Chapter Eight
Tuesday, April 11 two p.m.
Tom felt back on track thanks to the hard drive Peach stole and then returned, and construction workers willing to talk. The phone interviews weren’t his first choice, but he would take what he could get. The stories varied, as they always did, but the basics were the same. Conditions weren’t perfect but were far from bad. There had been no discussion of postponing the lift. Start of shift inspection didn’t capture anything worth noting with the equipment. The only things that were out of the norm involved two of the missing.
“I’m back,” Jeb called out, the slam of the exterior door following. His boots reverberated in a sharp retort against the hollow floors. He stepped into the room wearing a hard, cold expression. “Until we get a handle on whatever is going on, I don’t want you driving the F&F truck. You’re too easy to spot. I brought in one of our special duty vehicles to use.”
Special duty meant tinted windows, bulletproof glass, armor, and a built-in gun safe. He wasn’t sure if he felt better or worse that Jeb was taking this so seriously. “I’ll need to take the truck back to Fabrini.”
“Leave it here. He can come get it. You aren’t driving it. Period. You called me. You play by my rules.” Jeb leveled his stare until Tom nodded. “Make any progress?”
“Yes and no. Tell me what you make of this. Joe Carter, our missing project engineer, didn’t do anything that could be considered edgy or dangerous, at least without a supervisor telling him to. He didn’t go out on the erected steel. He didn’t go into the holes.”
“He didn’t go up into that thing that the crane lifted?”
“The basket. Exactly. He was allowed to—it wasn’t that he couldn’t or shouldn’t—it was that he didn’t. Survivors I spoke with didn’t respect him. How could they when the guy liked to boss but stay on firm ground? So the question that’s nagging me is…why that day? Why would someone who stayed away from exposure get in that man basket on a windy day?”
Jeb shoved aside drawings laid out on the next desk, resting his hip on the clean surface. “No one told him to?”
“Not that anyone knew. Hawthorne would have been the one to do the telling.”
“And you can’t ask him.”
“No. And there’s another funny thing. Hawthorne climbed into the tower right before the lift started. People said Jack went everywhere, all the time, but you have to question the timing.”
“If he was the boss, shouldn’t he have been, I don’t know, doing whatever crane bosses do?”
“The crew foreman was the guy running the work from the ground. Jack’s work came in bringing everything together, then he was smart enough to stay out of the way.”
“You think it was just a bad timing thing? For both of them?”
Tom started to answer but stopped. He didn’t have one. Dumb luck—good and bad—did happen. Still, it bothered him that the crane failed in a completely different way than the math said it should. He didn’t want to get too hung up, assume too much. He learned the lesson: don’t assume; it’ll make an ass out of u and me. He slammed the keyboard drawer closed, needing his programs on a system with serious processing speed. The computer he used—Hawthorne’s secretary’s—was like walking a Chihuahua when you’re used to running with a Greyhound. “Damn I wish I had my computer back. Why couldn’t she have stolen the whole thing?” He dropped his frustrated head in his hands to keep from banging it against the wall.
“We’ll get you up and running tomorrow. Our IT guy is on it, and there’s a new computer on the way.”
“’kay.”
“Clyde, I didn’t expect overflowing buckets of gratitude, but something more than a ‘kay’ is in order.”
“Sorry.” He sat back, running his fingers through his hair.
Jeb pulled out a chair and straddled it to face Tom. “You’ve been sulking since we left your girlfriend.”
The accusation rammed the crane from his head. He had worked very hard to not think about her in the last four hours. One use of the “G” word and he couldn’t think of anything but her. And it pissed him off. He was not a guy that needed a G word. Ever.
“You pissed that she scammed you?”
“No.” He’d replayed the night in his head, and she’d played him right. Exactly right. “It’s more like I respect her for it.”
Jeb let out a belly laugh. “You’re falling for that delinquent.”
“She isn’t a delinquent,” he snapped. How dense was Jeb that he couldn’t see the obvious? “She’s smart as hell, brave, funny.”
“She is lawless, has questionable limits to her morals, uses sex as a means to an end, and steals.” Jeb ticked off the “facts” one finger at a time. “She’s a delinquent.”
