“Something isn’t right. Jack knew the risk of hauling a trailer with a heavy tractor. Any rupture in the gas tank could cause a massive explosion. He wouldn’t speed. He was almost home. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“Accidents like that are tragic. They never make sense.” The sheriff released his grip on the folder, which would never lie flat again.
Nick shook his head in disagreement. “Driving off the side of the cliff?”
“Speed and terrible road conditions—that’s a deadly combination.”
“Sheriff, have you ever given Jack Hunter a speeding ticket? I’ve never seen him speed. He even walks slow.”
Tucker pondered, tilting his head to one side.
“Have you ever even seen him speed?”
The sheriff slammed the folder on a desk. “Young man, let me tell you, I’d take the risk—go down in that canyon myself—if I thought it was anything but an accident. And I promise you this: I’ll get that vehicle out. It’ll take some time, but I’ll get it out. And when I do, I’ll go over every inch of that truck myself. You can count on it.”
“OK, Sheriff, OK. And after you finish, what will happen to it?” Nick leaned close enough to the desk to view the tab on the rumpled folder—hunter fatality. He wished he had a copy of it.
“We’ll send it to the salvage yard.” The sheriff reached for his jacket dangling on a rack.
“Which one?”
Tucker became agitated. “Are you the one callin’ for the wreckage?”
Nick was taken aback. “Someone wants it?”
“They sure do. It’s poor taste for people to call wanting it for scrap metal, when Hunter and his son aren’t even in the ground.” The sheriff opened a desk drawer and pulled out a wallet, his badge pinned on the outside.
“Sheriff, which salvage yard?”
“Matt Berry Scrap Metal.”
“Sheriff, if you don’t find anything wrong with the truck, I’d like to pick it up and bring it to Houston. And I assure you, it won’t be for profit.”
“That’s up to Bea.” The sheriff put on his jacket, dropped his wallet in a side pocket, and checked the time on a dusty clock hanging cockeyed on the wall. “Aren’t you going to the Hunters’ service? It’s about to start.”
Nick’s face tightened. “Isn’t it tomorrow morning? Everyone is driving in tomorrow.”
“No, it’s right now.”
“Stinkin’ Keaton gave us the wrong date!” Nick took off for the door and stopped. “Sheriff, may I follow you?”
“Get your car going, and I’ll come around front.”
Eight minutes later they turned on a one-way street toward the cemetery and lined up behind the last car. The sky was rowdy, but the rain had stopped. The sedan carrying Steely and Beatrice whizzed by.
Chapter Three
Martinez took the spot always saved for the closest kin behind the hearse. He turned off the ignition and opened Steely’s door. Noting Pastor Weldon had stalled by singing hymns, Steely sighed. Then she hurried over to him, under the small tent that covered two caskets and a few chairs, to whisper in his ear. This had to be the shortest service he ever performed.
Weldon understood.
The few gathered respectfully rose to their feet when Bea wobbled out of the car. Pepe had one side, and Steely took the other, making sure Bea remained standing. They practically carried her across the lawn to a front-row seat. Every person was wet from the rain. They were good, caring people.
Weldon condensed the service to ten minutes. He concluded with a prayer while every head bowed. “Father, we ask You to comfort Beatrice and Steely. For we know when we are weak, You are strong. Give this family Your strength today. You alone are their comforter, their healer, the restorer of their souls. We lift them up to You and trust You to take care of them. We ask these things in Jesus’s name. Amen.” As eyes opened, people circled around Bea.
The pastor and his wife accompanied Beatrice Hunter for a last good-bye. In a few minutes, the metal boxes would be forever lowered eight feet below. A backhoe with a warmed-up engine waited in the background ready to replenish the soil.
Bea ran her hand gently across each casket, as if she was touching the remains inside. She lifted a rose from each spray on top, clenching them tightly to her chest. Steely waited to the side. She wasn’t touching the caskets. She’d seen what was inside. If Bea had seen them, she most likely wouldn’t be standing at all.
