Hot Water (2 page)

Even the weather cooperated. The storm clouds that gathered every afternoon remained empty threats. They’d scowl down at Scotia, then scurry away to dump their rain elsewhere.

But sooner or later, the storm has to break and you’re going to get soaked.

Which was how I came to be yelling at the man in the Armani suit.

I knew it was an Armani suit because I’d dealt with enough of them when I’d worked in D.C. Not sure how they did it, but it seemed as if every suit jacket had an attitude sewn into the lining: money can buy anything.

Well, it wasn’t buying me.

Elizabeth and I hadn’t risked everything—including our lives—to start this advocacy firm just to be dictated to by a guy who happened to have enough money to indulge his taste in designer suits.

Armani guy’s name was Owen Grandel, and he’d flown all the way up from South Carolina to consult with Elizabeth and me. He was in his late thirties, trim in that personal-trainer executive way, with a shaved head that focused your attention on his dark eyes and spray-tan complexion.

He had
not
come to Scotia to be abused. Or so his expression informed me without bothering with words.

“We aren’t in the business of whitewashing a corporation’s dirty laundry,” I continued, in the mood for a fight and quite happy that Grandel was obliging.

He said nothing. Simply crossed his arms over his chest, leaned his shoulders back, and smiled. The kind of smile you give a precocious kid who’s acting out and you’re tolerating his behavior just because you know how wrong he is.

David hates it when I smile at him that way.

Thankfully Elizabeth stepped between us before I tried to wipe that smile off Grandel’s face. We were in the living room of her house—which doubled as our office space—and she had just brought coffee on a tray. “I’m sorry, Mr. Grandel, we’re out of cream. Will milk do?”

I rolled my eyes as she almost curtsied. Then, while Grandel busied himself mixing and stirring his coffee, finally taking a seat in the Queen Anne chair beside the fireplace, Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder at me with a glare that could have sparked tinder.

Play nice,
she mouthed at me, as if I were the one making trouble. She sat down across from Grandel, smoothing her skirt and crossing her ankles like a lady before reaching for her own cup of coffee.

This is why I usually let Elizabeth handle the suits. I’m more of a field person—get me out there with the regular folks and I’ll get to the truth of what’s what and who’s who and figure out a way to fix things. Then it’s up to Elizabeth to cross the legal “t’s,” negotiate a workable solution for all parties, and collect our paycheck.

So far it’s been a pretty good system. Until today.

“I’m not sure that you understand exactly what we do, Mr. Grandel.” Elizabeth leaned across the table to snag a sugar cube, her sleeve brushing against his knee.

I barely contained my snort. It was very obvious Grandel didn’t understand anything except what his money could buy.

“Oh, but I do, Ms. Hardy.” He leaned back and crossed his legs, watching her through half-shut eyes.

When I worked in D.C., I knew men like him. Smooth, charming. Sociopaths. Women would fall all over themselves to do whatever they wanted. Poor sod, he had no idea who he was up against. Elizabeth wasn’t like that.

“Which is why I’m willing to pay extra. Above your customary fee schedule.” With an elegant flourish of his manicured fingers, he slid a check from his pocket and placed it in front of her.

Elizabeth has a pretty good poker face, but I could tell the amount on the check rocked her. She took a sip of coffee and set her cup down beside the check, ignoring it.

“That’s half,” he persisted when she didn’t leap at his offer. “You get the same when you finish.”

“And who decides when the job is finished?”

I stepped forward, unwilling to believe she was even considering. She glared at me and I froze.

“You do, of course.” His voice was a low bedroom purr.

Her mouth twisted as she considered. Then she stood in one graceful movement, taking the check with her. “We need to consult about this.”

“Of course,” he said with a gracious wave of his hand, as if it were his house, not hers. “Take all the time you need.”

I know my mouth dropped open because I felt it snap shut again when she took my arm and dragged me out of the room and across the hall to our shared office in what used to be the dining room. She closed the door behind us, then sagged back against it.

“Holy shit, AJ.”

The check dropped from her fingers, flitting through the air on the sultry August breeze wafting in through the open windows, and curled up on the hardwood floor, face down. I picked it up, turned it over.

My face went cold as I read the amount. Counted the zeroes. Five of them. My mind did a back flip—no, that figure
couldn’t
be right—then sloshed right side up as I looked again.

Half a million dollars. Which meant a million for the entire job if we took it.

Enough to send David to any college he wanted, to bankroll our company for the next decade, to be able to work on projects that really mattered. Freedom, security, opportunity.

All I’d have to do was betray everything I believed in and let myself be bought.

TWO

Elizabeth liked feeling the solid oak door at her back. It reassured her that this wasn’t a dream. Made her feel as if her father and his father and all the generations of Hardys who had lived here in this house stood behind her, ready to support her even if she might be making the wrong choice.

She knew as soon as she’d heard Grandel’s pitch that he would be hard to say no to, but a million dollars? For what basically amounted to a public relations stunt?

Small change to a man like Grandel, but for her and AJ. . . . The lace curtains fluttered at the windows and she inhaled the crisp mountain air. So very different from hazy, hot, and humid Philly, where even eight stories up in an air-conditioned fortress of a law office the heat still weighed you down. The thermometer told her it was almost as hot here in Scotia, eighty-two in the shade, but somehow it didn’t feel so bad. Her house here didn’t even have air conditioning; the breeze took care of that.

“We can’t do it.” AJ didn’t sound so certain as she stared at Grandel’s check. Elizabeth knew she was thinking of everything that money could buy for David. Unlike Elizabeth, AJ had never had money. Elizabeth wasn’t sure if that made the decision easier or more difficult.