“If she’s all those things, why did she give me my files back? She could have kept them for herself.”
“You don’t think she gave you the only copy, do you?”
His brain stumbled. “Shit.”
“You got issues.”
The phone rang. Tom answered hoping for a long conversation that didn’t involve women. Any of them. “Riley.”
Fabrini was on the other end. The conversation was short and sour. Didn’t matter, Tom was ready for a break. He shut the computer down and packed up the few files he’d printed. The hard drive and loaner phone in hand, Tom followed Jeb out the door. It felt so wrong to leave work carrying no more technology than fit in his hand. “I’m spinning my wheels here without my computer. Maybe I’ll get something from Fabrini.”
“I said I’ll have you another one tomorrow.” They could have gone to a store and bought one, but since opening Chameleon Securities, Jeb had become a champion of cyber security. More like a dictator. Hence, Chameleon provided IT security for Riley Architects and Engineers.
“Thanks, Jeb. I know I didn’t say it before, but I do appreciate it.” The wind off Lake Erie pounded on them over the thirty feet from the trailer door to the Jeb’s unmarked, decked-out Escalade.
“We’ll make it right. What’s the address?” Jeb activated the navigation system.
“I want to go to this bluff first. Peach said she parked over the site. It has to be to the west.” He didn’t know what it would tell him, but sometimes, seeing things from a different point of view was enough to make things happen. Minutes later, they stopped in a large parking lot with a centerfold view of the site in the foreground and downtown Cleveland in the back. Middle of the day, the park was nearly empty with temperatures still near forty degrees. Through the windshield, Tom looked over the remnants of the crane and the casino and hotel it was building. It appeared smaller but no less impressive. Behind it, the lake sloshed against the shore, taunting him. He wished he knew her secrets. “Do you think they’ll find them? Peach’s uncle and the others?”
“Eventually, sure. But soon? That I can’t say.”
“Can you image what they are going through? Peach and her grandfather. Every now and then, I get this…flash…in my head back to when Katie disappeared. I don’t think I could have handled it…” It had been one of the worst moments of his life. He’d locked away the nightmare, but imagining Peach’s feelings put him back in the middle of it.
“I’ve had to handle a lot of messed-up shit. Too much and it cost me. You’re circling around to something. You might as well spill it. You don’t tell me, I’ll sic your cousin on you.”
God. This was going to be hard to say. “Peach said some things about my lifestyle.” He stared back out the window, not wanting to see the judgment. “Some very accurate and not flattering things. I’ve never wanted a wife. I don’t need anyone, and I’ve never wanted someone who needed me. I know how that sounds, but that’s the truth. I don’t want to be responsible for someone else. For their happiness. For their health. That’s not for me.”
“It sounds like it bothers you.”
“It doesn’t. Or it didn’t.” He swore under his breath. “She treated me exactly like I’ve treated dozens of women.” He turned to his friend, looking for the reaction. There was none. Of course not. This was Jeb. His face was carved from granite and schooled in the military. Whatever ran through his head didn’t show. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“That was your secret? That you don’t want a serious relationship?” Jeb didn’t school his face now. He let Tom know exactly how stupid the confession was. “As for how she treated you, you are flat-out wrong. In the year I’ve known you, you have never once deceived a woman about what you wanted or where you were going. You may not have wanted anything long term, but you never acted with anything but respect and honesty. She did not at all treat you the way you treat your ladies. Is there something else gnawing at you?”
It helped, hearing that he wasn’t a user. His friend’s opinion mattered, and he was right. While he might not love a woman, he loved women. All of them. He would never intentionally hurt one, physically or emotionally. “When I was talking to her in her bedroom, she told me she wasn’t going to apologize. I didn’t realize I wanted an apology until she said I couldn’t have one. What’s with that?” It bothered him that it bothered him that she wouldn’t apologize. And it really bothered him that his thoughts were devolving into the style of Dr. Seuss. Oh bother. He let out a deep exhale that ended with a “Fuck me.”
“That’s normal. Most people want what they can’t have. That’s the way my mother used to get me to cut my hair. She told me I couldn’t. Peach told you you can’t have an apology, so of course, you want one.”