Steely felt frail, as if half the blood in her body had been drained. It took all the strength she could muster to get her and Bea there today. She turned away. There was no need to see the hole, exposed, when the wind blew the drapes tapered around the coffins.
Steely caught a glimpse of Nick and the sheriff, their heads bent together, listening to Tucker’s radio. Suddenly both men perked up. Tucker jumped in his cruiser and U-turned, throwing up a small tornado of dust. Nick cast his gaze back at her.
He’s family to me.
Nick moved toward her, his steps purposeful, until he touched her arm. “Steely, I’m so sorry…”
Her eyelids slowly closed.
He cupped her face in his hands, as if he was holding her heart.
“Nick.” She huddled in his grasp. He held her securely. Her body trembled.
“You’re freezing.” He took off his coat. “Put this on.” He wrapped her up. They sloshed through the sparsely laid grass for a few yards. She latched onto his arm.
“I don’t understand,” she uttered.
“I don’t have the answer. We may never understand why. But if we could ask any of them if they wanted to come back, they’d say no. If I don’t know anything about what happened, I know that much.”
She agreed and held onto his arm. He placed his hand on top of hers, steering her.
“Miss Bea was against our getting married.”
Nick glared over at Beatrice Hunter, still lingering by the caskets.
“I was told she thought I’d be a terrible wife—you know, because of my circumstance.” Steely felt numb as she repeated her mother-in-law’s unfavorable assessment.
Nick briefly stopped. “You’re the perfect wife.”
Steely almost edged out a grin. They slowly walked on.
“Steely, if there’s anything you need, please call me. I don’t care what it is. Anything. Call me. You know I mean it.”
She did. But she wouldn’t call. Her world could be crumbling beneath her, as it had before. She didn’t call then. If she had, she would have made nonstop calls between the eighth grade and her freshman year in college.
“Did anyone else from the company come?”
His lips pursed, and he silently shook his head.
“Miss Bea said they’re nothing but a bunch of dirty dogs. Are they?”
“Some are.”
“Good thing Mr. Keaton didn’t come. She’d do something she might later regret.”
“I’m about there myself.”
They took a few more steps.
“She said they wouldn’t have the guts to show up.”
“A few had the guts. There was a problem with communication. The newspaper said the service was tomorrow. The sheriff just told me it was today. I came up early to talk to him, or I wouldn’t have known.”
She scrunched her face. “The sheriff?”
“I wanted to get some details on what happened.” He kicked a chunk of mud.
Steely tightened her grip. “Nick, I’ve had my share of peculiar deaths. Something’s not right here. It’s just not right. Do you trust the sheriff?”
He tightened up. “Yes. He’s doing his job.”
“Jack driving off a cliff just doesn’t feel right. This isn’t the first thing that didn’t feel right to me.”
He wiped a tear from her face. “I guarantee you: we’ll find out what really happened.” He refrained from blabbing about what had plagued his mind since the moment he heard Jack drove off a cliff. The truth was he wasn’t sure of anything that’d happened the last t
wo months. The memorial service was not the time to speculate. “How long are you going to stay in Grey Canyon?” he inquired, changing the subject.
Steely’s tone settled. “I’m not sure. I’ll stay with Miss Bea for now.”
They stopped and faced each other.
“I know Mrs. Hunter is hurting badly.” He looked over at Bea and then back to Steely. “She was my mother’s college roommate. For some strange reason, they get along. But you’re hurting too, Steely. You’ve been through a lot. Is staying with Mrs. Hunter the best thing for you?”
“I’m going to get her situated. Then I’ll move back to Houston. She really doesn’t want to live with me anyway.”
“I see. Then I suggest you respect her wishes.”
Martinez caught Steely’s attention. He motioned that Bea was ready to go.
Steely acknowledged him by returning the nod. She unwrapped herself from Nick’s grasp and began to remove his coat.
