lately. “There’s one or two applicants in there I wouldn’t mind interviewing. Gonna need someone soon with the Minerva demolition coming up.”

  The dog food giant, Minerva Corporation, was suddenly antsy to clear out an old riverside plant that had been abandoned for almost twenty years.

  Austin leafed through the documents, loosely scanning each one until his eyes caught sight of something interesting. “Dan Connor. Good experience. Did you meet him?”

  “Naw, got that one from Sue. She said it was waiting on her desk when she got back from lunch.”

  There was something about it that bothered him. Austin narrowed his eyes as he re-read what the applicant listed for experience. Eighteen years with Wreck-It Salvage, three years supervisory position. He flipped the paper to re-check the birth date. “This can’t be right,” he said, sitting back, office chair squeaking under the pressure. “That would tmean this guy started work when he was three.”

  “Must be an error.”

  “Never heard of ‘Wreck-It Salvage’, either. Why don’t you call them and find out what Dan Connor’s story is.”

  Tom sniffed and dug a kerchief out of his pocket, ran it under his nose a few times. For a man in his fifties, he looked and felt timeworn. Weathered. His hair had gone gray long ago, the lines of his face deepened from sun exposure and stress, and he spoke with a smoker’s rasp. “I was going to, but there isn’t a phone number on the app. Couldn’t find it in the phone book, either. Must be from out of town.”

  But that’s not what the application said. Whoever Dan Connor was, Austin deduced with a mental shrug, he wasn’t very good at lying.

  Something niggled at the back of his mind. There could be one explanation…but it was a stretch. Still, as he kept reading, there was a voice inside his head that said this applicant very well could have started working at the age of three. As he thought back, a particular memory came to mind.

  Danny? Is that you?

  There was a Bennett named Dan. But what would a Bennett be doing filling out an application for Cahill Demolition? It would spell near suicide for a member of that family to dare step foot on Austin’s work site, under false pretenses or no.

  He dismissed the possibility entirely. Nobody was that stupid. But then something else caught his eye that made him sit up and reconsider.

  “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Austin barked dangerously, a sound that made most men step back.

  “Boss?” Tom noticed the younger man’s nostrils flare, heat rise to his face and he wondered at the cause. “Something wrong?”

  A small fire ignited in the pit of Austin’s stomach as he read the line again. Strengths are leadership skills, knowledge of structural integrity, AWS & ASME certified welder, attention to safety standards, climbing and scaling tall structures… and the rest just blurred as he focused on that last line.

  Derek Bennett was a known climber, his ability to scale structures without taking safety precautions unmatched by most. Austin remembered watching in awe as his teenaged friend took on an old five-story office building that was scheduled for demolition a week later. He’d back up and app
roach it at a dead run, then climb while using momentum to launch from window sill to window sill until he disappeared over the parapet on top. It was like watching an expert mountain climber scale the kiddie wall at Outdoor World. That kid had the lithe physique, long fingers and steel guts that were made for climbing. Not an ounce of body fat on him, just lean muscle and an uncanny resistance to gravity.

  Coup> w Romanld be Derek’s little brother had the same skills.

  With a near snarl, Austin picked up the phone and dialed a number listed as a reference on the application. His mind was made up by the time the tri-tone bleeped in his ear. We’re sorry. The number you have dialed has been disconnected or is no longer in service. All of the numbers were wrong on this application, except for Dan Connor’s cell phone number, he was certain of it. And Austin, without a doubt, knew why.

  “Hire him,” he said, his voice deceptively calm.

  Tom wasn’t fooled. He’d been working for the Cahills way too long not to know the look on Austin’s brooding face. The dark eyebrows were dangerously lowered over those piercing eyes as they nearly burned a hole through the paper in his hands and there was a particular vein that popped in the side of his neck when he was angry.

  Which was way too often since Rena’s death.

  Something about her loss changed the carefree young man he’d known since a child to the dark, unforgiving grown man he was today. And sporting a tall muscular frame and menacing presence, grown he was. But at the youthful age of twenty-six, Austin shouldn’t be as brooding and cynical as he was. And Tom had the feud to thank for that.

  It showed in everything Austin had his hands in. His large office was impeccably tidy, military style if a short description were to come to mind. Light green walls, white trim, not a hint of clutter, scant inbox, and he expected the same from his assistant, Sue. She complied of course, going to great lengths in order to please her boss.

  For Tom, however, one of the perks of working for the Cahills so long was the fact that Austin respected his opinion. It made questioning the younger man’s irrational decisions second nature. “Aren’t you being a bit hasty? I haven’t conducted interviews, yet.”