Chapter 15
“You have already washed that omelet pan three times, Charles. Do you want me to dry it, or are you going to wash it again?” Fergus asked, his voice sounding jittery.
“This is not good, Ferg.”
Fergus sighed. There was no use pretending he didn’t know what Charles was talking about. “You’re right, this is not good. We have to decide whose side we’re on. And we need to decide right now.”
“Is that how you see it, Ferg? As Maggie would say, ‘It’s a no-brainer.’ I don’t fancy seeing myself sleeping in the barn, and I wager you aren’t looking forward to sleeping in Annie’s toolshed.”
Fergus twisted the dishcloth he was holding into a knot. “This is how I see it. Myra and Annie are right to be upset that Avery left them high and dry on this mission. He has never done that before, so they have a right to be upset. Yes, he left capable people in place. We got the information within minutes of his people’s relaying what they found out to him. He might not have been on the mission physically, but nothing went down or awry while he’s been gone. In all fairness, Charles, we need to cut the man some slack here.”
“And you’re right. The boys needed him. Physically needed him. How can we argue with that? We’re one of them. Or we’re supposed to be. The thing is, and you know it as well as I do, you never leave the mission once it gets under way. We were trained that way, and Avery took it upon himself to step outside the box. And even though I did not try to argue him out of it, even gave him permission, he knew full well that he had stepped over a line by not bothering to clear his decision with Annie or Myra. And that, in itself, was a clear indication to the girls that he doesn’t take them seriously. It’s women’s thinking, Ferg. I learned a long time ago never to argue with their brand of logic because I knew I would never win.”
“Will you please rinse the pan, so I can dry it, Charles? This kitchen is not tidy, and I know how much you like, no, insist upon, a tidy kitchen.”
Charles rinsed the omelet pan and handed it over to Fergus, who undid the knot on the towel and dried the pan. “There! How hard was that? Now we can sit down with a cup of coffee and ponder our dilemma.”
Charles listened to the gurgle of the water rushing down the drain and wished that he could go right along with it. He hated times like this, times when he had to make decisions he didn’t want to make. He looked around to see if Fergus was right about the kitchen. It sparkled. With his jaw clenched, he sat down at the old oak table and reached for the cup of coffee Fergus poured for him.
“Have you noticed, Ferg, that this past year, maybe the last year and a half, that the girls seem—I say seem—to be trying to outdo the boys? They no longer call on them for help. They seem bent on proving something. To whom, I don’t know. Themselves would be my guess. That whatever the boys can do, they can do better. It goes without saying, the girls are beyond competitive. This situation we find ourselves in right now just goes to prove it. Do you agree or not?”
“Sadly, yes, I have to agree. But, Charles, let me take that one step further. I believe they are better. We’ve seen what they can do. They have no limits. When they did call in the boys for help, it was always more a matter of expediency than anything else. All they have to do now if they fire Avery is plan a little more carefully. We both know they can do it. The boys just don’t have the fire burning in their bellies that the girls have.”
“Avery is not going to take this well, I can tell you that,” Charles said.
“He’s a big boy, Charles. He had a choice to make, and he made it. On his own, without any consultation with his clients, the ones who were paying the freight. Now he has to live with the decision and the manner in which he implemented it. I have to wonder how the boys will react to the news when they hear it. Oh, and one other thing. I think the two of us need to decide if we’re on shaky ground here or not. By that, I mean with the guys and the sisters.”
“There is that,” Charles said morosely as a vision of him sleeping in the barn on a pile of straw flashed through his mind. He’d be eating wilted apples and carrots and munching on hay. He shivered. “How big is that toolshed where you might be sleeping, Ferg?”
Fergus turned white. “Annie has so much junk in there, I’d have to sleep standing up or on top of the John Deere.” He thought of his and Annie’s pretty bedroom, which was neither feminine nor masculine, and in which he’d been sleeping lo these many years. He loved the thousand-thread-count sheets, the special pillows that didn’t give him a stiff neck, the downy blankets, and the soothing scent of lavender dispersed throughout the room. The toolshed, on the other hand, smelled like manure and motor oil. His stomach rumbled.
“I’m no fool, Charles, and neither are you. Let’s get this over with. Call Avery and tell him just the way it is. We’ll deal with the fallout when it happens.”
“Before I make the call, we need to talk about something else. How are the girls going to get Arthur Forrester out of the condo? I don’t know this for sure, but I think their game plan is to bring him back here to the farm and stash him in the dungeon. Which then brings up the question of when they’re . . . um . . . done playing with him, what are they going to do with him? Until now, they’ve always relied on Avery for the final relocation. How are they going to make him . . . um . . . disappear? Avery has the resources to make that happen. If you’re thinking you and I can do it, think again.”
“Maybe they’ll just leave him in the dungeon to rot?”
“Then he’d smell, Fergus.”
