The Proviso
Page 59
“I’d buy HRP from you or something, I don’t know—haven’t thought that far ahead. The only thing is that you’ll have to rebuild OKH from the ground up.”
“Why?”
“For one thing, Kenard and I have managed to sabotage quite a bit of its growth, which we needed to do to drive the stock price down.”
“And for a second thing?”
“Because I’m going to finish the job we’ve started and destroy it.”
Her brow wrinkled. This wasn’t like him. “Why?” she asked slowly.
“Because Fen has destroyed us. The sacrifices we’ve made can never be paid back and he needs to know I’m not kidding. He killed people. If that means I have to tell him I’m going to raze what he built to get some justice, I will.”
Eilis sat back in her chair and looked at him. “OKH is a very successful and well-run company, Fen or not. Why would you destroy something like that?”
“I told you. Justice.”
“What about all those employees who aren’t fluff? Fen doesn’t have an ounce of fat in his organization.”
Sebastian waved his fork. “Collateral damage.”
Something inside Eilis’s soul died just then. “Well,” she said on a breath. “I just don’t know what to say to that.”
“What do you think?”
She looked at the table, at the grain of the wood, at the gloss of the finish while she tried to sort out the nastiness inside her. What could she think? She couldn’t think at all.
“I—” She gestured with her hands because she had no words.
“Sorry about your having to reinvent the wheel and all.”
She put down her fork. “Maybe you do need to learn some empathy after all,” she said quietly. His head snapped up just then as she raised her hands to take off the necklace he’d given her and lay it quietly next to her plate.
“Eilis?”
She arose from the table and gathered her things. Somewhere downstairs more of her things littered their—his—Den of Iniquity. Too bad; she’d buy more.
“Eilis, wait. What’d I say?”
“You said ‘collateral damage’ about thousands of people you’d put out of work to spite one man. Cleaning my house was one thing. Laying off Jep Industries employees to save their pensions—understandable. And creating a way for them to get their jobs back was genius. Razing an entire working organization with thousands of employees for vengeance on one person is—” She searched for the word. “Vile. Immoral. Evil. I don’t know. Pick one.”
“Eilis, no, wait. I didn’t really mean it like that. It’s just, that’s the only way I’ve ever thought about it. Maybe I just didn’t think far enough ahead, maybe I just stuck my foot in my mouth; I don’t know. I’ve never put people out of work for nothing.”
“OKH is a whole different animal to you, Sebastian,” she said, on the verge of tears and unable to look at him. “It’s a thing; property. It’s not a living entity like every other company you’ve ever salvaged. You’re a doctor; doctors don’t kill patients they don’t like. I hate Fen more than you ever will and I wouldn’t do that just to spite Fen.”
“No, Eilis, please. I wouldn’t really!”
“No, Sebastian. It’s too late. That you even thought about putting all those people out of jobs just— I’m— I’m appalled.”
She opened the front door.
“Eilis, please! I didn’t think about it. I just wanted to destroy Fen. It’s the only thing I’ve thought about for the last seven years whenever I’ve thought about OKH.”
“That’s little better,” she said softly, having stopped to stand in the threshold.
“Eilis!”
She could hear the desperation in his voice but she didn’t know which he was lying about: putting all those people out of work or not, just to get on her good side again.
“I’m not talking about this any more, Sebastian,” she said. “I never would have guessed that the Sebastian Taight I’ve come to know and love, the one who cleaned out my life, would be so heartless as to devastate the lives of so many people.”
“Eilis! It’s not really like that!”
He hopped off the platform to catch her arm, but she pulled away from him and still she couldn’t look at him. Her eyes filled with tears and they dropped on the floor as she thought of what she had endured to save her employees’ jobs and savings. And to think Sebastian would— On a whim—
“You’re lying to me about one or the other. I don’t know which,” she whispered. “You can ‘not really mean’ what you very clearly said or you can really mean it. You can’t do both and I’m not going to stick around to find out whether you’re a liar or a bastard.”
She closed the door behind her and ran down the stairs to her car, her tears nearly blinding her. Before she could get in, she heard the most soul-destroying thing she’d ever heard in her life.
Sebastian roared her name and she could hear it outside the concrete walls of his home. The front door opened and she dropped in her car.
She watched him in the rearview mirror as she pulled away from the curb and he ran after her. She sped up, and he pounded the trunk of her car, but he wasn’t fast enough.
He dropped to his knees in the middle of the street, holding his head as if it were going to explode and howled to the sky.
“EILIS!”
* * * * *
69: BUT I DID NOT SHOOT THE DEPUTY
JULY 2007
justice quietly went about her business as she had the two weeks since her boss had propositioned her, taking calls, making deals. She said nothing about it to anyone, including Richard, but took his advice, setting herself to the task of learning how to be as fine a prosecutor as her colleagues. As each day passed with a string of successfully negotiated deals behind her, she gained confidence and comfort with her job duties and her environment, if not her boss.
