his side.
“I contacted him, and we talked on the phone briefly. He didn’t trust me right away—paranoid, you know—but after a while he started to settle down and open up. He told me about his contact with Cameron and their plan to do a large scale media release, and he asked me if he could use the tapes as evidence. This was the day before your summary judgment hearing. I told him I’d bring ’em to court in the morning and slip ’em into his briefcase while PetroPlex was making arguments.
“I don’t know exactly what happened next, but somebody at PetroPlex got nervous and offed him. While I was trying to figure out what to do next, your house got torched and you disappeared. I’ve been looking for you and Gilbert ever since.”
Wow. That was quite the story. If only I’d known earlier. I don’t know that I’d have been able to do anything to prevent Schaeffer’s death, but I sure as heck could have stayed out of Cameron’s old car garage and saved myself some run-ins with thugs. Plus, Nash wouldn’t have been shot. I was still mad at him, but I felt bad about his foot, nevertheless.
“We have to get the tapes back to Cameron,” I said.
“Where you guys holed up?” Dick asked.
“Gracie’s root cellar,” I said. “What are we gonna do about the body?”
“Leave him in the creek for now,” Dick said. “I’ll holler at Old Man Jonas up the road and ask him to call it in. I think I saw him looking out the window when you drove through his barn earlier, anyway.”
I looked at Nash. “You okay with that?”
Nash nodded. “As long as it gets called in right now.”
Dick made the call while we listened in. Then we helped Nash up, and the two of them limped up the hill to Dick’s new car. Nash settled into the front seat, and I curled into the back.
It was almost 8:00 A.M. I wondered if the crime scene techs had found Dorian yet.
We drove the distance back to Gracie’s root cellar and went underground.
***
When Lucy saw Dick, she growled. “Good dog,” I said, patting her on the head.
When Miles saw Dick, he hopped out of his cot angrily. “Bloody hell!” he said. “What is he doing here?”
“Nice to see you too,” Dick said.
“He’s the inside guy,” I told Miles.
Cameron let go of the mouse and looked up from his computer. “Who is he?”
“My boss,” I said. “Dick Richardson.”
“Don’tcha recognize me from my TV commercials?” Dick asked. He struck a pose and said, “I’m Dick Richardson, and I’ll fight for you.”
“Get outta town,” Cameron said. “I never would have found you. You’re not on the network!”
Dick pulled the tapes out of his pocket again and handed them to Cameron.
“Unbelievable,” Cameron said. “Thanks.”
We filled Cameron and Miles in on the latest developments. I apologized to Cameron for trashing his car in a creek bed, but he seemed unperturbed, as usual. He was more low key than any guy I’d met in my life.
While we told the story, Cameron converted the tapes to digital format. He attached them to an email packet that also contained copies of internal PetroPlex records and emails between executives, along with a cover letter that explained what everything was. Then he imported all his press contacts into his email from a database file and hovered his mouse cursor over the “send” button.
“Ready, guys?” he asked. “This is it!”
I stared at the computer screen, mesmerized. Did I dare feel any kind of relief? Would this call off the PetroPlex dogs or just whip them up into an angrier frenzy? Would we be free to leave the root cellar in a few hours, or would we be trapped here indefinitely?
“I can’t believe this is it,” I said. It had been an unbelievable three days. “We finally did it! How can it all be over with just the press of a button?”
“Modern technology is a wondrous thing,” Cameron said.
He pressed the button. I held my breath as I watched the progress bar showing the file upload. When the empty bar filled all the way up with blue, I let out a sigh.
CHAPTER 30
Delmont was in the middle of presiding over a slip and fall case when his clerk, a rosy-cheeked youth of twenty-two years, nervously sidled up to the bench and whispered into Delmont’s ear.
“Chief Scott’s on the phone for you,” she said.
“Well tell him I’m in the middle of a hearing, for crying out loud. He