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  Malfeasance was too nice a word for what Nations Oil had done, especially considering Colleen could have been killed. “Cathryn, why are you giving me this?”

  “I don’t even know. Maybe because I’m an honest person and I don’t want them to get away with it.”

  “If I go waving it around, people will want to know where I got it.”

  “You can’t show it to anyone, Stacie. I’d lose my job. I just thought if you knew for sure it was there, you could figure out a way to make it public.”

  “Yeah, well…thanks to Big Oil’s smear campaign, we don’t have a whole lot of credibility with the public. Most of them think we’re whacko terrorists, remember?” She was convinced Cathryn no longer felt that way. “Colleen’s out of the hospital now and ready to get back to work. I could pass this on to her and explain that she has to be careful not to reveal you as a source. I bet she could back trace that information in the tanker logs and the weigh stations, and make it look like she found it on her own.”

  “She knows her stuff. That day she had the accident, she was on the press tour asking a lot of uncomfortable questions.”

  With Cathryn already so distressed about her company’s actions, Stacie contemplated not saying anything about Marty, but knowing just how far Nations Oil had gone to cover up the truth might strengthen her resolve.

  “What happened to Colleen wasn’t an accident.” She shared the details of Brian’s investigation and her discovery of Jenn’s new boyfriend as a spy. “So not only did he almost kill somebody and spy on us for Depew, he had sex with my best friend under false pretenses. That’s practically rape in my book.”

  Cathryn visibly shuddered. “I can’t stand Depew. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he was behind Colleen’s accident because he showed up at the press tour and practically yelled at her when she asked about one of your surveillance drones.”

  “Marty’s out of the picture now, locked up on drug charges. It’s possible he’ll turn on Depew if he feels enough heat. Nothing would make me happier than seeing that asshole in jail too.”

  “All the numbers are in here, and my notes too so you can make sense of them.” Cathryn lobbed the envelope onto the bed and stood. “I have to go. I’m really sorry.”

  “I understand.” She hooked Cathryn’s arm as she walked by. “I’ll forgive you for not staying the night but you aren’t getting out of here without kissing me.”

  It wasn’t their usual kiss, the kind that escalated in passion until they tore off their clothes and tumbled into bed. This one was deliberate, overflowing with emotion.

  I love you.

  I care about your feelings.

  You’re safe with me.

  “Cathryn, no matter what happens, all of this needs to end with you and me together. I don’t know how we’re going to do it, but I’ve waited a long time to feel this way about someone and I’m not letting you walk out of my life.”

  The arms around her waist tightened as warm lips pressed against her neck. “I want the same thing you do.”

  Yet they both knew there was only one way to overcome their differences.

  * * *

  The small ballroom was set up with five tables seating ten each, appointed with fine china and crystal. One table was reserved for Hoss and whomever he invited to join him.

  Cathryn was among the first to arrive and chose the table farthest from Hoss, assuming the usual pecking order. She lost all interest in breakfast when Karl Depew entered and pulled his chair up beside hers. The rancid odor of last night’s scotch mingled with his overpowering cologne, and it was all she could do not to wretch.

  “I ain’t seen you all week, Cathryn. Where you been?”

  Where your grammar? She’d overheard him speaking authoritatively to his men and knew this folksy approach was phony. “My job keeps me very busy, and when I’m not working, I appreciate my private time.”

  “We all have to eat. What do you say we—”

  Larry Kratke joined them, groaning and holding his head. “I’m never drinking again.”

  Depew got up and slapped him on the back. “You did good, Larry, my boy. At least you weren’t puking your guts out like Bob. I thought we were going to have to call the EMTs.”

  That confirmed for her that Bob Kryzwicki was chummy with the people he was supposed to be overseeing, probably in violation of the EPA’s ethics code. Even the investigators needed investigators. She could hardly wait to see their conspiracy unravel.

