End Of The Road: (A Clean Romance Novella) (Women's Adventure in Alaska Romance Book 3)

by Renee Hart

  “Holy crap,” Tessa said. She clutched at her skirt until her knuckles turned white. “Oh, gosh, no. I swear it wasn't me. I would never call a reporter!”

  She wracked her brain, trying to think who might have called in the leak. Could Samson have done it? Would he have leaked the information without telling her?

  “Is there anyone else you think might have heard about those reports?” Mr. Morgan asked. Anyone you mentioned it to? Anyone who might have gotten wind of your concerns?”

  That's when it clicked. She'd talked to a number of people at the sorting facility in Pennsylvania. The receptionist. Mike the weekend manager. Half a dozen employees who'd helped them load the samples into the truck. Any one of them might have decided to call in the report.

  “I have no idea who it could be,” she said. “I haven't talked to anyone.”

  “You're sure?” He studied her expression, and she was sure he'd see the lie.

  “I'm sure.” She forced herself to meet his gaze, hoping there was nothing in her eyes that betrayed her.

  “All right.” Mr. Morgan sighed and looked through some notes on his desk. “I need to figure out what kind of statement to give this guy. We can't afford to have the media start a witch hunt. We could all lose our jobs because of someone's unfounded paranoia.”

  “Unfounded?” she asked. “Are you sure it's unfounded? I mean, those reports...”

  “Those reports located a very minor, isolated problem,” Mr. Morgan said. “It happens now and then. Someone at one of the farms accidentally mixed together two types of pesticide that weren't supposed to be mixed, and the combination of the two led to a very minor, we're talking less than one percent here, a very minor risk. We corrected the problem, recalled the affected products, and got everything back up and running again. It happens.”

  “Wait,” Tessa said, her mouth going dry. “What? I thought you told me—”

  “I told you not to worry about it,” Mr. Morgan said. “That didn't mean I was ignoring it. It's not your job to worry about that sort of thing. Your job is to enter the reports into the databases, so that our Quality Assurance department can conduct their investigations. Internal investigations, so that we don't have messes like this happening.” He gestured to the notes about the reporter and the apparent leak.

  “But the things you said...” Tessa frowned, shaking her head.

  “I told you that nothing illegal was going on,” Mr. Morgan said. “And nothing is. We comply with USDA inspections and follow all regulations, just like every other business. But for minor things, we take care of it on our own and make sure it stays quiet. That way we avoid bad publicity.”

  Tessa felt faint. She tasted bile in her throat. Her entire concern, all of the risks she'd taken... “So there really wasn't any risk? Our food isn't contaminated?”

  “Of course not.” Mr. Morgan frowned at her. “What kind of business do you think we're running here? Sure, in a company this large, there are going to be minor issues now and then. You can't avoid that with hundreds of facilities across the country. But the problems are always fixed, the people responsible are retrained to make sure they don't mess up again, and we go about business as usual.”

  “I see.” Tessa stared at the wall behind Mr. Morgan, seeing her entire career flashing before her eyes.

  “Now, if you'll excuse me, Tessa,” Mr. Morgan said. “I've got to figure out what kind of statement to give this reporter so he doesn't get the wrong idea. If he writes a story with a headline like 'Dunham Enterprises Denies Pesticide Contamination,' it won't matter what the facts are. People see a denial as proof of guilt, even when there is none.”

  Tessa got up and left, her steps stiff and wooden. She clutched her purse against her chest, holding onto it like a life preserver. She couldn't believe what she'd just heard.

  She may have accidentally set events into motion that could cost thousands of people their jobs. And it looked like it had all been for nothing.

  Chapter 10

  As soon as Tessa got home that night, she called up Gregory at the university. When he answered, she said, “Hey, this is Tessa. I need to know about the results of those tests.”

  “Well, I haven't finished with all of the samples yet,” he said. “But I can give you the results from the ones I've tested so far.”

