Chapter 8
CHAPTER 8
D inner was hamburgers. Caleb grilled.He’d gone over the plan with Hetti that afternoon.
She’d made pasta salad, a green salad, fruit salad and a fruit tart to be served with ice cream, for dessert
Bethany was happy because he grilled a chicken breast for her. She was trying to stay off beef for a couple of weeks to “clean out her system.”
Marti thought that was strange, living on a cattle ranch, but who was she to judge? She and Sophie ate a lot of chicken because it was cheaper than beef. They’d eaten more beef in the past month than probably in the past year at the house.
She couldn’t think of it as home any longer. Not after finding the threatening notes and no obvious signs of forced entry. Maybe her landlord was part of the cartel, or they’d forced him to give them a key. Or, perhaps they hadn’t needed a key. She didn’t know, and it only depressed her to speculate about it.
Marti couldn’t be unhappy, though. If she hadn’t come to live at the ranch, she and Caleb might never have gotten together. And they were together. They were about to tell their family.
About halfway through the meal, Caleb banged his spoon on his glass of iced tea. “Family, I need your attention.”
When everyone had quieted and was looking at him expectantly, he smiled. “Marti and I wanted to let you know we have decided to see each other…to date, for now. But I fully expect something more to come from our liaison. If you have questions, now would be the time to ask them.”
Bethany smiled and gave them a thumbs-up. “About time you two stopped pussyfooting around each other.”
Sophie raised a hand. “Does that mean that Danny and I have to date, too?”
Caleb laughed.
Marti slapped his leg and shook her head. Then she turned to her daughter. “No, sweetie, that’s not what it means. This won’t affect the relationship you and Danny have. You’re best friends, and now Caleb and I are becoming more than best friends. At least, we hope we are. We’re going to find out, though. It means we’ll be going out on dates and spending more time together than we have before now. Do you understand?”
Her daughter thought for a moment and then she nodded. “I think so. Someday, Caleb might be my daddy. Is that right?”
Marti looked up at Caleb.
He smiled at Sophie. “That’s exactly right. Your mommy and I want to see how much we like each other. That’s what dating is all about. If we find that we love each other, we might get married, and then you and Danny would be brother and sister. But that decision is sometime down the road.”
Sophie grinned. “I’d like for Danny to be my brother.”
“Me, too,” piped up Danny. “I want Sophie to be my sister. Then we can play all the time.”
Marti chuckled. So much for worrying about what everyone would think. “I’d say we’re good, Caleb. Can’t get a better sign of approval than that.”
He took her hand and kissed the top. “No, I’d say we can’t.”
“Are you guys gonna be kissin’ and stuff all the time?” asked Danny.
“’Course they are,” replied Sophie. “That’s what dating means. They get to kiss each other whenever they want.” She looked at her mom. “Boys can be so dumb sometimes.”
Caleb grinned.
Marti’s face heated, and she shook her head. “Believe me, sugar bear. They never outgrow it.”
Caleb reached over and tickled Marti’s side.
She giggled. “I wish you’d stop making me do that. I never used to giggle. It’s not a grownup thing to do.”
His grin grew wider. “Apparently, it’s what you do. Are you not a grownup?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Keep it up, mister. You’ll pay later.”
Caleb’s eyes widened and then narrowed as he chuckled. “I’ll be waiting, darlin’.”
Caleb and Marti left at eight-thirty for the warehouse so they could set up. Caleb had some very sophisticated equipment he intended to use.
She also saw him arm himself with two pistols. “Are you expecting them to give us trouble? Is that why you’re armed this time?”
“I don’t know. I like to be prepared.”
She scratched the side of her nose. “I guess that makes sense. At least if we are discovered we can protect ourselves.”
They didn’t take the Yukon again or Marti’s mustang because either could attract too much attention in a neighborhood like they were going to. The best option was Bethany’s old truck. If it was seen in the neighborhood, it wouldn’t attract attention. The only problem would be if his brother were involved in the exchange of money for drugs. He might recognize the truck.
Caleb hoped Jamison had been gone for so long that he wouldn’t remember what her truck looked like. If he remembered, it was likely the game, and the mission, would be over.
Once they arrived at the warehouse district, Caleb pulled up in front of the old warehouse across from the exchange point. He left Marti with all the equipment and went to park about two blocks away.
She appreciated he didn’t want to hump all the equipment from the truck to the building they would be in tonight. The warehouse was open, Caleb had made sure before he left.
Marti began moving the equipment inside, away from any prying eyes.
By the time Caleb returned, she’d moved most of the recording equipment inside. Some of his video equipment was all that was left, and she’d just put the camera on her shoulder when he arrived.
“Here, let me take that.” He lifted the strap for the video camera from where it lay across her body.
“I’ve got this.” She pulled the strap from his grasp. “You get the rest of it. It’s too heavy for me. I don’t know what you’ve got in there, but it weighs a ton.”
“This is sound equipment so we can hear and record what they are saying. Perhaps some voices will be recognizable, and we can put faces with the voices and know who is saying what and who is really behind all of this.”