  A scandal this large likely could lead to congressional hearings and even criminal investigations. It was hard to imagine Hoss or Bryce allowing themselves to be implicated in anything more serious than “improper oversight,” for which the board of directors would dock a few hundred thousand from their obscene bonuses. The windfall from getting the Caliber Pipeline approved would make up for it a thousand times.

  The best outcome would be seeing Karl Depew hauled off to prison. He was paid well to get his hands dirty, but that meant taking on all the risk. Maybe Bob Kryzwicki could have the cell next door.

  Woody and Amy approached their table, but after a scolding look from Depew, sat off to the side with a handful of Larry’s assistants. Of course it was a corporate caste system, but she resented Depew thinking so highly of himself.

  Gregg O’Connor’s legal team arrived en masse and claimed a table for themselves. They’d been staying at this luxury resort all along, meeting clients in plush conference rooms, eating with linen napkins and probably hitting the strip joints every night. Those guys lived like kings, but the showy part was because they’d needed to make a good impression on the property owners who came to negotiate their sale.

  Cathryn didn’t have to impress anyone. Other than the brief flurry of attention they’d gotten from the flyover drone, interest in the pipeline rupture had fallen off just as Depew had predicted. Colleen’s upcoming story could change that, but it wouldn’t make any difference if the Senate vote on the Caliber Pipeline came first.

  A familiar voice shouted from the hallway, “Let’s get this show on the road!” Hoss entered the room all smiles, flanked by Bryce Tucker and Norma Garrison, vice president for human resources.

  Norma, whose platinum hair was teased and sprayed bigger than a Texas breadbasket, seemed out of place at an event like this…unless it was only a stopover on their way to negotiate a new acquisition. Other than that, she rarely traveled.

  “Morning, y’all!” Hoss took his place at the reserved table and pulled out the chairs on either side. “Larry, Cathryn. Y’all come on over here to the grownup table. You too, Gregg.”

  Cathryn and Larry traded hesitant looks and meekly went over to take seats beside their boss.

  “Larry tells me we’re wrapping up. They’re dredging up the marsh and hauling it up to International Falls to see if we can squeeze any more oil out of it. Wouldn’t want to waste a single precious drop,” he added, drawing a chuckle from the room. “Come Wednesday morning, we’ll all be looking at a shiny new lake, courtesy of Larry’s hardworking crew. Let’s give him a hand.”

  Larry nodded sheepishly at the applause. He certainly deserved recognition for his work, but it was inconceivable he didn’t know what still sat on the bottom of the lake.

  “Also want to give a shout-out to Gregg and his team. They’ve completed acquisitions for all but two of the lakefront properties, and he tells me they’ll be finalizing those today. Let’s hear it for legal.”

  One of those holdouts had to be the cabin where Stacie’s friends had been staying.

  Gregg stood to acknowledge the applause and added, “One other thing I’d like to update…it just came through last night. There’s a public park across the cove from the spill site. We’ve negotiated with the county to keep that closed to the public for a period of one year so our environmental team can nurture the lake back to its natural state.”

  “And speaking of that public park,” Hoss said, “Cathryn’s putting on a big shindig out there on Thursday to cel
ebrate getting this cleanup behind us. I’m sure you all know my good friend, Senator Mike Washburn. He’s going to be there. It’s mostly a press event, but Cathryn tells me any permit for a county park has to be open to the public. That means the crazies will probably be out in force.” He pointed toward the back of the room. “I’m looking at you, Karl.”

  Depew laughed along with everyone else. “Are you calling me a crazy?”

  “I just call ’em as I see ’em. We’ve had our share of troubles with those tree-hugging idiots, but you have to hand it to Cathryn here. She slapped them down like a pro. Everything they flung at us, she turned it around and flung it right back. Slickest thing I ever saw.”

  She managed a small wave to acknowledge their round of applause. These guys were so confident, dead certain they could outmaneuver anyone. And why shouldn’t they think that? If the regulators were in their pockets, there was no stopping them.