  “Okay.” She paced around her apartment chewing on her lower lip. When she'd first come up with this idea, she'd thought these tests would give her answers that would lend her peace of mind. Now she feared the exact opposite.

  “Well, so far, all the samples I've tested have come back negative.”

  “Negative?” Tessa asked. She paused in her pacing. “Negative sounds bad.”

  “No, no, negative is good. It means there's nothing there.”

  Tessa felt her stomach churn. “Nothing?”

  “Nothing at all. Well, I've found a few tiny trace amounts, but nothing that you wouldn't expect to find on just about any commercially grown product. Nothing that would be harmful.”

  “Oh gosh.”

  There was a long pause, then Gregory asked, “That's a good thing, isn't it? I mean, that's what I think you'd want to hear. No harm done. No one's getting sick from eating this stuff.”

  “Damn,” Tessa said. “Damn, damn, damn!”

  “Umm...is something wrong?”

  “I have to go.”

  Tessa hung up the phone before Gregory could say another word. She sat down on her couch, clutching her phone in her hands. Mr. Morgan had been right. There were no pesticides, no risks. Dunham Enterprises wasn't guilty of anything at all, except for maybe failing to advertise that some of their crops had been genetically modified in a completely harmless way.

  “Damn.” She stared at the carpet, unable to think. She was certain she was going to get fired. Not only that, but if the reporter—the reporter who was only snooping around because she'd riled up suspicions at the sorting facility—if he wrote a story about a possible contamination and a cover-up within the company, then a lot of people would lose their jobs. Mr. Morgan had been right about another thing: it wouldn't matter that there was actually no risk. Once consumers got it in their heads that Dunham was covering something up, even if it wasn't true, they'd never trust the company again. Sales would drop, people would get laid off, and thousands of lives would be ruined.

  And it was all Tessa's fault.

  * * *

  “I don't understand,” Samson said after she explained the situation to him. “I thought you said you'd seen all those reports? All of the inspectors requesting further investigation, but with no followup?”

  Tessa sat on Samson's couch, holding a mug of tea in her hands. He'd spiked the tea with a splash of liquor, and it was starting to help calm her down. “It turns out,” she said, “the Quality Assurance department uses a completely different filing system. They collect the reports my department enters into the main databases, then they maintain a separate database for their own reports. I found the file directories for that database, and it's filled with all kinds of reports that show the investigations they've conducted and the actions they undertook to correct the problems.”

  “But what about the lady you spoke to?” Samson asked. “The one that said no one had followed up on her report. Did you say there were like three years of reports that this QA department had never followed up on?”

  Tessa laughed, a wry smile on her face. “Oh, yes. There's three years of reports they never followed up on. Because my department has a three year backlog. Ironic, isn't it? Here I was thinking there was some grand conspiracy to keep things hidden, and it turns out it's just because my department can't keep up with the paperwork. All of the reports that we have entered, if there was a request for a followup investigation, they took care of it.”

  “Oh.” Samson chewed on his lower lip, looking down at the ground. “Well. Damn.”

  “Yup.” Tessa sighed. “I'm so sorry I got you involved in all of this. I had no idea what a mess it would t
urn out to be.”

  “So, what do we do now?” Samson asked. “Talk to this reporter? Maybe explain to him that we were just chasing a wild goose?”

  “I'm not sure that would even help.” Tessa threw herself back against the couch cushions. “If we try to convince him there's nothing to hide, he'd just think there's something to hide. And the more we make Dunham look guilty, the more likely it is that people will start losing their jobs.”

  Samson sat next to her and patted her knee. She leaned her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes. “We'll figure something out,” Samson said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “No,” he said. “But it seemed like the thing to say.”

  Tessa nuzzled against him, trying to banish her thoughts and her worries, at least for the moment. The only good part about this whole fiasco, she supposed, was that it had brought Samson and her closer together.