“She was telling me she saw her uncle fall. Her eyes, Jeb. I could see the pain. All I could think about was taking her away from it. Who thinks like that?”
Jeb sighed. “I think I know what’s going on here. You’re not going to like it.”
Sleeping pills, thievery, seduction. What else was there? “Just…tell me.”
“You’ve gone over for her.”
He waited for the punch line, but it didn’t come. “Did you not listen to a thing I said? I don’t go over. For anyone. Period.”
“Of course you have. It’s not a bad thing, especially if the delinquent feels the same way.”
“She’s doesn’t, and I don’t.” He squeezed his hands into fists when Jeb chuckled. “I’ve known her for three days. I definitely have not and will not go over for her.”
Jeb put the truck in gear. “Anything you say. You got Fabrini’s address?”
The only one who spoke on the drive to F&F construction was the GPS woman. She sounded like every day would be a good day if only “in one quarter mile, turn right.” Tom would be the first to tell her, it wasn’t that easy, sister. Make three right turns and where would you find yourself? Left! And who wanted to be left?
“If we were in the deep south, I’d think this was a plantation.” Jeb stared at the building as he navigated the truck.
“Wrong style. Left me out here. I mean, leave me out here.” The truck was still rolling when Tom put shoe leather to pavement. He carried only the new phone Jeb loaned him and the notebook he’d found in the trailer’s supply cabinet. Naked was what he was.
Frank Fabrini built his “world headquarters” on a generous parcel of land, close to the lake, twenty-five minutes west of the city. The stone building was a tribute to the Victorian mansions of the late 1800s. Three stories high with windows that went floor to ceiling, the building looked ready, willing, and able to host a wedding. Tom entered through a heavy oak door that opened without a sound. Inside, a young woman in an electric blue dress came around the corner. She wasn’t conventionally pretty but had a shapely figure and a warm smile. “Dr. Riley?”
He grinned, and it felt good. “What gave me away?”
“Mr. Fabrini said you’d be easy to recognize. I’m Tammy, his assistant. This way, please.”
She left him in a well-appointed waiting area, but he didn’t sit; he paced. His disobedient mind went back to the conversation with Jeb. Him going over for Peach. Ridiculous. He didn’t want to be on the end of some woman’s leash any more than he wanted one sitting at his feet and giving him puppy dog eyes whenever he went his own way. If he had a woman, and that was a big if, she would have to be independent. They would be together when it worked for both of them, and when it didn’t, there wouldn’t be any kicking or screaming. They would be adults. Tom nodded. “Reasonable.”
“Doctor?” Tammy said from a doorway. “Mr. Fabrini will see you now.” She turned and left, expecting him to follow.
Tom shoved his baggage to the back and hurried to follow the assistant. Fabrini’s office was an immense room with a massive desk that would make Lebron James look like a kindergartener sitting in his daddy’s chair. Two chairs faced the desk. Fabrini stood and gestured to the chairs as Tammy walked to the silver coffee service sitting on a side board.
Never one for small talk, Fabrini got down to business. “Tell me what you know.”
“The investigators aren’t saying much. Early stages blah, blah, blah. They are scheduled to be on site tomorrow, if you haven’t heard. I began the follow-up interviews but didn’t get anything new.” He held back the odd behavior of Carter and Hawthorne, not ready to say what it meant.
“You’re sure it was sabotage?”
Tom leaned forward. “What have you been saying?” Whoever hit him wanted to stop his investigation. If the old man had been talking, Tom wanted to know to whom.
“I’ve been saying accidents like this don’t happen at my company.” He bellowed like a fog horn. “I’ve been saying that when I get my hands on the guy who did this, I’m going to turn him into sausages.”
As threats go, it was graphic but not specific. He would have said it to those closest to him—his son, Stinson, Tammy. Who else could he have worried?
“The witness accounts supported my observations. The problem is what actually happened and what should have happened aren’t the same. Then there is the failure itself. A clean break. Is it natural? I don’t know. Not yet.”
“Will you be able to tell us who did it?”
“Fingerprints aren’t my area of expertise.”
Fabrini came to his feet, his cheeks growing flush. “There were fingerprints?”
