Page 120 of An Engagement for Erica

“No way he’d do that,” he said.

“He wouldn’t,” his grandfather said.

“So this is a possibility?” he asked, trying not to be stunned over the turn of events his life had taken again.

“Could be,” his grandfather said. “Tell me what happened.”

Rather than tell his grandfather the conversation, he pulled his phone out and played it.

“She’s not very smart,” he said.

His grandfather laughed. “Did you think she would be?”

“I don’t know what to think right now. Or what to do. The last thing I want is more shit being spread around like fertilizerduring planting season when I feel like I’m trying to get the company back to where it should be.”

“And you’re doing a good job with it. How is the other incident going?”

“What?” he asked. “I’d rather deal with this one.”

“My advice here is to let her do what you said. Check out the other guy. To rule this out with your father, the fastest way is for you to give a DNA sample to test against her fetus for a match. If there even is one. Which I doubt.”

“Fuck,” he said. That was the last thing he wanted to do in his life.

To ever have to do.

Least of all for his father.

“Give it a few days,” his grandfather said. “But be prepared it could get out, and if it does, we’ll deal with it.”

“You’re not nervous over this?” he asked.

“Tucker,” his grandfather said. “I’ve been cleaning up your father’s messes since you were in diapers. I wish I could have wrapped him in a diaper completely to give me a break, but it never came.”

Which was another reason he didn’t want to bring this to his grandfather but knew deep down he had to.

At least his grandfather was the voice of reason.

“I guess you were good at keeping me out of it,” he said.

“And if I could have done that now, I would have. Give it a day or so. Tell me about the other incident.”

“Erica interviewed the staff and got statements from other employees and the accused,” he said. “It’s tricky. They’d been dating and no one knew. Both admitted it.”

“And now the woman is claiming it was unwanted attention? It’s from her supervisor?”

“Not her direct supervisor,” he said. “This person has no say over her job or anything like that. What it sounds to me is thatthey didn’t have a good breakup. Many of the reports I’m getting are that the accused is the one actually harassing the supervisor during working hours, and after, more than anything.”

His grandfather snorted. “Which is why I hate people dating at work.”

“It’s not always a bad thing,” he said.

“What you’ve got is different and you know it,” his grandfather said. “Will you be able to get this situation resolved?”

“I’m sure,” he said. “Erica is out of town until Thursday night. She’s spoken to everyone and has asked what they are hoping to gain or what could help. Until then, the two people aren’t working the same shifts. They aren’t even crossing paths while changing shifts. The supervisor wasn’t happy that I switched him, but it wasn’t right to change the defendant until the investigation was complete.”

“It’s always a hard call. Your other choice is to put them on paid leave,” his grandfather said.

“Which I didn’t want to do and draw attention to the fact that Bob was being looked into. Bob agreed since he didn’t want the attention either. We are playing it up as if he’s covering for someone now.”

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