  * * *

  Over the next few days, Tessa tried to stick to her work and mind her own business. She couldn't think of any way to fix the problems she'd caused, so she was determined to do her best not to make anything worse. No more zany schemes, no more deception, and no more trying to poke her nose into things that clearly weren't any of her business.

  The one thing she did keep doing was watching out for any new reports that were coming in from the Pennsylvania sorting facility. It would be easy to intercept them, since no one tended to look at new reports the day they came in. It was more than a week after her visit to the facility that the report she'd been fearing finally came in.

  She brought it over to her desk, along with her normal stack of files awaiting data entry. She flipped through the pages, thinking at first that everything was fine. The report had been filed by Elizabeth O'Conner, the woman Tessa had spoken to on the phone. Everything Elizabeth had recorded looked perfectly normal. There were no notes about contamination, making it seem that Elizabeth's previous concerns had been unfounded. Which Tessa already knew, after the test results she'd gotten back from Gregory.

  On the last page of the report, where the investigator listed their personal notes and comments, was where Tessa found something that set off alarms in her head. It was a note about the surprise visit to the facility, along with a complaint that Elizabeth hadn't been notified about the surprise inspection.

  At the end, Elizabeth noted a rather personal grievance:

  I would like to note that it was both discourteous and unprofessional for Mr. Morgan and his assistant to visit our facility without notifying me, considering how the results of any inspection reflect upon both me and my work. And considering I was the one who requested further investigation to begin with, I believe I deserved to be informed of what was happening. I will be requesting a review of appropriate company procedures through the Quality Assurance department, and filing a formal complaint with Human Resources.

  Tessa buried her face against the pages, wishing she could just crawl under the reports and drown.

  She was screwed. Her career was over. As soon as Elizabeth's grievances were filed, Mr. Morgan would find out that someone had impersonated him during the visit to the Pennsylvania facility. It would be traced back to Tessa, and she'd be fired.

  She sat at her desk the rest of the day without doing any of her work. She just didn't see the point.

  Chapter 11

  That night, Tessa knelt in her garden, with her hands shoved into the loose, fertile soil. She'd forgotten to wear her gloves, and the black dirt stained her fingers and got stuck under her nails. She knelt there, unmoving, tears welling in her eyes. She couldn't think, couldn't focus. Even her garden didn't seem to be able to relieve her stress that day.

  It was a chilly day, and no one else was in the garden. Though Tessa felt like there was someone watching her. She glanced over her shoulder, seeing no one. Until she looked into one of the apartment windows and saw her elderly neighbor, Mr. Jones, looking out at her. He often sat in his apartment and watched the gardeners, though since she was the only one out there, he was watching only her. There was a sad, sympathetic look in his eyes. Like he knew the pain she was feeling.

  He raised a hand to her in a small wave. She pulled her hand from the dirt and waved back.

  A few moments later, it started to rain. The water came down in a harsh downpour, soaking her almost instantly. She got up and hurried to her apartment, only to find the back door was locked.

  “Damn.” She patted her jeans, searching for her keys. Then she remembered. In her emotional daze, she'd forgotten to take them out of her purse, which was sitting inside.

  She tried her bedroom window, but of course it was also locked. She had a friend on the other side of town who had a spare key, but of course her cell phone was inside the apartment too, so she couldn't even call for help.

  Tessa stood out there in the rain, her shoulder slumped, until her tears started to flow freely. They mixed with the rain on her cheeks, invisible against the storm. She couldn't get her thoughts to clear, and in that moment, nothing really seemed to matter anymore.

  Then suddenly, the rain stopped falling on her head. The storm still raged around her, but no longer touched her. She looked up and saw a red umbrella being held over her head. The rain drops splattered against it and slid off, playing out a staccato rhythm in the night.

  “Not a good night to be out in the weather.”

  She turned around and saw Mr. Jones there, holding the umbrella, protecting her from the storm. “Lock yourself out?” he asked.