She turned to look at him. “Aren’t you afraid it’s Jamison?”
He clenched his jaw before he spoke. “No.”
“But—”
He took a deep breath and clenched his fists. “If it is, he’ll be dealt with just like everyone else. If he’s doing this, poisoning our kids, then he needs to pay for it. I have no sympathy for him. He was given everything. He had a good life, a life most people envied, and he threw it away.”
Marti heard the bitterness but didn’t know how to fix it. “He did, but there is nothing you can do for him now. He’s made his bed, now he must lie in it, as my mother used to say.”
“I know, but I can’t help but think I did something wrong.”
“Caleb.” She placed a hand on his right arm. “Look at me.”
He turned toward her.
“You didn’t raise Jamison. He was a grown man when your parents passed. And nothing your parents did made him choose this path. Greed made him choose this path or perhaps power. I can’t figure out how he became head of the Bozeman branch of the cartel in so little time. He must have brought something to the table.”
“I can’t imagine?—”
Her grip tightened on his arm. “What? What can’t you imagine? Or maybe what can you imagine?”
He pulled his arm free and turned away from her. Then he pulled the door open and motioned for her to enter before him. “What if he’s bringing the drugs in across our property? We own a lot of land, and we don’t have the personnel, nor do I want them, to keep track of every square inch. I’ve done my best to treat the land well and keep it healthy. We rotate the herd and don’t let them take all the grass in any one area. We do the same with the horses. But in places, the land abuts the highway. It would be easy enough to take the drugs over my land and avoid the law in and around Bozeman.”
“Let’s get this equipment set up on the second floor.”He picked up the box with the sound equipment.
“I’m following you.”
He shook his head. “No, I’m following you. I don’t want you falling down the stairs.”
She looked up at him. “So, we’ll both go? Who’s going to rescue us if that happens?”
Caleb stilled. “If that happens, we probably won’t need rescuing.”
Marti thought about it a moment and then her eyes widened, and she swallowed hard. “Then I guess I better take great care, so we get to go home…alive.”
“That would be preferable.”
When she reached the top of the stairs, she headed over to where she’d put the rest of the equipment. It was the same window they’d used last time to overlook the warehouse across the street.
“Through my research into the money laundering, I know you do very well ranching and you’re the CEO of Malone Tech, Inc., but I couldn’t find out much about what that company does.”
Caleb began setting up the equipment. “The ranch pays for itself and more. I don’t dip into my other income for the ranch operations. The tech company supposedly does toy manufacturing and that is what I used to do for the most part. That was originally how I started to make money. But now I make chips for military guidance systems. I still make some toys to keep up the fa?ade but that’s not where we make our profit.”
Marti set up the tripods for the video camera and sound equipment. That was about all she could do since she wasn’t familiar with Caleb’s equipment. “Those are fairly diverse businesses. How did one develop into the other?”
He worked quickly while he talked. “The toys we build are basically robots. They use highly sophisticated chips. When the government got ahold of them, they decided mine would work in their guidance systems better than what they were using and got in touch with me. The business took off from there.”
“Wow, a case of finally getting paid for your knowledge. That kind of thing doesn’t happen all that often. Sometimes the government comes in and takes what they want and doesn’t give you squat, you know—eminent domain.”
Caleb laughed andthen shushed himself. “You have quite the imagination.”
“It’s not imagination, Caleb, I did an investigative piece on instances of eminent domain by the state, for highways and such. They paid the landowner nowhere near the real value of the property. Often, they paid what the Assessor’s Office had levied. We both know those figures have very little to do with reality.” She fisted her hands and turned away.
“I’m sorry.” He placed a hand on her shoulder and turned her back. “I didn’t realize, but I should have. You put a lot of research into your opinions and don’t take anything lightly.”
Marti closed her eyes for a minute to get control of herself. “It’s just the way the state used eminent domain ruined lives. It took land that might have been in the family for five generations, and sometimes more. They killed people’s dreams and didn’t even pay them enough to start over somewhere else.”
Caleb wrapped her in his arms. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“I hoped I could educate the public about the practice, but the publisher buried my article at the back of the fashion week section. People read that section to find out what the latest “It” girl is wearing, or hyping, or selling. It’s ridiculous.”
“It sounds like it. Hopefully, there are more people who realize that it’s for show and not for real.”
Marti realized she was going on about things that weren’t important, but she was nervous. This was a dangerous operation. What if we’re caught? “There are, but they aren’t very vocal, unlike the other group.”
For his part, Caleb seemed to ignore her and let her talk.
“Caleb? I told you that I can shoot a gun; Why don’t you provide me with one?”
He shook his head. “I don’t want you to be a target.”
“If they are shooting at us, I’m already a target,” she reasoned.
Caleb sighed. “You’re right. Here.” He pulled a Glock from the back of his waistband and handed it to her.
Marti took it, checked the load, and made sure a bullet was in the chamber, ready to go. Then she put the safety on, so she wouldn’t accidentally shoot herself.