  “And that’s why, ladies and gentlemen, I flew up here for this special meeting. I have the pleasure of announcing a couple of promotions. As of today, Larry Kratke is our new Senior Vice President for Operations.”

  Larry’s jaw dropped and he leapt from his chair to shake Hoss’s hand. Senior VP. He’d just vaulted over half the people on the East End.

  “And while I’m at it, let me also introduce our new Vice President for Communications, Cathryn Mack.”

  It was all she could do to stand on her wobbly legs as she accepted her boss’s hug, turning her face away from the audience so they couldn’t see her look of shock. Somewhere the Fates were laughing their asses off.

  After the celebratory breakfast, she followed Norma to a meeting room to sign some papers. It was indeed a six-figure raise, but her salary paled next to her stock options, which would be worth millions if the Caliber Pipeline went through.

  As she signed on the dotted line, she pictured Stacie’s face peering over her shoulder. There had to be a way to reconcile this. Stacie couldn’t expect her to give up her dream, especially if it meant working within the hierarchy to change how things were done. She had a voice now.

  Hoss came in, still smiling like a Santa Claus who had just delivered presents to a children’s hospital ward. “I knew this day would come, sweetie. Oh, scratch that. I’m not supposed to call women things like that. You won’t write me up, will you, Norma?”

  She looked at him sternly over her reading glasses. “Not this time, but don’t push it.”

  “Seriously, Cathryn. I’m really glad to have you on board. Did you get a chance to look at the handbook?”

  Cathryn had no idea what he was talking about, but then Norma pushed over a stack of bound documents.

  He put his hand on her shoulder. “You’ll have to study those, but let me tell about the biggie. Officers are different from employees. The Securities and Exchange Commission lays out the rules for officers, called fiduciary duties. Basically that means you always act in the company’s interest, and you never do anything that might hurt the stock value. Those boys at Enron didn’t get that memo, and they went to jail.”

  She easily read between the lines. His little chat had nothing to do with stock value. Now that she and Larry knew where the bodies were buried—in this case, where the bitumen was buried—these new positions bought their silence.

  As she walked through the lobby of the resort, she took note of the majestic view of Lake Superior through the three-story glass wall. The perks associated with her position wouldn’t kick in until she returned to Houston, which meant another week at the residential hotel, and the miserable trailer at the cleanup site. The next time she went out on the company dime, however, it would be in style.

  Amy sat in a leather armchair staring forlornly through the glass.

  “What’s up?” Cathryn asked.

  “Oh, nothing. Just waiting for Woody. We rode together.”

  “Where is he?”

  “You didn’t hear? He got kicked upstairs to assistant vice president, Larry’s old job. I couldn’t believe it. The guy’s only twenty-five years old.”

  Suddenly the pieces fell into place. Woody’s discovery of the tanker logs had set all this in motion. As an assistant VP, he technically was an officer too, which meant they all were bound to the same loyalty oath. “Good for him. He’s a bright young man, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him running the place one of these days.”

  Amy smiled weakly. “I was kind of hoping there’d be something in it for me, but Bryce said you were going to retain your duties as spokesperson.”

  “Don’t let that get you down. You’re only twenty-eight, and I was a lot older than that when I took the reins. I’ll see to it you get some good opportunities and when the time’s right, you’ll be ready.”

  On the drive to her office, she acknowledged that she’d made her decision. Convincing Stacie she could change the corporate culture from the inside wouldn’t matter much. Someone in her position couldn’t possibly have a relationship with the head of an activist group whose main goal was to wipe them out of existence.

  If they played it cool, they could see each other occasionally and maybe take secret vacations to Europe or the islands. Already they’d proven they could manage their differences.

  Who was she trying to kid? That kind of masquerade was a betrayal to both sides.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Freshly shaven and wearing a tie and sport coat, Izzy looked downright handsome.

  “You clean up really well,” Stacie said. “How come you don’t have a girlfriend?” In her fantasy world, Izzy and Jenn would fall in love and have a dozen eco-friendly children. Too bad there wasn’t even a spark of chemistry between them.