“What do you want from me, Charles? Between the eight of them, and I’m including Maggie, I have to believe they have a plan in mind. We just don’t know what it is, and I, for one, have no intention of asking. You can do whatever you want. Make the damn call, already, Charles. All this chitchat is nothing more than delaying the inevitable.”
Charles reached for his specially encrypted cell phone, compliments of Avery Snowden, which came with a price tag. He punched in the number three on the speed dial and sat back to wait.
“Snowden. Talk to me, Charles, and talk loud because I can’t hear a blasted thing with the way the rain is pounding down here.”
Charles didn’t bother to mince words. He did, however, raise his voice. “The girls called me to call you and tell you you’re fired. You are to immediately recall all of your operatives. And before you can ask the reason, it is because you left the mission. Without their authorizing you to do so. Where are you?”
“Ninety minutes outside Riverville. Are you yanking my chain, mate, or is this for real?”
“It’s for real. So turn around and go back to Delaware. The girls no longer need your services.”
“I understand everything you just said. This is a stupid decision, Charles. All I was doing was babysitting and not adding anything to the operation. The fellas needed me—and that is an understatement. I actually saved the ladies money by leaving. I’m not going to beg here, if that’s what you’re thinking. My people and I have given the ladies a hundred percent on each mission over the years. I’ll stand by that until the sheep wander home. I’ll recall my people and put an end to the mission. No hard feelings, Charles. I know what it took for you to call to deliver the news. I do have a question, though. Do you all have any objection to my telling the boys I’ve been terminated? I like to be as transparent as I can be. As you know, that’s paramount in this business.”
“I don’t think that will be a problem, Avery. I’m sorry I was the one to have to call you.”
“Me too, mate, but someone had to do it, right? I guess I’ll . . . I’ll see you when I see you. It’s been nice working with you, Sir Charles.”
Charles bit down on his lower lip. He threw his hands in the air. “It went better than I thought it would. Still, I feel lower than a snake’s belly, Ferg.”
“I know, but Avery broke his own rule. There have to be consequences when that happens. You, me, Avery, back when we were in the service, we had to follow the rules and orders given us, even when we felt they were wrong. That’s how we were trained. Avery himself drummed that into the girls. While I wasn’t here at the time, you yourself told me about his many pep talks and how essential it was for them to learn how things in this . . . field they entered into operated. It will be interesting to see what the boys do, once Avery tells them. I can’t even guess what their reaction will be. What do you think, Charles? If they need a defense for their decision, it will be that sometimes there are extenuating circumstances that have to be dealt with, and this was one of those times. That’s just my opinion. Ferg, you got one you want to share?”
“I think they’ll keep him on. After all, they’re the reason the girls sacked him. They won’t cast him to the wolves. There is a lot to be said for loyalty. Actually, it’s paramount. I’m with you on that. It might or might not cause a problem with the girls, but knowing how they operate, they’ll put it all behind them and refuse to discuss it. In other words, they’ll get over it.”
Charles nodded sagely. “We still have a lot of files to clean up where Mr. Forrester is concerned. I suggest we go down to the war room and do something constructive. With any luck, we can have things all neat and tidy for the girls when they get back here tomorrow. We’re still dining out, right?”
“That’s my vote,” Fergus said agreeably.
“You go ahead, I’ll take Lady and the pups out for a spell. You know what you have to do. Bind everything in the yellow folders. Be sure to make duplicate copies of everything. By the way, did we ever get any solid information on the brewery Forrester invested in?”
“No.”
“We need to work on that. Although with tonight’s invasion, I imagine the girls will get that information out of him a lot more easily than you and I can do on endless computer searches.”
* * *
As the hours crawled by, Arthur Forrester realized that his anxiety level was reaching a new high. He was starting to feel light-headed, out of sorts. Without stopping to think about it, he went to the closet and pulled out a rain jacket and hat. He looked for an umbrella, but didn’t see one. He made sure he had his wallet and house key in his pocket. A walk in the spring rain might be just what he needed. Yes, he would get soaked to the skin, but when he got back, he could take a hot shower and put on clean clothes. It was one way of eating up the time until five o’clock. He looked at the clock over the doorway in the kitchen. One o’clock. Four more hours to go. He didn’t bother to set the alarm. The alarm was Nala’s thing, not his. He hated the damn thing. For no reason at all, it would go off and he’d have to spend an hour on the phone with the alarm company to reset it. And for that privilege, he paid ninety-nine dollars a month. He made a mental note to terminate the contract now that Nala was gone and wouldn’t be on his case about setting the alarm even when he went downstairs to collect the mail. Nala was a pain in his ass. Always had been, come to think of it. Canceling the alarm service would probably eat up an hour of his time when he returned.
Five minutes into his walk, and Forrester already knew that he had made a big mistake. He was soaked to the skin; his rain jacket, which had seen better days, was simply not fit for the deluge under which he was walking. He squished and sloshed as his sneakers filled with water. The baseball cap did little to shield the raw skin on his face. And this rain wasn’t the warm spring rain he’d expected. This rain was hard-driving and almost cold. He walked on, then turned the corner and started back the way he’d come.