“You really do know firearms.”
“I told you my dad taught me, at least I think I told you. Maybe I didn’t.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “I think I would remember something like that about my new girlfriend.”
She felt a brief flutter at the term. Marti had been no one’s girlfriend for many years. “I love it when you say things like that. I want to go to Bozeman tomorrow. I need to get new clothes for Sophie and as I told you I wanted a new dress for tomorrow night.”
He worked on setting up his equipment. “What’s the matter with the black one? I like it. I like touching your back when we dance.”
She loved he liked her choice of a dress and how it looked on her body. “People have already seen me in the black one. I can’t wear it again for a couple of weeks…at least. But I have a red one that I brought with me…just in case. I can wear it. I don’t need a new one.”
Caleb shook his head and threw up his arms. “I give up. There’s no understanding women.”
Marti chuckled. “I just wanted you to know what my plans are for tomorrow. Sophie and I will hit the Gallatin Valley Mall. We find what we need there.”
“Danny and I will go with you. He needs clothes as well. I have to admit, I’m glad we’re ordering the supplies online. I can’t imagine the tons of people at Walmart right now. I’m really glad not to have to go there.”
“We’ll head out about nine-thirty. The mall should be opening when we arrive.”
“Perfect.” She looked out the window as she set up the voice recorder. When she was done, all the equipment she handled was in place. She sat on the floor, cross-legged.
Caleb finished setting up the video equipment and then sat next to her to wait. “Tell me more about you. What makes Marti Parker tick?”
“First, you should know that I love my job. I won’t be sidetracked by anyone but Sophie. My ex-husband couldn’t understand that. He was a doctor and thought I should be the quiet little housewife with no life but serving him. He was stuck in the fifties.
“After Sophie arrived, I slowed down on the reporting assignments. I had a baby to care for and couldn’t worry about what my husband thought. Well, he apparently thought I didn’t spend enough time with him and too much with Sophie. He found a cute, young nurse to console him. One of my friends worked in the hospital and told me. Anyway, I found out what was happening when I thought he was working late and in staff meetings. He was visiting this little Sheryl person at her apartment. They even were discovered in the doctors’ lounge and in his office. I think he wanted me to find out because he was too much of a coward to ask for a divorce. He didn’t even want partial custody of Sophie and didn’t protest when I moved from Denver to Bozeman. So, you have my background. Now, tell me the rest of yours, if it’s not too painful.”
“I told you about Sarah’s cancer. She treated it aggressively. Chemo and radiation after a double mastectomy, but it was too late. I discovered breast cancer responds very well to treatment if found early, but we didn’t. At least I thought we didn’t, then she told me she had found a lump, but she thought it was an enlarged milk gland. It wasn’t. Danny was almost two-years old, and I was alone with him. I wasn’t wealthy then. The company had just started to take off, and I had to put in a lot of time there. I took him with me as much as possible. Then, as the company grew and I could put money toward it, I started a daycare at the company, and it was very popular. Apparently, a lot of my employees enjoyed having their kids nearby. And the price was probably half of what they would have paid elsewhere because I picked up most of the teachers’ salaries. Being at the company no rent, or taxes, or utilities were extra. The employees, especially our nursing mothers loved having their babies close. I put a nursing lounge in the daycare center with several overstuffed armchairs and a couple of couches with lots of pillows. I tried to make it as comfortable as possible. Also established was a lounge for fathers of bottle-fed infants. Danny was eating a lot of solid adult foods but still wanted his bottle before bed. I probably shouldn’t have indulged him, but it felt like the right thing to do, at the time.”
“I don’t think anything is wrong with the way you handled the situation. Danny was probably missing his mommy, though he couldn’t articulate that.”
Caleb ran a hand through his hair. “You’re the first person I’ve talked to about Sarah. My parents tried to help, but I wouldn’t let them very often. I was a helicopter father. I wanted to be the one who provided him with everything. They could be the doting grandparents. They eventually fell into that reality and started to ask for him on some weekends but not every one like they did before. And Bethany was great. She moved in with us and took care of all the housework, as well as watching Danny during the times the daycare wasn’t open…like weekends… which I worked a lot of while getting the business off the ground. Once it really started to build momentum, I had more time. I hired the best people, and they pretty much run the company. I retained controlling interest with fifty-five percent of the stock. My parents had five percent, which I got back when they died. Bethany has five percent and until recently, so did Jamison. I took his stock back, so now I guess I have sixty-five percent. In any case, I always will keep the largest percentage. I added to the ranch a little at a time until I got the government contract. Then I purchased the largest acreage I could get adjacent to the land I already had. That’s how I ended up with three-hundred-and-sixty thousand acres. I run a thousand head of cattle and about one-hundred horses there. We rotate them into different parts of the grazing land. That’s why we didn’t see any animals when we went on our trail ride. Bethany could give you an exact count of the horses. That’s her domain.”
“I feel there’s so much more to say to each other, but I?—”
Caleb put two fingers to his lips. “Shh. They’re here.”