The Angels' Share (The Bourbon Kings #2) - J. R. Ward Page 0,76

Bradford Bourbon Company is in serious debt and facing a possible bankruptcy. It’s running tomorrow morning. I thought you might want to comment.”

Lane clenched his jaw to keep the curses in. “Now, why would I want to do that?”

“Well, I understand, and it’s fairly self-evident, that your family’s personal fortune is inextricably tied to the company, is it not?”

“But I’m not involved in the running of the business.”

“So you’re saying you were unaware of any difficulty?”

Lane kept his voice level. “Where are you? I’ll come to you.”

• • •

The Bradford Family Estate’s groundskeeping shed was less like a shed and more like an airplane hangar. Located down below and in the back of the extensive property, it was next to where the staff parking lot was and beside the line-up of fifties-era cottages that had been used by servants, workers, and retainers for decades.

As Lizzie walked into the dim gas-and oil-smelling cave, her boots were loud over the stained concrete floor. Tractors, industrial mowers, mulchers, and trucks were parked in an orderly fashion, their exteriors clean, their engines maintained to within an inch of their lives.

“Gary? You in there?”

The head groundskeeper’s office was in the far corner, and through the dusty glass, a light glowed.

“Gary?”

“Not in there. Or here.”

She changed trajectory, walking around a wood chipper and a couple of snowplow attachments that were the size of her old Yaris.

“Oh, God, don’t lift that!” she barked.

Lizzie hurried over, only to be ignored as Gary McAdams hefted part of an engine block off the floor and onto one of the worktables. The feat would have been impressive under any circumstances, but considering the guy had thirty years on her? Then again, Gary was built like a bulldog, strong as an ox, and weathered as a Kentucky fence post.

“Your back,” she muttered.

“Is just fine,” came the Southern drawl. “Whatchu need, Miss Lizzie?”

He didn’t look at her, but that didn’t mean he didn’t like her. In fact, the pair of them worked well together: When she had started here, she had braced herself for a conflict that had never materialized. The self-professed redneck had proven to be a total sweetheart under that gruff exterior.

“So you know about the visitation,” she said.

“I do, yup.”

Popping herself up on the worktable, she let her feet dangle and watched as his callused hands made sense of the piece of machinery, moving fast and sure over the old metal. He didn’t make a big deal of his competence, though, and that was so him. From what Lizzie understood, he had started working in the fields when he was twelve and had been here ever since. Never been married. Never took vacation days. Didn’t drink. Lived down in one of the cottages.

Ruled over the thirty or so workers under him with a fair but iron fist.

“You need the wrench?” she asked.

“Yup, I do.”

She handed him what he required, took it back when he was finished, got him something else before he had to ask for it.

“Anyway,” she continued. “The visitation will be tomorrow, and I just want to make sure we’ve got a fresh mow up the main entrance the morning of, a trim on the boxwoods down at the road this afternoon if we can make it happen, and a blow all over the front steps and courtyard.”

“Yes’um. Anything you need in the back gardens?”

“I think we’re in good shape. I’ll go through them with Greta, though.”

“One of m’ boys’ll do a mow out there by the pool.”

“Good. Socket?”

“Yup.”

As they traded tools again, he asked, “It true what they say you found?”

“Greta found it. And yes, it is.”

He didn’t shift his eyes from his work, those thick-fingered, heavily veined hands of his never missing a beat. “Huh.”

“I don’t know, Gary. Up until now, I’ve been thinking, just like everyone else, that he jumped. But not anymore.”

“The police come?”

“Yes, a couple of homicide detectives. The same ones who were here for Rosalinda’s death. I talked to them for a while this morning. They’re probably going to want to interview you and anyone else who was on the grounds around the time he died.”

“Sad business.”

“Very. Even though I never liked the man.”

She thought about the reading of the will. God, that was like something out of an old movie, the heirs gathered in some fancy room, a distinguished lawyer reciting the provisions in a Charlton Heston voice.

“What they ask you? Them detectives?”

“Just how we found it. Where I was the last couple of days. Like I said, they’re going to