Chapter Thirty-Four
A theory is forming, one so far-fetched that I don’t even dare voice it to Dalton …
until he says the same thing as we walk back.
I don’t want to imagine what Yolanda would say.
It’s outrageous enough that she wouldn’t even scoff or tease us about our paranoia.
She’d probably gently suggest that it’s time for us to start seeing Isabel professionally, to work through our past trauma. And she might not be wrong.
I pick up Rory while Dalton gets my interview subject.
I’m in the town hall playing with my daughter when Dalton arrives with Muriel.
He takes the baby to play with her across the room.
Muriel seems to relax at that, which means she didn’t learn a damn thing from her first interview, when Kendra was in the background.
I’m sitting at the desk. When Muriel approaches, I empty the coins onto the desk. She sucks in a breath.
“Yours?” I say.
“What? No. I—”
“The key was concealed in your dresser. The box it opened was buried in one of the planters. Before you say you were framed, I’ve lifted fingerprints and I have yours on file.”
She crosses her arms. “Those are my private property.”
“They wouldn’t have been allowed into town. No valuables, for your own safety. You received the box and the coins while you were here. Nontraceable payment for a job. That job being the crime you’ve already admitted to. Espionage.”
“Espionage?” She huffs the word. “I checked Phil’s desk for operational records.”
“And you did the same in his home. You entered illegally and attempted to steal information from an institution. That is espionage.” I lean back in the chair.
“Though it was a nice touch, crying about how you’d been tricked by another man.
Poor Muriel just never learns. You weren’t tricked either time, were you?
You were in on the first crime. Before your partner double-crossed you and fled with the money. ”
“What? Absolutely not.” She stands. “I won’t stand here and take this victim-blaming—”
“We don’t care about that incident. We care about this one. You sold out Haven’s Rock—and the people who helped you get here.”
Her eyes blaze. “Helping me would have been finding that bastard and getting my money back. Or giving me money to start over. Not dumping me in the middle of nowhere.”
“You weren’t dumped anywhere, Muriel. You were offered this option, and you accepted it. No one forced your hand. No one conned you. Now you’re complaining because it wasn’t what you wanted? That’s like eating a free burger and then blaming the diner because you actually wanted sushi.”
“My bastard of an ex-boyfriend stole everything from me. Do you get that? I spent my life working and saving to be financially independent and stable. He stole that. All of it. Then I meet someone who offers me a lot of money to get a few papers? Of course I’m going to do it. You would, too.”
If she wasn’t in on the original theft, then I feel for her situation. I really do. I also worked and skimped and saved to be comfortable on my own. If someone stole that security, would I have stolen from others to get it back? Of course not, but I won’t sneer at her choice.
As for her anger at us, I’m disappointed, as anyone is when they think they’ve given someone a gift, only to have them spit on it.
But that happens here, just as it happened in Rockton.
Desperate people make desperate choices, and sometimes, when the stress disappears, they look around and decide this wasn’t what they wanted.
Of course, we’re the reason their stress disappeared.
But we can’t and don’t expect everyone to appreciate it.
I won’t harp on the theft or the betrayal. I only wanted to confront her with them both so she stops lying. I won’t confront her about deliberately misleading us regarding Rutherford. He obviously told her to describe Rogers, and she did as she was instructed.
No, I want something else here.
“Back to what you were asked to get,” I say. “You claim he wasn’t curious about the purpose of Haven’s Rock? I find that hard to believe.”
She shrugs. “Suit yourself.”
“He never pushed for answers? Even clues? About what’s happening here?”
“In your top-secret little sanctuary? That’s what you sold me. What you sell all of us. Only you don’t even provide that. He didn’t ask what’s happening here because he already knew. He’d figured out exactly what Haven’s Rock is.”
I frown, as if confused. “He knew what we do here? Don’t tell me he only wanted information on our supply chain and operations. That’s not worth what he was paying you.”
“He wanted dirt,” she says smugly. “He knew there must be problems, and he wanted details. He asked how things were running, whether you and Eric were having trouble juggling it all with the baby—he even knew about the baby. I told him everything seemed to be running smoothly. He asked about discontent, angry residents. I told him I wasn’t happy—this place is hardly the Ritz—and I said people do complain about this and that, but he said that was all petty stuff.
