Redstone, Incorporated: The Best Revenge Part 15

Jessa knew she was having trouble processing it all when the first thing she asked him was, "What happened to the dog?" "Died."

The cold word jabbed at her, and she winced. Of course the dog had died, he was talking about two decades ago. But that hadn't been what she'd asked, and she knew he knew it. The quickness with which he amended the terse answer proved it.

"Sorry. Years later. In Josh's lap, after the first flight of the Hawk III."

She wanted to smile at the real answer, and the image that presented. Josh Redstone. She had suspected, when she'd heard of Redstone's interest in Riverside Paper, but still, of all the places in the world she could have imagined him ending up had she known he was alive, she doubted that Redstone Incorporated would have occurred to her.

"He just...took you on? You helped him with a stray dog and he hired you on the spot?"

His mouth quirked. "Wouldn't have taken a job. Didn't trust...anybody that much."

"But?"

"But Josh is smart about people. Took me-and the dog-to the hangar he was working out of. Said he had too much work to do to look out for Clover-named him for an old airfield-and asked me to do it. Couldn't pay me, but gave me a bunk there, and meals."

"Josh Redstone couldn't pay you?"

"The Hawk I was still a prototype, then." He was remembering, she could tell by the slightly unfocused look of his eyes. "But later that year she took the light aviation world by storm, and Josh was on top of the world."

"You've been with him ever since?"

"Yes."

"That's a long time."

"Only two people with him longer."

She remembered an article about Josh Redstone her father had given her to read a few years earlier. She'd been in college, and frustrated at the f.e.c.klessness of most of her fellow students of the male persuasion. Her father had told her there were other kinds out there, and had handed her the article as proof. She had only scanned it until she got to the part about Redstone being in his twenties when his first design had taken to the air.

"A real man," Jess Hill had said. "Making his own way, not expecting anything to be handed to him, knowing he had to prove himself, prove his design was the best."

Jessa had taken note; her father was a genial, kindly man, but he didn't all that often express such unreserved admiration. She'd read the article carefully, noting that Josh Redstone's life had had its share of lows to go with the highs; he'd lost his wife to cancer, and the article had stated that he'd never remarried.

"And he's a straight shooter," her father had added. "Inspires loyalty, the kind you can't buy with just high salaries."

Her father, as he'd usually been about people, had obviously been right if Josh Redstone had people still with him after that long.

"Who?" she asked, genuinely curious, not simply because she couldn't decide how to ask the rest of what she wanted to know, what he'd done every minute of every day since that awful morning when she'd stood on their rock and stared at the river that had always been a silent companion but then had turned enemy.

"Draven. John. Head of security." She remembered a mention of that, as well, that Redstone Security was a legend in itself, earning respect, admiration and sometimes envy around the world as it worked to protect Redstone and the Redstone family. "Served with Josh's brother in the army. With him when he died. Came to tell Josh, never left."

Beneath her empathy for the story he was telling, she was aware he was being, for him, positively expansive. She seized the mood, thinking that he could clam up anew at any moment.

"And the third?"

"Tess Machado. First pilot he hired. No one else would-she was just a kid, and a woman. Josh saw her land a flight school plane with a collapsed nose gear perfectly in a crosswind that should have made it impossible. Hired her on the spot."

Jessa felt a moment's pleasure that one of Josh Redstone's first people was a woman, mixed with deepening curiosity about the man who saw what others had missed.

As he had with this man, even as a boy.

"The triumvirate," St. John said softly.

"Draven, Tess...and you?"

He nodded. "Mac labeled us."

"Mac?"

"Harlen McClaren. Our honorary fourth. Doesn't really work at Redstone, but he gave Josh the kick start."

The moment he spoke the name of the famous treasure hunter, she remembered the bit in that article she'd read, that McClaren had invested in Redstone when it was nothing but a hangar and a dream.

"We were there when Elizabeth died," he said, his voice tight. "We thought it would destroy him. We were all afraid. Took turns sitting with him, d.o.g.g.i.ng him, nagging him, until he came out of the tunnel."

It struck her hard, that parallel to her own life now, and her mother. And his expression told her he knew it, and she realized he'd meant it to give her hope.

And it had.

"So...what is it you do at Redstone?" "Told you."

She had a feeling there was a bit more to it by now than general gofer. Something faintly amused in his expression told her she was right. But she let it go for the moment.

"Where do you live?"

"Redstone Headquarters."

She chuckled. "I've heard he inspires that kind of dedication, but-" She broke off as she looked at him. "Wait. You meant that...literally?"

He nodded. "Top floor. Apartment. Like to stay close. Monitor things."

"There are apartments in Redstone Headquarters?"

"Three. Mine. Josh's, for when he's jammed. Third for whoever needs it."

That alone told her he was far from just a gofer; if he rated a permanent apartment at Redstone Headquarters, if Josh Redstone wanted him close by to monitor things, he was much more.

"Whoever?" she asked.

"Redstone," he said, "takes care of our own."

That, too, had been one of the main points of the article, that the entire ma.s.sive power of Redstone would be mobilized for the lowest echelon of their people, if necessary. The Redstone family was just that. But she was too focused on the way he said "our own" to give it more than a pa.s.sing thought. The Redstone family, she thought again. He was part of it. And she felt a burst of grateful warmth that he'd landed there, found some kind of family at last.

