“You signed the same agreement we all did. Now we’re activating the provision. Only way to show the feds we’re serious. You can contest it-I’m sure you will. But I think you’ll find most high-powered lawyers are going to want to see a hefty chunk of their fee up front. And we’ve already filed for a separate tort claim against you and your coconspirator, Mr. McNally, for a hundred and ten million dollars. We’ve requested that the judge place the funds we’re trying to recover in escrow, pending legal resolution, and we’ve received indications that he intends to do so.”
Scott’s face looked like a plaster death mask. He tugged robotically at a lock of hair at his temple. As Nick listened to Osgood, he found himself staring out the window at the charred buffalo grass. It no longer looked like a lifeless black carpet anymore, he noticed. The new grass had begun to grow back. Tiny green blades were now peeking through the black.
“That’s insane!” Todd spoke with a squeaky groan, a crowbar pulling out a long nail. “You can’t do that. I will not be treated this way, Willard. I’m owed some basic respect. I am a full-fledged partner at Fairfield, of eight years’ standing. I’m not some…some goddamn catfish you can play catch-and-release with.”
Osgood turned to Nick. “He’s got a point. You wouldn’t want to mix him up with a catfish. You see, one’s a bottom-feeding, scum-sucking scavenger…”
“And the other’s a fish,” Nick said. “Got it. And one more bit of business.” He looked around the table. “Now that Stratton’s future is secure, I’m hereby submitting my resignation.”
Osgood turned to face him, stunned. “What? Oh, Christ.”
“I’m about to face a legal…situation…which I don’t want to drag my company through.”
The men and women around the boardroom table seemed as astonished as Osgood was. Stephanie Alstrom began shaking her head.
But Nick stood up and shook Osgood’s hand firmly. “Stratton’s been through enough. When we make the announcement, we’ll just say that Mr. Conover resigned ‘in order to spend more time with his family.’” He gave a little wink. “Which has the added virtue of being true. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
He got up and strode confidently out of the room, and for the first time in a long while he felt a palpable sense of relief.
Marjorie was crying as she watched him gather up his framed family pictures. Her phone was ringing nonstop, but she was ignoring it.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “I think you owe me an explanation.”
“You’re right. I do.” He reached down to the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out the rubber-banded stack of Post-it notes in Laura’s handwriting. “But first, could you find me a box?”
She turned and, as she passed her desk, she picked up the phone. A few seconds later, Marge looked around the partition, looking grim. “Nick, there’s some kind of emergency at your house.”
“Eddie’s handling it.”
“Well, the thing is-that was a woman named Cathy or Cassie, calling from your house. I didn’t get the name-she was speaking fast, sounding panicked. She said you’ve got to get over there as fast as you can. I don’t have a good feeling about this.”
Nick dropped the picture frames onto his desk and broke into a run.
107
On his way to the parking lot he called home, let it ring.
No answer, which was strange. Cassie had just called from there-and what the hell was she doing there anyway? Plus, both kids should have gotten home from school by now to do their last-minute packing, both of them excited about the trip. Even, in his grudging way, Lucas, or so Nick thought.
But the phone rang and rang and the voice mail kept coming on.
Okay, so Lucas often didn’t answer the home phone, let the voice mail get it, but Julia always answered. She loved the phone. And Cassie-she’d just called. Weird.
No answer.
Lucas’s cell? He didn’t remember the number, too many numbers in his head and this one he didn’t call all that often. He hit the green call button on his phone, which pulled up the last ten or whatever calls he’d dialed.
There it was, LUCAS CELL. Had Marjorie programmed that in? Probably. He hit SEND as he ran through the parking lot, a couple of employees waving hello, but he didn’t have time for niceties.
Come on, damn it, answer the fucking phone. Told you if you don’t answer the cell, I take it away, that’s the deal.
A couple of rings and then his son’s recorded voice, adolescent-buzzy in timbre, curt and full of attitude in just a few words.
Hey, it’s Luke, what up? Leave a message.
A beep, then a female voice: Please leave your message after the tone. Press One to send a numeric page-
Nick ended the call, heart drumming and not from the run. He fumbled for the Suburban’s key-fob thing, pressed it to unlock just as he reached the car door.
Roaring out of the parking lot, he tried Eddie’s cell.
No answer.
“She’s not here,” Bugbee said. The cellular signal began to fade…“Patrol units, but no Cassie Stadler at her house.”
“She’s at Conover’s,” Audrey said. “Gas leak.”
“Huh?”
“I’m heading over there now. You too. Right away. Notify the fire department.”
“You know she’s there?”
“She answered the phone when the alarm monitoring service called. Get over there, Roy. Right now.”
“Why?” Bugbee said.
“Just do it. And bring backup.” She ended the call so he didn’t have a chance to argue.
Gas leak. The Stroups, her neighbors when she was twelve.
She lit a match on the way out.
Her sorority house at Carnegie Mellon when she was a freshman.
Eighteen young women perished.
The families she desperately wanted to be part of. Who all rejected her.
Then Audrey called Nicholas Conover’s office at the Stratton Corporation, but she was told he wasn’t there.
Tell him it’s urgent, she said. It’s a matter of safety. His house.
The secretary’s voice lost its hard edge. “He’s on his way over there, officer.”
The alarm company?
Nick didn’t even remember the name.
A gas leak? He tried to imagine what that was all about-something goes wrong in the house, the kids smell gas, maybe they’re smart about it and get the hell out of the house, that’s why the house phone line went unanswered-but what about Lucas’s cell?
Say he left it inside in the rush to get out. Sure, that was all.
But Eddie?
Guy lived with a cell phone planted to his ear. Why the hell would he not answer either?
Twelve minutes he could be at the gates of Fenwicke Estates. Assuming he caught the lights right. He gunned it, then slowed just a bit, keeping it no more then ten miles an hour over the speed limit. An overzealous cop could pull him over, slow things way down even if Nick told him it was an emergency. Ask for my license and registration, maybe decide to take his fucking time about it once he caught the name.
He drove the whole way in a mental tunnel of concentration, barely aware of the traffic around him, thinking only of getting to the house. Kept hitting REDIAL for Eddie’s cell, but no answer.
A moment of relief as he pulled up to the gatehouse. No emergency vehicles here, no fire trucks or whatever, probably no big deal.
A gas leak is not the same thing as a fire, of course.
Could the kids and Eddie and Cassie all have been overcome by gas fumes, maybe that’s why they couldn’t answer? He had no idea if natural gas did that.
“Hi, Mr. Conover,” said Jorge, behind the bulletproof glass in the booth.
“Emergency, Jorge,” Nick called out.
“Your security director, Mr. Rinaldi, he came through here already.”