As ever, money flowed like water through the office, always fresh, always banded, always in twenties and hundreds. Mr. Hicks must have read the want and need in her face, because he taunted her with a bundle every day until Eric snapped at him to stop.
“She’s made her choice. Respect it. If she changes her mind, I’m sure you’ll be the first to know.”
Richard puzzled her. He had three teenagers, and a sick wife who required chronic and very expensive medication. He needed the money more than anyone else, but he wouldn’t take any. Most days he didn’t seem to notice it, but occasionally she saw his longing. No one teased him with it, though, so for that, Justice was glad.
But he was proud to be in the Chouteau County prosecutor’s office, to work with Knox, to say he had had a hand in Knox’s training. He didn’t seem to hold Knox’s corruption against him, nor did he seem inclined to blow the whistle on him.
Not like it would do any good. As Knox had so succinctly informed her, nothing had ever come of any investigation of the office. He dropped a brown paper bag on Eric’s desk at least once a week no matter who was in the office—deputies, troopers, or attorneys not of the prosecutor’s office.
Knox’s arrogance was mind-boggling.
He hadn’t spoken to her or given her one glance askance since that day in his office, except to request the status of whichever case she had that interested him. It was as if nothing ever happened—
—and she resented the hell out of that.
Her eyes widened and then closed.
Her deepest feelings, her gut instinct, her body’s reaction—couldn’t care less who and what Knox Hilliard was. They wanted him anyway, and at home, in bed, in the small hours of the darkness, she indulged her body and refused to acknowledge it in the morning.
She crossed her arms on her desk and dropped her head on them, near tears. No matter what he said or didn’t say, what he did or didn’t do, he still caught her breath and stopped her heart, made her lower abdomen tingle and caused that wetness between her legs that only happened when—
Stop it. It’s wrong. He’s a bad man.
Justice laid her hand over her heart to hear the comforting crackle of a ragged, faded, soft, and worn piece of paper she had carried close to her heart for months. The gift Giselle Cox had given her. She didn’t have to read it to know what it said.
*
. . . come to it on your own, through hardship and fear
. . . know who you are and what you believe . . . take stock of that every day
. . . walk barefoot through fire on broken glass
. . . stand up to people who frighten you under conditions that terrify you
. . . be honest with yourself about what you really want
. . . be willing to fail
*
That day almost a year ago, the day she’d caught Giselle Cox in the restroom of the Jackson County courthouse. She’d known Giselle was in an awful hurry, but Justice couldn’t wait another second once she’d finally screwed up enough courage to talk to her and ask her for what she wanted.
And Giselle had given it to her, with kindness and grace. The minute she’d left the room, Justice had written it all down, as fast as she could. She knew she hadn’t gotten every word, but she’d done her best.
For the last eight weeks, it had been the only thing she had to hold onto. “I need that,” Justice would whisper to herself like an affirmation. “Whatever she’s got, I need it.” Justice had to take her example of strength and run with it, develop it somehow.
But Justice didn’t have that kind of strength or courage, and not for the first time, felt envy curl through her at what she had that Justice didn’t and still didn’t know how to get. She could gain comfort from Giselle’s soliloquy, but she couldn’t put it into action.
Nor could she put down her memory of what Knox had done to her that day in his office, how breathless, how hot he’d made her, how hot she grew every time she thought about it. She could only hope that either she didn’t telegraph that to the entire Chouteau County jurisprudence system anymore, that everyone was too kind to remark upon it, or that no one noticed or cared. Surely Richard would let her know if she were still doing it . . .
Every day she left the office having lawyered well, she went home and did the manual labor that she’d neglected while going to school and studying. It needed doing and she needed the energy-sapping exertion. Once she’d had all of that she could take, she stayed up late into the night writing articles, answering emails, blogging.
*
darrylm writes:
j whatcha up to these days
JMcKinley writes:
Plugging along at my new job.
tropsicle writes:
share
JMcKinley writes:
You know better than that, trops. I never write about my personal life.
thefaithful writes:
you wrote about law school
*
So she had and now that she didn’t write about her new job, her regulars had gotten suspicious about her well being. She was actually tempted to blog about the Chouteau County prosecutor’s office and Knox—without naming names—but Eric did read her and he’d take it straight to Knox and then . . .
Justice shuddered as a chill overtook her.
*
hamlet writes:
j - name that quote - no googling: You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.
*
That had made her laugh for the first time in days.
She sought her solace in sleep now. She must be able to fall asleep the minute her head hit the pillow, so she worked harder than she ever had trying to wear herself out.
If she didn’t, she’d lie in bed and relive that day in his office over and over again, ashamed that she had felt such pleasure. She’d curl up into a little ball to try to crush the feelings that bloomed in her lower belly, to still her hands—unsuccessfully. What had Knox done to her?
And in those few moments nearly every night when she tossed and turned, resisting temptation, she heard a little voice in her head: He wants you. Take him up on it.