“No, you keep it.” He placed the coat back onto her shoulders.
She peeked inside, revealing a label. “This is an expensive coat.”
“It’s just a coat. It will keep you warm.”
“Thanks, Nick.” They briefly embraced.
As she left, she glanced back at him on her way to the car. Martinez held the door until she was settled in the back seat. Bea buckled up in the front.
Nick stared at the exiting car, catching a last glimpse of her through the rear window. He stood frozen for a few seconds until she was totally out of sight. Then he jogged to his car, pulled out his cell, and punched in a number. “Pierce better get back fast. We’ve got a mess to untangle.”
Chapter FOur
Nick stared blankly out the window in Pierce Thibodeaux’s twenty-fifth-floor office, watching the attorney fiddle with a glass jar perched on a bookshelf. The last few minutes had grated on him. He had waited for weeks to get the opinion of the chief counsel for Jack Hunter Industries (JHI) on Jack’s departure and the stability of the company. And he wasn’t leaving, even if he had to watch Pierce piddle around all morning.
Pierce would have an iron-clad opinion, although it sometimes conflicted with Nick’s. His South Louisiana upbringing gave him a boldness that resulted in more run-ins with Harry Keaton than Nick. Pierce finally placed the cylinder packed with sand next to a row of books. He pawed the wreath of dust growing around his head.
Pierce poured liquid from an insulated jug. “Coffee?”
“No, thanks. I’ve had all the coffee I can handle today.” Nick pushed a chair closer to the desk and then sat again. He was ready to throw the chair out the window if he could gain Thibodeaux’s attention. “Can we get going here? I feel like I’ve aged waiting on you.”
“I don’t know what to say. I walk in the door and find out Jack not only resigned but died. I feel like I got hit by a cement truck.”
“Pierce, it was worse than that. I was afraid to drink the coffee in the board room.”
Thibodeaux unbuttoned his jacket, rolled out a chair, and sat. His face belied trouble. Clearly, the relaxation he received from the longest vacation of his life had severely diminished.
“I tried to reach you for two months. You’re supposed to be a workaholic.”
“Not anymore.” Pierce poked a pass code on his keyboard, gaining access to the most secure area on the JHI intranet: accounting. He leaned back, distressed, elbows fanned out on the arms of his chair. “I can’t imagine this place without Hunter.”
“The ship has been commandeered by pirates.”
Pierce shook his head and sipped from the cup.
“You should have been here.”
“How was I supposed to know the company was about to crater?”
“You sure didn’t need to vacation right now.”
“That’s what you think. I had to do something drastic. I promised my wife no electronics. Just family time. The entire world could have fallen apart, and we wouldn’t have known.” Thibodeaux added another pass code; an antivirus program began scanning his system.
“Did you need to take a blackout vacation?”
Irritated, Pierce responded, “Nick, when I left, everything was rolling along great.”
“I told you four years ago the LLCs were sketchy.”
“They’re still sketchy. Jack told me to go. And I went. My wife has put up with a lot. After what just happened to Hunter, it’s vacations from now on for me. Only God knows how long any of us have left.” He tapped a few more keys.
“Are you having a midlife crisis or something?”
“Just getting my priorities straight.”
“What happened?”
Pierce’s countenance changed from troubled to ticked. “I came home early one day and saw our neighbor Billy Mick talking to my wife. He got all up in her personal space.”
“He hit on Muffy?”
“His wife works. He’s at home all day baking cookies.” Thibodeaux banged the keys, putting in another code. “That cookie maker better keep his cookies to himself. Nobody’s baking with my wife but me. He tries that again, and Billy will never bake again.”
“So, you can take the baker. Impressive. Now, Pierce, can we focus here?”
Pierce leaned in to his monitor.
“Where are your glasses?”
“I broke them.” He hit a few keys and turned toward Nick. “Go ahead tell me how this went down.”
