Page 7 of Free to Run
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“You’re such a prick.It’s amazing we have any staff left in the Virginia office,” my best friend, brother-in-law, and partner, Caleb Lockwood, laughs in my ear a few minutes later from the back seat of the hired car driving me to the terminal, where I’ll fly the company jet into Teterboro. “For that matter, New York.”
“I can’t deny that I enjoyed it immensely,” I say calmly.
Caleb laughs harder. “You would.”
True. I can’t dispute that. Melody Dempsey was a huge mistake in more ways than one, in my opinion.
First, I’ve found her work in the Virginia office to be merely par when we need superior performance at every turn. Her credentials and her interview were exceptional, but now that she’s in the role, she’s barely making the grade. That won’t continue much longer, or she’ll have the choice of stepping down from her current role to one with less responsibility or leave the company altogether. We can’t risk her jeopardizing a recently repaired relationship with our government contract holders by allowing shoddy work to pass through.
Second, I shouldn’t have gotten drunk that close to my sister’s birthday years ago. My anger and guilt for failing to find her always left me self-destructive. I was tempted, briefly, into a single night in Melody’s bed and didn’t have the common sense to restrain myself. It crossed every moral line I had. Don’t fuck around with employees. Don’t fuck around with the business. Don’t show weakness to an enemy. Don’t show weakness, period.
But at the time, my sister had been missing for twenty-four years. The flicker of hope I carried around inside of me was slowly beginning to fade. And between a bottle of Scotch, a depression so deep it was like a crater, and the persistent seduction of Melody’s curves, I threw my rules out the window.
She’s been trying for a second round ever since. I’ve tried to shut her down, politely, until today.
Her scheming machinations to get me back in her bed and lack of attention to our work would cost us a cool million. My temper rekindled at the realization. And while I know my best friend would enjoy taking a few shots at me over the next few weeks with the things he’s learned from reading Melody’s emails and listening to her phone conversations, it was worth listening to him to shut that crap down. This time for good.
“I swear, if that office isn’t in order by Monday, we’ll run ops back out of New York and shut it down. She’ll be out on her ass,” I threaten, dropping my head back against the seat.
“I believe you, buddy. I’ve already put the team leads here on alert.” He doesn’t stop clicking away on his computer, saying, “Seriously, it was a massive fuckup. And if I wasn’t worried about the fallout we’re already taking because of the Mildred issue, I’d have let you fire her ass already. We had plenty of justification.”
The Mildred issue. I let out a long sigh of frustration. I can’t even take his head off for the incident he just brought up, because that burden is equally shared between us.
Thirty years ago, Caleb’s mother, Mildred, and my father, Jack, were having an affair. They colluded together to abandon their respective families, including all their children, and run off together. That plan would have been fine, except my father was still sleeping with my mother. Consequently, my sister was born.
As the story goes, my father was so overcome by his conscience after my sister arrived, he decided to give his marriage another try, ignoring his lover. So, she decided to dispose of the child that took him away. For years after my sister disappeared, I despaired, wondering if she was alive. When I was old enough, I spent every spare minute searching for any trace of her, until last year, when I found her alive and living under the name Cassidy Freeman, now Cassidy Lockwood.
Amazing how we’ve come full circle in some ways.
Driving over a pothole on the Dulles Toll Road, I’m jostled from my thoughts. I hear Caleb still clicking away over the phone line. “Is there anything else?” I ask brusquely.
“Not on my side. Other than did you talk with Cassidy? Dinner tonight?”
I outright groan. “Shit, I forgot. It’s not tomorrow?”
Caleb laughs again. “I take it you don’t want me to request any anatomically correct food demonstrations tonight?”
I shudder at the thought of any of my sister’s adopted family making phallic symbols out of food. “If you do, after the day I’ve had, I’m walking out the door,” I warn.
Caleb, the bastard, continues to laugh at me, knowing there’s no controlling the Freemans when they’re all together.
My car approaches the Dulles VIP terminal. “Hanging up. I’m pulling up to the airport.”
“Safe travels, brother. FYI, Cass arranged for your place to be cleaned and stocked. Just letting you know so you won’t think that someone broke in.”
I’m touched by the small gesture. My relationship with my sister is still too new for me to take such things for granted. “I’ll thank her later. What time am I expected at the farm?”
“See you anytime after six.”
“Later.” I disconnect the call and jump out of the back seat of the car.
Grabbing my carry-on, I walk through security to the Hudson private jet. Within thirty minutes, I’m airborne, heading back to New York.
Toward home.
4
