Redstone, Incorporated: The Best Revenge Part 12

Especially given Alden's huge investment in Riverside Paper, she thought. And it occurred to her, somewhat belatedly, to wonder if all this wasn't connected.

At the idea, a string of images popped into her head. St. John, muttering about phone calls and vanishing. St. John, turning up the information on those investments.

St. John, saying with cold, deadly certainty, "I will destroy him."

A new emotion filled her as the implications roiled around in her mind; utter awe. Was it truly possible? Could one man have done all this so quickly? Even a man as driven and intense as St. John?

He could if he had the weight of Redstone behind him, she thought.

It was a leap, she knew, but not necessarily a blind one.

I will destroy him.

She shivered inwardly. He'd meant every word. She'd understood, accepted, even welcomed the thought; after all, she'd gone into this to stop Alden, not because she wanted the office.

But there was one last image she couldn't quite put out of her mind, and it might just be the one that would trump all else. It was of a young boy, hesitantly, longingly looking at a big golden dog.

A young boy who was trapped just as St. John had once been, in Alden's twisted world.

"You think you can get away with this?"

Jessa instinctively stepped back, regretted the cowardly action, and covered it by wiping at her face. "You're spraying," she said with a distaste she didn't have to feign.

She'd known it would infuriate the man, but they were standing in front of the copy store, with several curious early-morning onlookers, and she felt relatively safe. Especially since one of them was Uncle Larry, who, curiously, was standing back silently. But then she saw Alden's right hand curl into a fist, and suddenly wondered if she'd pushed him too hard.

"You're behind all this," he hissed. "This is all your fault."

"I don't do conspiracy theories before noon," Jessa said, earning a laugh from the onlookers, who were growing in number. Which only made Alden redden even more; he was not a man who took kindly to being laughed at. She had the feeling he was barely managing not to strike out at her, or even at those who had chuckled.

"I don't know how you've managed to do it, but I'll find out." He nearly spat it out again.

"Mr. Alden," she said, in the tone of a parent explaining to a child his flaw in logic, "you simply cannot have it both ways. I'm either too stupid to run the family business, or I'm brilliant enough to have put together whatever conspiracy it is you're accusing me of."

She glanced at the small crowd, saw her uncle grinning at her proudly. She heard the murmur, knew her point had registered with those who mattered, those who would then tell their friends, their families. She knew Cedar, knew how it worked. This was the town where when Adam Alden had allegedly-she knew he hadn't, because he'd been with her-sprayed graffiti on the Welcome to Cedar sign, everyone had known about it before the paint even dried.

Which brought her to the true irony of this encounter; Albert Alden could very well be, in a way, right about her being behind his troubles.

As the man swore at her and then departed, with a sharp bark of the tires on his expensive Swedish sedan, she heard the murmurings of the people who'd been drawn by the unusual-for Cedar anyway-disturbance. She saw among them Missy Wagman who, besides being the first to jump on any new bandwagon of negativity, was also the main server on the exceedingly efficient Cedar information network. Word of this encounter would be all over before Jessa even got to the store with the box of file folders she'd stopped to pick up.

She looked at the group, who were either shaking their heads in shock or nodding in agreement. Except for Larry, who was looking at her with such approval in his eyes that she felt a flood of encouragement.

"Hope he doesn't take that mad out on Tyler." Like he used to take them out on Adam, she added to herself.

She saw the comment register, saw the frowns, the furrowed brows, knew that some of them, at least, were wondering.

"Two accident-p.r.o.ne sons?"

Uncle Larry had said it, in that vague, thoughtful way of his, as if it were simply a curiosity. But there was nothing vague in his expression, and Jessa knew he'd done it with full intent.

"And one of them dead," someone said, eliciting another round of murmurs. Some of the group were too young to remember, but many had also gone to school with her and with Adam, and would remember his endless parade of bruises and injuries.

"Not to mention a wife who committed suicide," Missy muttered, true to form and jumping on the newly formed, questioning bandwagon.

Larry moved then, taking Jessa's arm. "Come along, honey," he said, adding when they were out of earshot, "our work here is done."

She looked at his face, and nearly laughed at his satisfied grin.

"I'm proud of you, girl. You handled that perfectly, turned an attack into an advantage, and gave people a glimpse of the real man. A glimpse they'll remember." He shifted his arm to drape it over her shoulders and give them a squeeze. "More important, your father would be proud. Because you also handled it with cla.s.s."

The words meant more to her than she could manage to tell him past the knot in her throat. She fought tears, slipped her arm around his waist, and hugged him as they stopped on the corner and waited for one of Cedar's three traffic signals to change so they could cross the street.

"I love you, Uncle Larry."

"I know. An accomplishment, since I don't make it easy."

"It's easy for me," she said. "And anybody who thinks for themselves."

"That would be you," Larry said, pleasing her all over again.

But the feeling faded, replaced by concern. "I meant what I said, though. I hope he doesn't take this out on poor Tyler."

"I've been keeping an eye on the lad," Larry said as they got the green light. "He visits, now and then."

Her eyes widened; she hadn't known. "You never said."

They headed down the last block to the store. "He asked me not to. Couldn't betray that."

"Of course not." Her uncle had always been a safe repository for any childhood secret. And she guessed Tyler had a few. Just as Adam had. "I'm glad he comes to you."

"He likes the gnomes. And they like him."