“Keaton threatened to collapse unless Jack resigned.”
“Couldn’t you stop him till I got back? We can delay anything for ninety days.”
“Stopping Hunter when he’s made up his mind is about as easy as going a year without sinning.”
“Why’d he transfer his shares to Keaton for nothing?”
“Keaton held the company hostage until Jack resigned and gave up his interest.”
“What about your dad? He’s Hunter’s personal attorney. Couldn’t he help?”
Nick flinched. “Pierce, some days he doesn’t remember his name.”
Thibodeaux shook his head. “I’m sorry, man.”
They stared at each for a few seconds until Nick spoke up. “You know, we came within a day of filing chapter seven.”
Pierce smacked the arms of his chair. “That’s garbage! If this company were a bank, it’d have enough reserves to satisfy the FDIC!”
“Not according to my audit.”
Pierce lifted the clipped papers in front of him and thumbed to the last page. “Your audit stinks!”
“Sure it stinks. It’s all red ink.”
“Did you trace the assets?”
Nick lunged over at the jar on the shelf and dug out a fistful of sand.
Pierce flew up. “What are you doing?”
Nick pitched the sand in the air. They watched it vanish into the carpet. “Trace that!”
Pierce sat, agitated. “I hope the blood worms don’t mind you messing with their habitat.”
Nick looked surprisingly back at the jar. “Well, they should feel right at home with the parasites in the executive office.”
Pierce tossed the report across his desk, scattering a few envelopes. “You need to leave my worms alone and figure this out. Keaton could walk away with two, maybe three hundred million, plus Hunter’s interest in JHI. Why is he still here?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re the senior VP of finance. You better get busy, or Beatrice Hunter will never see another dime from this company.”
Nick slung the report back across the desk. “Thousands of transactions are hitting the books every day. I’d have to freeze every account just to catch up. You’re an attorney. File a petition for an injunction and shut down the insanity!”
“For what?”
“I don’t care for what. Just file a stinking lawsuit.” Nick rose and moved around like he wanted to leave, but he didn’t. He stopped behind a chair, angrily hammering the back with a fist. “Isn’t that what attorneys do—file stinking lawsuits?”
Pierce hollered,
“You want an implosion? We’ll ruin the company for sure if I make an accusation against the CEO. You give me something that will get Keaton out. I’ll get him replaced and file the stinkiest suit ever filed!”
“Fine then. I better get back to work. But I’ll tell you. I’ve had it with Keaton giving me the runaround about the flash drives.”
“You still haven’t found the account statements?”
“Nope. Statements from nine years ago until I got here are still missing. Keaton claims Jack had them.”
“You believe him?”
“Not unless Jack lied to me.”
Pierce shook his head.
“Keaton’s stonewalling. I don’t think I even have all the accounts. I’ve been contacting our clients to make sure they’re being invoiced to a legitimate JHI account. It’s the craziest thing. Hundreds of LLCs out there are collecting our revenue in unknown accounts.”
“Order dupes.”
“Don’t think I haven’t tried. Keaton is the only man who has the authorization to get at them.”
“You mean to tell me Nick Dichiara, who went around town playing a teenage superhero, can’t get a few account statements?”
“Oh, I’ll get them. And I’ll get the assets back too. And I better not hear any complaints about my methods from anyone, including you, Mr. Thibodeaux.” Nick took two abrupt steps toward the door.
“Nick, will these statements show a crime was even committed?”
Nick swung back around. “I’ve been told no.”
Being a head lower than Nick didn’t stop Pierce from getting in his face. “I want Keaton too. But you better watch it. If you go after him, he’ll go after you. He could even point the finger at you.”
“Let him.”
“I’m serious, cowboy. Don’t go getting yourself indicted. If we ever get someone to investigate this, they’ll dig into you. They’ll pull every bank record you’ve ever had. They’ll know if you ever took a kid’s milk money.”
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