“Why not?” Elizabeth asked, squaring herself for a battle. Even though this house was paid for, she hadn’t been able to sell her condo in Philly, and their cases so far had barely covered the mortgage she owed. “I’m tired of counting pennies and thinking twice about everything I want to buy. If that makes me shallow, so be it. But damn it, I didn’t leave my entire life behind to come here and constantly worry. I thought we were meant to be making a difference, changing the world one case at a time, isn’t that what you said?”

AJ looked surprised. “Isn’t that what we’re doing? We’ve been getting paid—”

“Two thousand from Reverend Morley’s church. Didn’t even cover the lab costs of testing their groundwater. And the eleven thousand from Energy Alternatives went straight to pay you and cover our expenses.”

“I thought we were splitting the profits,” AJ murmured, grinding the toe of her cowboy boot into the floor.

Whoops.
Even though both of their names were on the office door—capitalizing on AJ’s reputation as an environmental activist—Elizabeth was in charge of the finances. “There haven’t been any profits to split. Not yet. That’s okay, it’s how any business is when it starts up. And my dad’s life insurance is covering things so far. But—”

AJ jerked her chin up at that, face flushed with wounded pride. “No. We’re partners. You shouldn’t be paying me and not yourself.”

“I don’t have a kid. And a grandmother who needs my help. Not to mention your family . . . ” Elizabeth stopped. AJ’s parents were a sore subject, one they usually avoided—just as AJ did her best to avoid them in person. It was a fine juggling act since AJ’s son, David, wanted to get to know his family, even the crazy side of the family. Elizabeth had no idea how AJ managed everything, but somehow she did. But it took its toll on her, and Elizabeth could see it.

Thank goodness Elizabeth and her ex, Hunter, had never had children. She couldn’t imagine how warped they’d be, caught in the middle of Hunter’s narcissistic infidelities and her escaping him by fleeing to the office and indulging in over-working. No kid deserved that.

“How could we?” AJ finally ventured, staring at the check once more. “I mean, what he’s asking—we don’t have any experience with that kind of thing. He needs a PR specialist, not an advocacy firm. Besides, we’re supposed to be working for the people, not the corporations.”

“Tell you what. How about if we go back and listen to him—really listen. No interrupting to debate the environmental impact of nuclear waste.”

“But he—”

“I know you don’t like him.” AJ was prone to making snap judgments about people—something she said she was working hard to change.

“I never said that—”

“Face it, AJ, you’re a reverse-snob.”

“I like you, don’t I?”

“Not at first. At first you thought I was just another stuck-up lawyer out to make a buck.”

That coaxed a smile from her. “Maybe.”

“You decided the same thing about Grandel as soon as he walked in with his Armani suit and two-thousand-dollar shoes. How about if we give him the benefit of the doubt and listen without judging? Then we can decide. Together.” Elizabeth pulled the door open. “Sound like a plan, partner?”

AJ rolled her eyes but plastered on a smile and strode back out to where Grandel waited.

“We’re willing to listen.” Elizabeth leaned against the mantel, looking down on Grandel, giving him her best hard-assed negotiator look.

Grandel didn’t blink. His smile was slow and wide, as if she and AJ had already agreed. “Look. We’re all adults here,” he began. “We know that if we put AJ Palladino’s name and face on an environmental problem, people are going to understand that we’re taking it seriously.”

“I don’t care how much money you’re offering,” AJ said, pacing on the other side of the coffee table, her boot heels clacking against the oak floor. “I’m not a PR shill.”

“Not asking you to be one. I could hire a good PR firm at half the price. But I need more than good press. I need the community to publicly support me.”

“But your problem is with possible radiation leaks from your plant. I don’t know anything about investigating that kind of environmental contamination.”

“Got plenty of investigators. Between the NRC, the Department of Energy, and my own group, the investigators are tripping over themselves. What I need is someone who will talk to the community—someone who speaks their language, not scientific mumbo-jumbo about microsieverts and isotope degradation.”

AJ nodded, shoving her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and rocking on her heels. Slowing down long enough to think about it.

“I don’t need you to solve the plant’s problems. I need someone to interface with the community.”

Elizabeth swallowed a chuckle when AJ’s eyebrow tweaked at “interface.”

Grandel was smart enough to notice and hurried on, “Someone folks can trust. If you say everything is being done, they’ll believe you. If you say that it’s safe, they’ll trust you.”

“Mitigation,” AJ said. “That’s what the lawyers call it.”

Grandel shrugged and didn’t look abashed. Instead he met AJ’s gaze head on. “I’ll be honest with you. That’s exactly what I need. Mitigation. To reduce the impact these accidents have had. Someone to get the public off my back long enough for us to get up and running at full capacity. My company’s future depends on this plant’s success. I’m putting everything I have on the line here.”

AJ tensed up, began pacing again, and Elizabeth was certain he’d lost her.

But then Grandel continued, “Remember, Colleton Landing is the only medical isotope plant in the United States. And with Chalk River in Canada closing down, it’s going to be the only place in the entire Western Hemisphere where doctors and patients can get the nuclear isotopes they need. Do you have any idea how many patients we can help? Millions. But I can’t do it if the locals shut us down because they’re afraid.”

“You think they’re ignorant?” AJ asked, scorn coloring her tone. She was proud of her small-town, self-taught roots. “Small-town fools?”

Elizabeth braced herself, ready to wade in and do damage control. To her surprise, Grandel didn’t take offense.

“Then I’m a fool right along with them. My brother and I were raised just down river from Colleton Landing. That’s why we chose it for the plant. A chance to give something back. But after what happened in Japan, I guess everyone’s paranoid when it comes to a topic like radiation. That’s why I need you. The townsfolk need to understand that there’s no real risk—and they need to know what we’re doing so they can see how hard we’re working to keep them, to keep everyone, safe.”