Some nights, the sun couldn’t rise fast enough.
Fingers snapped above her head. “McKinley. Earth to McKinley.” She looked up to see Eric glaring at her. “Get to work and quit gathering wool.”
Justice sighed and made another phone call. She had just hung up when a woman angrily strode into the office like she owned the place, her hair flying out behind her like a flag. She looked neither left nor right and proceeded directly to Knox’s office, shoving the door open so hard it banged back against the wall.
“Knox Hilliard, you’d better make it worth my while, dragging my ass up here to this pigsty of a county today,” she barked. “Do you think I exist to cater to your timetable? And by the way, Bryce is pissed as hell at you about this.”
It was her. Wha—?
Justice, confused, looked around to gauge her coworkers’ reaction. A couple of the residents looked as aghast as she felt, but Eric, Mr. Hicks, and Mr. Davidson sat back in their chairs to watch, amused. They tossed wry comments back and forth, making it clear to Justice that this didn’t happen very often, but when it did, it was a treat indeed.
That it happened at all blew Justice’s mind.
“Good morning to you, too, Giselle,” came Knox’s voice, heavy with sarcasm and what Justice had come to recognize as extreme irritation. “I see Kenard hasn’t managed to put a collar on you yet.”
“As if.”
“Oh, so you’re fair game. Then how about a piece of that fabulous ass up against the wall over there?”
“Pffftt.”
“No? Damn.”
Eric choked on a laugh. Mr. Davidson and Mr. Hicks cackled. Justice’s eyes widened and she thought she’d die.
Older.
“C’mere.”
Knox’s chair scraped rough on the wood floors and footsteps sounded loud as they came toward the door. Like everyone else, Justice watched his door as if it were an especially riveting movie, so she was surprised when she emerged from the office first, followed by Knox, who looked straight at Justice. Then Giselle looked at her, their ice blue eyes eerily similar. Knox waved a hand toward Justice. “There she is. Take her, do whatever.”
Justice’s eyes got wide and she felt her color drain. Mr. Hicks, Mr. Davidson, the residents all stared at her, amusement gone, as shocked as she. What, exactly, was Giselle Cox supposed to do with her?
She watched as the irritation on Giselle’s face melted away and she gave Knox a delighted smile. “How long can I keep her?”
Knox grunted and flipped her two fresh bundles of cash. “One week tops.” He looked down at Giselle’s booted feet, her leathers, then raked his gaze all the way up to her gold hoop earrings. His lip curled and his jaw clenched. “Don’t—” He gestured to her clothing. “Just—don’t. He might like your fetishwear, but— No. Just— No.”
Giselle laughed then and he scowled at her before he whirled back into his office, slamming the door behind him.
“AND NO TATTOOS!” His bellow could have been heard through that thick wood door all the way downstairs.
She looked back at Justice, still laughing and wiping tears from her eyes. “C’mon, Justice. Get your stuff and let’s go.”
She was unable to do anything but what this woman said whether she wanted to or not, whether she now felt deceived or not. She grabbed her purse and briefcase and followed her out of the office, down the hall, and down the stairs. She had trouble keeping up with Giselle, she was so discombobulated and so . . . disillusioned. She didn’t think it possible to be more disillusioned than she already was.
Giselle had been her
constant or, rather, what she imagined Giselle to be had been her constant and that, too, had been taken away from her with one glimpse at Giselle’s obviously intimate relationship with Knox.
Justice stopped suddenly on the stairs when she was confronted by Sheriff Raines, the “pig.” Giselle was so much farther down the stairs than Justice that it must have appeared to him that they weren’t together.
“Well, well, well,” he said, rubbing up against Justice, his—thing—hard and touching her thigh between their clothes. Her heart in her throat, nauseated, she backed up against the wall and she thought she might puke. That wasn’t the way it felt when Knox had done that to her. “Where you goin’ all in a hurry?”
“I—”
“Knox ain’t gonna be happy about you leavin’.”
There was a clack in Justice’s ear, from below her and the sheriff. “I suggest,” said that woman in a terrifying voice Justice had never heard out of her before, “that you get your pathetic excuse of a penis out of her skirt before I blow a hole in your chest.”
Sheriff Raines turned and saw her then, on the stair below him. She was leaning against the wall and pointing that gun at his chest.
“Do you know who I am?” he grated.
“Actually, yes. I know exactly who you are. Do you know who I am?”
“I know you’re begging to get arrested and nothin’ tellin’ what could happen to you in my jail, pretty girl like you.”
Giselle flipped open her cell with one hand while keeping an eye on Raines, punching in two numbers with her thumb. “Yeah. Would you charge me if I shot your sheriff?”
“WHAT?!” The roar, broad, deep, and impatient, louder than his previous bellow, resonated through the halls and, simultaneously, from Giselle’s phone. She flipped it closed and smiled sweetly.