He wanted real dirt, and he thought I could find it with Phil’s files.
He knew all about Phil—his name, what he did here, everything.
He said Phil documents everything, and he wanted his records.
Inventory, bookkeeping, journals. Everything. ”
“Looking for problems.”
“Seems so.” She smirks. “I get the feeling someone’s planning a hostile takeover, and I’m here for it. Imagine how much better this place could be if you had some real money behind it.”
Oh, we can imagine. Because we’ve been there before.
I find Phil working alongside Isabel in the Roc. It’s open for another hour before curfew kicks in. I ask him to join me, and we head for the clinic to check on Storm. I enter to find April gone and Storm pacing.
“Ready to go home, huh, girl?” I pat her head. “Tonight, I think.”
I settle her in—she’s not supposed to be too mobile.
Then I turn to Phil. “You said you had a theory about the would-be thefts, one you weren’t ready to share.
Because it made you feel paranoid, I bet.
Who you think was ultimately behind it.” I meet his gaze.
“The same people who were behind Rockton.”
His exhale tells me I’m right. I catch him up on everything we learned, from both Muriel and Rogers. When I finish, he slumps into a chair, and he’s quiet for a few moments.
“Phil?” I say.
“I should have said something, but yes, I thought I was being paranoid. I was still working it through.”
“Muriel said they were looking for dirt. Reasons to shut us down?”
His lips purse. “More like reasons to convince you to let them in.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Muriel speculated on a hostile takeover.”
“She has a background in corporate finance. She recognized what this was. I wouldn’t call it a hostile takeover, though.
If they did that, the staff would all leave.
émilie would pull out. They’d only have the buildings, which they could construct themselves.
What they want is…” He shrugs. “My guess is that they’re homing in on Eric. ”
“That’s what I told émilie. In Rockton, they harassed him endlessly, implied he wasn’t doing a good enough job. Now they know better.”
“Yes. émilie says their new venture is failing. They likely believe Eric is the key. They can be very simplistic that way. They may recognize what the rest of you bring to the table, but Eric is the Pied Piper. Lure him to their side, and everyone else follows, possibly even émilie.”
“So they’re trying to see whether we’ve bitten off more than we can chew, especially now that we have a baby. New parents who’ve embarked on a massive undertaking might be ripe for a friendly takeover.”
Phil nods. “As you recall, initially, they hoped to recruit Eric for their new venture. But now that Haven’s Rock is established—and their lodge is failing—they’ll offer their assistance here, in return for allowing their residents in, while assuring you that their residents are nothing worse than white-collar criminals, and you can certainly continue offering free spots to those in need. From there, it will escalate.”
“Like it did before. From a sanctuary to a for-profit operation. Except, I would presume, that escalation won’t take decades this time.
” I scratch behind Storm’s ears. “But what I can’t figure out is the link to the mining camp.
Whoever is in charge of that knew about Haven’s Rock before they moved in.
Knew exactly what we are. Someone working for them who also works for the old Rockton board? ”
Phil is quiet for a moment. Then he says, “A corporation’s interests often extend beyond a single product or line of products. In some cases, they are somewhere between a hydra and a nesting doll.”
“Many arms, the main body deeply hidden in shell companies.”
“Yes. Rockton brought in money. A great deal of it, from residents with the means and the need to disappear. But Rockton was one project. It wouldn’t have been worth the required corporate structure all by itself.”
“There were other Rocktons?”
He considers. “Likely not in North America. Otherwise, their new version would be running much smoother. I suspect what they have are other variations on the theme.”
“Such as an illegal prison camp?”
He frowns, and I tell him about the mining operation.
“Oh.” He goes into deep-thought mode while I pet Storm. Finally, he says, “I don’t wish to complain, Casey, but how long have you known what that camp truly is?”
“Less than twenty-four hours.”
He exhales. “Thank you. I’d hate to think you had been sitting on this, when I would have immediately seen a potential connection.”
“Well, maybe if we knew that Rockton wasn’t a single project, we’d have seen it sooner ourselves. But if émilie saw the connection, she didn’t tell us. That’s a problem.”