As miserable as he felt, he was relieved to find that the overwhelming anxiety he had been feeling had dissipated. So, as uncomfortable as he was, the decision to walk in the rain had been correct. He shivered and tried to quicken his steps, but his sodden shoes only allowed for a slow pace.
Back at the condo, he started to strip down the minute he walked through the door. He left a trail of water and sodden clothes behind, along with his sneakers, which felt like they weighed ten pounds each. Maybe he’d just dump the whole lot in the trash so he didn’t have to do a whole load of laundry. He had plenty of clothes, and at least six pairs of sneakers.
The clock on the nightstand said he’d used up an hour. Fifteen minutes to shower and get warm again, ten minutes more to dress, another ten minutes to anoint his face, then a half hour with the alarm company, possibly more if they put him on hold to search for his records or try to convince him not to cancel his service.
At least two hours accounted for. Then he could make coffee and a sandwich and whittle the time down even more. Worst-case scenario, he would pace the kitchen and dining room for an hour and a half until the phone rang at five o’clock. He had no idea what he would do after the phone call. It bothered him now that he hadn’t thought about that part of the equation. Maybe that would be the perfect time to think on the matter while he paced for the last hour and a half.
Forrester followed his own instructions to the letter. When the phone rang, he congratulated himself on how steady his hand was when he picked up the receiver on the landline. He let it ring three times to show Henry Ballard that he wasn’t sitting on top of it, waiting for it to ring.
“Arthur, this is Henry Ballard. The partners and I have agreed to your terms. We’ve placed all the wheels in motion. Tomorrow morning, at nine o’clock, our two surprise witnesses will be here. We’re going to need the better part of the day to . . . ah . . . rehearse with them. We’ve written out a script, but they have to memorize it and be comfortable with it. I was assured they would do a good job. For the money we’re paying them, I certainly hope so. We should wrap this up the day after tomorrow. When do you want us to call the court?”
“The minute you have it on film and are satisfied no lawyer can trick them. I’m holding you responsible. I also want to see the video.”
“Of course, Arthur. Do you have any other instructions for us?”
Arthur suddenly didn’t like Henry Ballard’s accommodating tone. “You’re suddenly pretty damn agreeable, Henry. Why is that? Earlier you were full of piss and vinegar. You had better not be trying to pull a fast one on me. Because if you are, you will come to regret it more than you can even imagine.”
Henry Ballard sighed so loud, Forrester could hear it. “I’m trying to make the best out of an intolerable situation. We all realize it is useless to fight you, Arthur, the senior partners and I realize that. We did everything you said. What more do you want?”
“What else I want is for the escrow monies to be released to me within an hour of your speaking with the judge and Garland Lee’s lawyers. That’s when it’s over.”
“I’ll certainly do my best, but I do not know if it can be done that quickly. You know as well as I do that I can’t force the judge to do anything. If I’m too demanding, he’ll dig in, and it could be weeks before he approves the terms of the settlement. Is that what you want?”
Forrester knew that what Henry Ballard said was true. Judges did not like to be told what to do. Not ever. “You damn well better make the best case you can then, Henry.”
“Is there anything else, Arthur? If not, I want to go home and forget about all of this for a little while.”
Forrester didn’t bother to respond; he simply hung up the phone.
Not sure what he was feeling, Forrester picked up the phone again and ordered his dinner, a pizza with pepperoni, sausage, peppers, onions, and garlic, with a side order of Tony’s famous garlic twists. Nala would have a fit if she heard this order, he thought. Well, Nala isn’t here. Pizza had all the food groups, as far as he was concerned. Next week, when things were finally settled and all his decisions made, he would go back to healthy eating and living. In crisis mode, you do what you have to do to survive. That’s why they call it a crisis, he told himself.
When his pizza arrived at six-thirty, Forrester carried it out to the kitchen, aware that he had forgotten to lock the door. But he could do that later. Right now, he wanted to eat the pizza while it was still reasonably hot. Sitting at the kitchen table, he downed it with two bottles of Budweiser. He couldn’t remember anything ever tasting so good.
Not only that, he felt good. Really good. He thought he would finally be able to sleep. Optimistically looking forward to a good night’s sleep, he left the mess in the kitchen and made his way to the bedroom, where the messy-looking bed he hadn’t bothered to make when he woke waited for him. He stripped down to his boxers and, at the last second, decided to take a sleeping pill to ensure he really would sleep the night through. He gulped at it with half a glass of water before he tottered back to his room, where he fell into bed.
For some crazy reason, he started to think about his neighbors and whom he would call if there was an emergency he couldn’t handle, now that he was living alone. He didn’t really know any of them. NalaNalaNala . . . Forrester’s eyelids started to droop as the sleeping pill began to take effect. NalaNala . . . He was on his own. Maybe he should think about getting one of those medical alert bracelets.
Forrester’s eyes finally closed. His last conscious thought before he fell asleep was that he had forgotten to lock the door to the condo.