...the entire ma.s.sive power of Redstone.

Her own thought came back to her, and belatedly the pieces tumbled into place.

This was how he'd done it. The bank, the investigative reporter, the sudden interest of a global giant like Redstone in a company in this rural, un-noteworthy place.

"You are going to destroy him," she whispered. "You're going to use Redstone to grind him up."

This time it was he who echoed her. "Problem?"

"No. No one deserves it more. I'm just...a little in awe." And at finding out battered, tortured Adam Alden had not only landed on his feet, but obviously done so with considerable success. "I mean...Redstone."

He smiled then, and it was the closest to a natural, normal smile she'd seen since he'd come back. "Yes. Redstone."

"Is it...everything I've heard?"

"And more."

"What's he like?"

"Everything you'd hope." He gave her a sideways look. "Some ways, like your father."

She smiled in turn at that. "He admired him. But Dad was happy to stay here, in little Cedar. Josh Redstone built an empire."

"Yes. And fought off those who want to destroy it." His expression darkened. "So far," he muttered, as if to himself.

Jessa couldn't imagine why anyone would want to destroy something as magnificent as Redstone. "Compet.i.tors?"

St. John laughed, harshly. "Can't compete. So clear the field. Sound familiar?"

The tactics did sound too familiar. "Your father."

"Yes."

She had nothing more to say to the stark truth of that. The computer monitor flashed as the bot left on another search. She'd have to adjust that, she thought. Once or twice a day would be enough, every hour was overkill. She smiled wryly as she realized she was making plans on how to use this system she couldn't afford and was already loath to give up. She had- Another realization interrupted her own thoughts.

She had had a Redstone exec, or whatever he was, doing computer grunt work, apparently all night, in her little feed and hardware store.

"This," she said, gesturing at the new setup, "this is from Redstone?"

"Been building our own for a while now," he said. "Barton does the geek work. He's a genius. Could have his own department, but loves working for Gamble."

Gamble. She remembered Uncle Larry mentioning the name. Ian Gamble, that oddity in this day and age, one man who invented. Brilliantly. The article had talked of all those who had tried to lure him away from Redstone, but he'd laughed in their faces. Even the government had come calling, but he wouldn't speak to them at all. Josh Redstone had given him a chance when no one else would, gave him the kind of free rein he would never find anywhere else, he'd told the interviewer. He would stay with Redstone until he died or Josh closed the doors.

"And just how much would last night's work cost, at what Redstone pays you?" He shrugged.

"I don't take charity," she said.

He met her gaze then. And for an instant, the usually cool, steady gaze seemed to soften. "Not. You paid me long ago."

Emotion welled up inside her, a confusing tangle of the old ache and a new one she hadn't yet dared to put a name to.

With uncharacteristic avoidance she dodged thinking about that. She told herself she simply wasn't ready to face that snarl in her already complicated life just now. And as she dodged those thoughts, she ran smack into another. And this one she couldn't dodge, if for no other reason than she had once before, and had never forgiven herself.

"Tyler," she said.

He went still.

"He's where you were. He's in that same h.e.l.l."

"When he goes down, kid will be free."

"If he lives that long," Jessa said, reaching out and grabbing his hands. "He's not as strong as you were, and I don't think as smart."

He shook his head sharply, she wasn't sure at exactly what.

"You learned. You figured out how to dodge your father, how to antic.i.p.ate, to stay clear, and he still nearly destroyed you."

She felt the shiver that went through him then, knew she was reaching him.

"Dam," she said, using his adopted name for the first time, "Tyler's trapped, just like you were. Abandoned, betrayed by those who should love and protect him."

He still didn't speak. Jessa knew she would never have a better chance to break through his single-minded determination.

"I've met his mother. She's as blind, or as weak as yours was. She'll just stand by and let it happen, out of fear or, d.a.m.n it, because she doesn't want to lose what she has."

She heard a sound from him then, an odd sort of strained choking, as if he were fighting down an eruption of words.

"Your plan," she said softly, "it's working. It's getting to him. It's making him angry enough to lose his cool in public, and people are seeing it. They're rethinking. He might even lose this election. But who's paying the real price?"

"Have to stop him." The words came out from behind clenched teeth.

"Yes. I know that. You know I know that, or I wouldn't be doing this in the first place. But Tyler..."

He shuddered this time, she felt it through his hands, still slack under hers.

"We have to help him," she whispered. "We can't leave him alone, helpless, bewildered by things that are so hideous they shouldn't, can't be borne. There are agencies, people to help, more than there were when..."

Her voice trailed off. He was looking at the floor, but she knew he wasn't seeing the old, scarred wood.

"He's your stepbrother," she said. "I know you don't know him, and it probably means less than nothing, after what you've been through, but...I can't leave him to that. I didn't do anything when I should have, once. It's been hard enough living with that. It torments me every single day. I couldn't live with myself if I did it again."

He looked at her then. In the same instant his hands came alive under hers, gripping her fingers and pulling her closer.

He said nothing, simply pulled her into his arms, into an embrace she didn't even think about resisting. She wrapped her arms around him, holding him, wishing that by some magic she could erase it all for him. All the vicious, ugly memories, all the pain, the agony of betrayal, she wished she could take it away.

She couldn't. Nothing could.

But he let her hold him. And for now, in this moment, it was enough.