  She nodded, wiping her face on the back of her damp sleeve. “I'm an idiot,” she said. “I left my keys inside, and...”

  “Come on,” he said, taking her hand. “Let's get you inside and get you dry. You can use my phone if you like.”

  “Thank you.” She let him lead her into his apartment, which was warm and cozy after the cold rain. The furniture was old and worn, most of it looking like mismatched pieces bought from yard sales or the Goodwill store. The lights were subdued, almost as if Mr. Jones were afraid to see himself in the light. Red cloths covered several of the lamps, giving the apartment the feeling of eternal dusk.

  “Here,” Mr. Jones said, handing her a towel. “Make yourself at home. It's not often I have company.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Jones. I really appreciate your help.” She wiped her hands on the towel, scrubbing off the rain and the dirt.

  “Oh, call me Terry,” he said. “We're neighbors, after all.”

  She gave him a grateful smile, though she didn't feel like she deserved his neighborly aid. She'd never spoken to him much, beyond the occasional chat while getting her mail.

  She used Terry's phone to call her friend, then settled in to wait. It would be at least thirty minutes until her friend could get there, particularly with the storm. Terry made a pot of tea and set out a plate of gingersnaps.

  “So,” Terry said as he settled into the recliner across from her, “you seem like a woman who has some troubles weighing her down.”

  “Was it that obvious?” she asked with a wry laugh.

  He smiled and blew on his tea to cool it off. “Well, after the life I've lived, I know a thing or two about troubles.”

  Tessa hesitated, then decided to finally ask the question that she'd had on her mind since she first met him. “Is it true you were in jail?”

  He nodded, a sad look in his eyes. “Thirty five years. Half of my life, wasted. All because of a stupid mistake.”

  “Do you mind if I asked what happened?”

  He got a distant look in his eyes, as if looking back across the long years. “I had a problem with drugs, back then. But the real problem was how I let that problem affect everything else.” He looked her in the eye. “You see, I let myself do a lot of stupid things, all because I couldn't face my real problem. I was arrested for armed robbery, and for accidentally shooting a man when the gun went off. I just thank God the poor fellow wasn't too seriously hurt.”

  “Oh, wow.” Tessa looked down into her te
a mug. “I can't imagine.”

  “Most people can't.” He chuckled. “The thing of it was, I know now that if I'd made the right decision, admitted that I had a problem, I could have stopped things from spiraling out of control. I was deluded back then. Didn't want to admit that the drugs had a hold on me. I thought I was in control of them. That I could do whatever I wanted. And I ended up hurting people, and ruining my own life in the process.”

  Tessa thought about the mistakes she'd made over the past few weeks. They paled in comparison to what Terry was describing, though there was one similarity. She hadn't wanted to admit that she was in over her head. One mistake had led to another, and now the consequences were starting to spiral out of control.

  “How do you fix something like that?” she asked. “I mean, once you can see that it's all out of control, how do you stop it? It's not like you can go back and undo the things you've done.”

  He looked at her, weighing her, and she was sure he knew she was really talking about her own problems. “The answer is a lot simpler than you realize. You just need to come clean. I thought I could cover up my problems. Hide from them. Take matters into my own hands. And I just kept making things worse. But if I'd gone to someone, to my friends, to my parents, and admitted that I had a problem, I could have gotten help.”

  “But weren't you afraid of the consequences?”

  “Sure I was.” He laughed, shaking his head. “I was afraid that I'd end up in jail. But guess what? I ended up worse off, with a longer sentence than I would have had for just the drugs. If I'd accepted my mistakes and been ready to face the music, instead of running from it, then yes, I would have suffered the consequences. But running from those consequences made things so much worse in the long run.”

  Tessa hung her head. She knew that Terry was right. Maybe, she thought, she could minimize the damage if she just came clean. She might still lose her job. But if she could stop the situation from getting any more out of hand, then maybe she could protect the jobs of her coworkers.