“I don’t know. I was being figurative. I wouldn’t know how to collect them if they were there.” He paused to consider tactics. “I want to talk with the people closest to Hawthorne and to you.”
“Me? What are you accusing me of?”
“You’re coming from the wrong angle. If someone did this to cripple F&F, they were by default coming after you. If we can figure out the who, maybe that will lead us to the how.”
Fabrini fell back into his chair, deflated. “What could have been done differently? We have some of the strictest safety practices in the industry. What could we have done differently to protect my men? My company?”
“Once we know what happened, we’ll be able to talk about how to prevent it. Frank, if this was a case of sabotage, all the safety protocols in the world may not have been able to stop this. A determined man is a dangerous one.”
At that moment, a determined woman crouched under a desk one floor up, listening with interest to the quiet argument being held ten feet from her.
“What were you thinking going back there?” The male voice was young and reeked of frustration.
“It’s not a big deal. I covered.” The voice was arrogant, the kind that came from getting away with things.
“Your old man gets wind of this and we are both dead.”
“Don’t worry about him.” So cocky was Fabrini junior. That fit the picture Peach had in her head.
“How did you lose the delivery?” Dealer asked. This voice she didn’t recognize, but it was clear who he was. If Junior would just call him by name, it would be the cherry on her sundae.
“I don’t know. I swear I don’t,” Junior said. “It was in the truck when we got there. I stowed it under the seat when Riley and his goon had us searching for ghosts in the middle of the night. When I got to Joe’s the next day, it was gone.”
Pride was a wide, broad smile. The risk had totally been worth it. The dumbass hadn’t even made it hard with the bag sticking out in the backseat.
“That one is coming out of your hide. You better break open Daddy’s checkbook. Twenty-five grand tomorrow night.”
“Come on, man. I can’t come up with that kind of cash that fast. What if I got the blow back? Riley has to have it. Where else could it have gone?”
Dealer snapped. “Tomorrow night. The money or the product. Or you’ll be the one taking a dip.”
One set of footfalls moved across the floor. A door opened, then closed. Peach stayed where she was. Five seconds passed. Then ten. There was an explosion of profanity followed by some serious thumping. A foot against something. Then the second set of footfalls crossed the floor and went out the door.
She waited in place for two full minutes before easing her way into the desk chair. Moving quickly, she started the computer. The system was on a server, but fortunately for her, Fabrini didn’t spend the same kind of cash on his network security that he did on his décor. The file system used was simple and organized. She quickly found the files on the hotel and casino F&F was building on the lakefront. When completed, the seventeen-story structure would look like a ship going down in the water. She shuddered. So much for good taste.
The server was too big for her to copy all the project files. She didn’t know which other projects were Hawthorne’s, and she didn’t have time to go through them one by one.
But she did have time to plant a little program that would make a return visit much faster.
She pressed her ear to the door. Hearing nothing, she opened it a crack and scanned the third-floor hallway. Empty. She hung her messenger bag across her body and went casually for the back stairs. Out the back door, she crossed the soft grass toward the fast food restaurant where the Beast waited for her.
She picked up French fries and a milkshake because she had missed lunch and then climbed into the truck. As she sat waiting for traffic to ease, she saw Tom in the passenger window of the black Escalade. The window went up as it turned out of F&F’s front drive.
“Isn’t this a coincidence?” Decision: mind her own business or follow.
She gave them some space then pulled into traffic. “You don’t learn, do you? That man is trouble.” Popping a fry into her mouth, she drove casually. Just another worker bee sucking on a milkshake on her way home. A silver SUV swung out of F&F, cutting her off. She stood on the brakes to avoid the crash, the Beast’s backend kicking like a mule. The son of a bitch floored it, opening the distance between them. It wasn’t your normal “oops I cut someone off, let me make up for it.” This was the start of a race. Peach stomped on the gas, sending the four hundred-twenty horses under her hood into a sprint. The gap closed as they turned right. She was close enough to hear the SUV’s tires squeal around the corner. It sped out of the turn, and she followed it. Red lights began flashing, and the arms of the railroad crossing gate came down. Tom’s Escalade stopped. The silver one didn’t.