Jessa laughed as they reached the back entrance to the store and paused while she dug the keys out of her pocket. "Don't ever change, Uncle Larry."

"That's not," he said solemnly, "what most of the world would say."

"Their loss," she said, hugging him again.

"I'll go check on your mother," he said. "I think I may be able to get her to go with me over to Stanton's this morning."

"That would be wonderful. She-"

Jessa stopped abruptly. She'd stuck the key in the back door lock automatically, focused more on her uncle than the task. But that hadn't prevented her from realizing something was wrong.

The door was already unlocked.

She frowned, puzzled. "I know I locked up yesterday."

"Of course you did," Larry said, moving between her and the unsecured door. "You always do."

It was his movement rather than his words that drew her full, sharpened attention. The meaning of it hit her abruptly. Along with two possibilities. And she didn't like either one of them.

Either this d.a.m.ned campaign had escalated to true nastiness, or a serious sort of crime had come to her beloved Cedar.

"You think someone broke in?" she said, her voice dropping to a whisper.

"I think we'll be careful until we know." He reached for the door handle.

"The sheriff," she began, reaching for the cell phone in her purse.

"Is a half hour away, as usual," Larry said as he pressed the release lever.

She knew the old joke was true out here; when seconds counted, the police were only minutes away. It was why people here were generally self-reliant. They had to be.

"Alden?" she asked.

"Perhaps." He glanced at the cell phone. "That thing have a camera on it?" "Of course."

"Might be good to have a record."

"And a weapon," she said grimly.

She darted over to one of the outside racks and grabbed up two of the big garden stakes that were sharpened for pushing into the ground; in a pinch they could be lethal. And she was getting mad now. Whichever possibility was true, she wasn't going to let it go unchallenged.

Larry read her expression, gave her a quick nod of approval that was like a salute. He took one of the stakes.

"Let's find out what's going on here," she whispered.

Chapter 16.

There was a light on in the office. She could see it from back here, in the section of the store that held the candles and lamp oil they carried for when the power went out. Cedar was on the outer edge of the grid, and often the last to be restored, so that self-reliance wasn't just useful, it was necessary.

She knew she hadn't left that light on, just as she knew she hadn't failed to lock the back door.

They moved quietly through aisles they both knew well, avoiding the decorative wind chimes and sticking to the concrete floor rather than the wood section of the older side. Larry paused just outside the open office door. Jessa held her breath. She could hear faint tapping noises from inside. Then they stopped. "Breathe."

The word came from inside and was as much command as comment, but for an instant Jessa couldn't. But she felt Larry relax, and finally managed to draw in that needed air. St. John.

"I should have known," she muttered.

"Car's parked." The tapping resumed.

"We came from the other direction, not past the parking lot," Larry said mildly, stepping into the office, Jessa on his heels. And once she was inside, she almost forgot to breathe all over again.

"What," she said, staring, "are you doing?"

"Finishing."

He was staring at a computer monitor, his fingers flying over a keyboard. Neither of which belonged here, or had been here when she'd closed last night.

But of even more concern was the fact that it seemed nearly all of the stores files were piled all over the office. And all thought of asking him how he'd gotten in here vanished.

He made a half dozen more keystrokes, entered a save command, then stood up and gestured at the chair he'd vacated. "Sit."

"I am not Maui," she snapped.

He blinked, as if startled. "Please," he added, as if that was all that was bothering her. When she didn't move, he reached out and took her arm, as if to guide her, as if she didn't understand what he wanted her to do. The contact seared through her, making her resent this, and him, all the more. Why couldn't she keep her head straight around this guy?

Because you never could, she reminded herself. She made an effort to pull herself together.

"What. Are. You. Doing?"

He looked puzzled by her careful enunciation. He glanced at Larry as if her uncle held the answer to her odd behavior. But Larry was simply watching, an oddly amused expression on his face. Clearly he wasn't suspecting St. John of anything nefarious, even if he did have the guts of Hill's spread all over the room.

"Inputting," he said, indicating the piles with a hand gesture that silently added the words, "Of course." As if she should have realized.

"What into what? And if you can indeed speak in full sentences," Jessa added, "this would be a very good time to demonstrate."

"Your data. Software's ready."

For all its terseness, that was, for him, two complete sentences. It probably would normally have been "Data. Software." Two whole extra words.

"Software," she repeated. She looked at the equipment now on her desk. There was no brand name on it, but it was obviously new. "How about the hardware?"

"This, for now. More, if you like it."

"I-we-can't afford this."

"Later. Look," he said, again gesturing at the chair, and this time adding more quickly, "please."

"I'll run along and check on your mother, girl. You two children play nice."

Her uncle's teasing words sent a flash of memory shooting through her, of one of those long-ago summer days by the river, when she had realized Adam didn't play. At anything. He didn't even fantasize about the future. It was only later that she'd understood that the sweetness of childhood play was something he'd never been allowed to learn, and you couldn't fantasize about a future you didn't think you were ever going to see.

Slowly, she sat in the chair.

Within minutes she realized several things. First, the computer she was sitting at was fast, powerful and high-end. Second, the software it was running was a dream come true; it did every last thing she'd wanted and a few more she hadn't even thought of. Third, and perhaps most startling, it appeared that every bit of the store's information had already been entered.

This time when she spoke, she was looking at him with more than a little awe. "What have you done? Have you been working on this all night?"

"Most," he said.