John Lescroart - Nothing But The Truth

Help the man? Hardy still didn’t feel as if he’d completely ruled out killing him.

Hardy glanced at the note a last time, folded it over, and jammed it into his pocket.

Ron, seeing this, picked a bad moment to comment. ‘We can do this,’ he said, all sincerity.

And Hardy suddenly lost all his patience, slapping a palm loudly on the table in front of him, raising his voice in a rage. ‘What is this “we” shit? There’s no “we” here. There’s me and what I need to do for my family. Then there’s you. And don’t kid yourself – they’re nothing like the same thing!’

Not trusting himself to keep his anger checked any further – he might pull that gun out after all – he got up and abruptly strode across to the door.

‘You’re not leaving?’

This wasn’t Ron’s voice and Hardy’s surprise at the sound of it whirled him around. It was Cassandra, standing in the doorway to the suite. It was obvious that she had been crying, though now she had gotten herself back under control. ‘Please, Mr Hardy, you can’t leave.’ At her father. ‘We do need help, Daddy. He can help us. Rebecca says that’s really what he does. That’s why he can almost never be home, because he’s helping other people.’

The innocent, unintended stab slashed deeply across Hardy’s insides. But Ron kept to the point, not the subtext, answering his daughter calmly. ‘I think he can, too, honey, but it’s not my decision.’

There was a tentative knock from the children’s door and now Max stuck his head through the crack. ‘I’m sorry. I covered my head with the pillow, but I still couldn’t help hearing you yelling.’ He looked from Hardy to Ron. ‘Are you all mad at each other?’

Cassandra reached back and put her arm around her brother. ‘We’re scared, Daddy. What’s going to happen?’

‘It’s all right, hon, there’s nothing to be scared of. Daddy’s right here.’

Ron cast a glance at Hardy and went to stand up, but his daughter had advanced a step into the room, trailed by Max who now held on to her hand. The little girl’s face was set with determination. Another step and she spoke right to Hardy. ‘Mr Hardy, didn’t you come here to try to help us? Is that true?’

Hardy stammered. ‘Well, I…’

‘Because we can’t go back to Dawn. They can’t make us do that. Even Max remembers…’ The tears had begun again. ‘We just want to stay with Daddy and have everything be like it was again.’

Max piped in through his own tears. ‘And Bree back, too, please. I want Bree back.’

‘Oh, guys…’ Ron went to stand up. But Cassandra didn’t move toward him. She had her eyes on Hardy. ‘Do you have to be our lawyer to help us? Is that how it works? How do you become our lawyer?’

Hardy crossed over near her, went down to one knee, and tried a tired smile. ‘It’s not that. It’s that I don’t know what I can do, Cassandra. It’s complicated. Rebecca’s mother’s in a lot of trouble, too, and I’ve got to help her. She’s got to be my first priority. You can understand that.’

But the girl was persistent. ‘Maybe you could do both, though? And Daddy isn’t sure what to do right now.’

Ron reached out to her. ‘Oh, sweetie, come here. Both of you guys.’ Ron was holding out his hands and the kids went to him. He enveloped them both in his arms, in a strong and soothing fatherhood. ‘Come on, now, come on. There’s nothing to be scared of. Let’s say goodnight to Mr Hardy and go back to bed. It’ll all look better in the morning.’

But Cassandra turned. ‘Please, Mr Hardy, if you can.’

It was Monday, October 5, less than a week after Bree Beaumont’s death. In fact, it was the day she was to be buried. Baxter Thorne, a portly man with a gray goatee, a soft-spoken manner, and a gentle disposition, nervously paced the floor behind his computer banks in his office on the thirtieth floor of Embarcadero Two. Outside his inoperable windows, it was a gloriously clear day, with boats on the Bay and Treasure Island a nine-iron pitch across a mile and half of blue water. But Thorne had no use for the view. He’d told the cop – Griffin – he’d be here first thing in the morning. He had no idea what the man might have found, but the fact that he knew of Baxter Thorne’s existence at all was a very bad sign.

The sign on Thorne’s door announced that these were the offices of the Fuels Management Consortium – FMC. In fact, the organization was the center for the lobbying efforts of one of the country’s two multinational farming conglomerates. Spader Krutch Ohio, SKO, along with its chief competitor Archer Daniels Midland, ADM, was one of the country’s leading producers of ethanol. But while ADM was colloquially known by the benign nickname of ‘Supermarket to the World,’ SKO’s reputation was somewhat less savory .

SKO had been having a rough time in the last several years, and Thorne had been assigned to California to direct a campaign on behalf of its interests – he’d proven himself as a creative media consultant.

SKO might be Thorne’s biggest client, but the quiet, well-mannered gentleman with the goatee worked to please himself. He had a persuasive way with words, true, and could sway opinion with his pen. If his clients believed that his silver tongue and lucid prose alone were converting the multitudes, Thorne was happy to let them. But in reality, he knew better.

Sometimes, to be effective, you simply had to shake things up.

And this was his real love – operations, wet work. It had lots of names. Thorne got his own personal jollies by pursuing an extra-legal agenda all his own. And it was far more extensive and dangerous than anything any of his clients would ever order or even, if they became aware of it, tolerate.

For example, two years before, SKO had been getting a lot of bad press. The company’s CEO, Ellis Jackson, was fighting off charges of illegal campaign funding, gift-giving, and influence peddling. Because of this, the Senator from Kansas got cold feet and – reluctant to be identified with SKO – threatened to renege on his support of ethanol subsidies. This support was finally guaranteed by a donation of a million dollars to the Senator’s campaign fund, but without Thorne it is doubtful that the Senator would have found a way to accept the gift.

On his own, Thorne had discovered the man’s weakness for other young men. Then, Thorne had seen to it that one of these men had been on the corporate jet on the junket to Hilton Head. Finally, Thorne had decided precisely where to position the cameras.

But while Thorne loved his own covert operations more than anything else on earth, he didn’t shrink from his nuts and bolts work – information management and spin control. In fact, the Fuels Management Consortium produced reams of paper every month for dissemination to radio shows, newspapers, think tanks, consultant firms and lobbyists.

In addition, Thorne’s company produced campaign leaflets for political candidates who supported ethanol, or opposed MTBE, which amounted to the same thing. The most prominent of these was Damon Kerry, running for governor of California. Unfortunately, in Thorne’s view, Damon Kerry was a man who did not appreciate the big picture. Like the Senator from Kansas, he didn’t want to be publicly associated with SKO, with its questionable lobbying history. Damon Kerry was pure – he wasn’t proposing the use of ethanol. He wasn’t being bought by any special interests, no sir. He was merely opposed to the cancer-causing alternative, MTBE.

So Damon Kerry’s campaign was in the thick of the gasoline additive wars. Except one of the generals was ignorant of where he got his army.