  “Who says I don’t?”

  They were sharing the backseat of the Prius with John and Rita in front, on their way to the Department of Health in St. Paul where they had an appointment with a state inspector who had found their test samples interesting.

  The Mauneys would drop them on a street corner and continue on to a shopping mall, a ploy to confuse whoever was tracking their movements. They’d all agreed it was better to leave the trackers in place today and use them to their advantage. The only time Stacie would leave hers behind was when she met Cathryn.

  Speaking of Cathryn, that particular conversation with Jenn and Izzy was now off the table. Her status as a pseudo-whistleblower inside Nations Oil afforded her anonymity, even from Stacie’s closest confidantes.

  She’d gotten two SappHere texts over the weekend asking to get together, but had been caught up with Jenn and Izzy planning CLEAN’s next event, a protest at the hoopla Nations Oil had scheduled for next Thursday at the lake. Running out on the preparations would have raised questions she wasn’t ready to answer.

  According to Jenn, Cathryn had given a press briefing the day before to announce that Senator Washburn would have the honor of reintroducing several species of fish and a pair of wood ducks. It was shameful they were willing to sacrifice even more of those poor creatures in the name of public relations, and she hoped it wasn’t Cathryn’s idea.

  “This is it,” Izzy said, and they hopped out at the stoplight. “You ready for this?”

  “Just the way we practiced.” Their meeting was riding on the hope that Nations Oil hadn’t already spread its tentacles inside the state regulatory office. It was imperative they convince someone outside the EPA to get involved, depending on the results of the tests.

  The Department of Health was situated amidst a maze of public buildings, with the Environmental Health Division housed on the third floor. After a twenty-minute wait on hard plastic chairs, they were ushered into the office of Jack Douhat, whose nameplate read Supervisor, Environmental Impact Analysis Unit. He had thinning hair and a bushy brown mustache, and in his short-sleeved shirt and tie, it was hard to imagine him as anything but a career civil servant.

  “You’re here about the samples?”

  “Yes, sir. Do you have the results?”

  “I do,” he said, opening a
file to peek inside. “Would you mind telling me where these came from?”

  “I’m happy to, but first I’d like to know what you found.” She’d paid in advance for the analysis as a private citizen, listing the location only as a public lake.

  He gave her a copy of his report, a table of numbers and chemical names she couldn’t pronounce. “Here’s the particle breakdown. If I were to put it in layman’s terminology, I’d call it tar sands.”

  “I knew it!”

  “And you say you found this in a public lake?”

  Izzy took over, dropping his business card and a brochure on the supervisor’s desk. “I collected those samples personally from Lake Bunyan at the site of the Nations Oil spill. The company claims they’ve spilled heavy crude, and they also claim they’ve contained it to a small area of the lake. This sample was taken from well outside that area.”

  Stacie couldn’t come right out and accuse the EPA of collusion, but she had to raise the possibility their investigation was compromised. “Mr. Douhat, I’m afraid the EPA inspector that’s working on this has been misled by the company.”

  “We’re sending more samples to the chemistry department at the University of Minnesota, and also to the EPA in Washington,” Izzy added. That wasn’t true, but there was always a chance Nations Oil would persuade Douhat to lose those results, so it was important to make him think there were more.

  They walked out with exactly what they came for—a promise to open an investigation immediately. The problem was “immediately” didn’t actually mean right now. There was paperwork that had to be submitted first—vehicle requisitions, mileage, per diem. The Caliber Pipeline could be approved by then.

  * * *

  The text read, “Dinner?”

  Cathryn had never been so relieved. She was desperate to hear from Stacie again, to convince her not to share the story with Colleen or anyone else in the press.

  She texted the address of a Chinese restaurant on the north side of town. From what she’d gathered over the past few weeks, Depew and his men rarely ventured beyond the nearby steak and Tex-Mex restaurants.