The curtain lifted on a nightmare. The silver SUV hit the Escalade hard, pushing it toward the tracks. The driver had to be Jeb. He fought for control, leaving rubber on the road, but the SUV had momentum on his side. In the distance—the near distance—the whistle of the train wailed ominously.
“Nope. Not gonna happen.” With calm, focused intent, she demanded more from the engine. She controlled her speed and swung wide, then plowed into the silver vehicle’s quarter panel at full throttle. Impact ripped control from her hands. Colors flew by and then came to a sudden end.
Tom braced his feet, standing on an imaginary brake while Jeb used the real one to keep them off the tracks. “Jeb.” Watching in his mirror, he saw a white pickup racing up. “Jeb! That’s Peach’s truck. I swear it’s the same.”
“Hold on.” The hit came, knocking them forward, and then they were free. They did a donut and ended in the on-coming lane, feet away from the gate arm as the train roared through the crossing.
“What the hell is going on?” Tom yelled as he clung to the Jesus bar. “Where’s Peach?”
“In the ditch. Get her!” Jeb slammed on the brakes, coming to a jarring stop next to where the steel carcasses lay in the ditch. The silver SUV ended with the passenger side embedded in the soft mud. Peach went in nose first. Nobody moved in either vehicle. “God damn it, Tom. Get your girlfriend. Now!”
Tom burst from the cab and slid down the short, steep hill. The long, wet grass made the footing difficult, even in his work boots. Her driver’s door nearly touched the SUV. He had no room to get her out. “Peach! Peach!” He wrenched open the passenger’s door and found her laying heavily over the steering wheel. Crawling in, he pulled the veil of hair from her face. “Peach, honey. Open your eyes for me.”
Her eyes fluttered but didn’t quite open. He sprung the latch on her seat belt and began pulling her dead weight from the seat. “Peach, honey. I could use some help here. We really need to get out.” Her eyes slowly opened. “Use your legs, honey. That’s right. Just a little further. I have you.” He backed out of the truck, taking as much of her weight as he could. She crawled blindly, her arms and legs plodding uncoordinatedly. He encouraged her, watching her arms tremble. He caught her when they collapsed, pulling her the rest of the way out of the truck.
“M-my bag. I need it.”
He leaned in, fishing her bag from the floor. A shot rang out. Instinct had him covering her body with his.
“Get up here, Tom. Now.” Jeb squeezed off two rounds, discouraging any intervention by the SUV boys. He was out of the Escalade, using the front end for cover. “They don’t have an angle. Move it.”
Using her truck for leverage and cover, Tom carried most of Peach’s weight up the slope. He struggled the last few feet, hampered by her staggering and the wet grass. With determination, he swung her into his arms and ran as Jeb laid more cover. The sound of the shots fueled his legs until he finally opened the back door, hurried Peach in, and then followed.
“On the floor,” Jeb yelled as he jumped into the running vehicle.
Shots rang out as their tires squealed. They sped backward down the road. Sirens sounded in the distance as Jeb executed a three-point turn and floored it. He took the first turn, pulling over to let a police car race past. “We’re clear,” he said, pulling out at a normal speed.
Tom crawled off the floor where he had covered Peach’s limp body. “Peach? Talk to me.” He lifted her onto the seat and snapped the seat belt across her. She had a red streak blossoming across her forehead. “The air bag didn’t go off. It looks like she bounced her head off the steering wheel.”
“That monster probably pre-dated airbags.” Jeb glanced back. “She looks dazed.”
Tom repeated her name and tapped her cheek until there was a flicker of light. She looked around the cab and then stared at his face. Her fingers traced his jaw. “Somebody is trying to kill you.”
Relief swept through him as clarity came into her eyes. He sat in the center seat and fastened the seat belt. “I noticed.” He captured her hand and kissed the palm. “You saved me again.”
“Damn it. I swore I wasn’t going to do that. I don’t even like you.” She pulled her hand away, curling it into a fist and trying to look fierce.
He took her hand back, caressed it. “Liar.”
She looked at him and then quickly away. “Where are we going?”
“Your house,” Jeb said. “Where do you think they are going to go when they trace the plates on your truck?”
Her gaze snapped to Tom’s, and he saw fear in her eyes. “Poppy.”