Judgement by Fire

by Lydia Grace

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Judgement by Fire By Lydia Grace

  Red Rose Publishing

  Copyright© 2007 Glenys O’Connell

  ISBN: 978-1-60435-001-2

  Cover Artist: Sheba Productions

  Editor: Shaiha

  Glenys O’Connell writing as Lydia Grace

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews. Due to copyright laws, you cannot trade, sell or give any ebooks away.

  Red Rose Publishing

  www.redrosepublishing.com

  12065 Woodhull Road

  Forestport, NY 13338

  Judgement

  By

  Fire

  By

  Lydia Grace

  Chapter 1

  “Damn it, Warren, surely you can come up with something better than this?” Jon Rush, president of one of Canada’s largest independent business conglomerates, glared at the man who faced him across the cluttered mahogany desktop.

  “I pay you for facts, not fairy tales. You’ve taken a whole series of unrelated events and turned them into some kind of soap opera plot!” Jon ran his fingers through his thick blond hair in a characteristic gesture of frustration.

  It was the gesture the heavyset black man across the desk had been anticipating. Warren Dillon, chief of security for Rush Co., was one of the few men who knew Jon Rush well enough to remain unintimidated in the face of his anger. Their friendship went back a long way, back to the dark days of their tour of duty in the burning deserts of the Persian Gulf, where the privileged son of a Canadian industrialist and the angry young black youth from the Southside slums of Chicago had forged a lasting friendship.

  Coolly, Dillon watched as Jon Rush slammed down the thick red file folder causing a small blizzard of papers to break loose from their untidy stacks on the desk. Then he let out a heavy sigh and, leaning forward in his leather-covered chair, began speaking slowly and quietly, punctuating his words with a stabbing forefinger.

  “Jon, your problem is you just won’t believe anyone would betray Rush Co. from the inside. Didn’t you learn anything in the Gulf? You’ve said it yourself - everyone has their price.” He paused for a moment, waiting for Jon’s face to react as the words sank in, then continued in the same deep, intense tone.

  “Even you have to admit that Rush Co. is in trouble. We’ve gone from being the golden-haired boy of the stock market to a walking crisis center in just a few months. Do you really believe that’s just bad luck? Well, do you? Or would you rather own up to jackass management?”

  “What the…?” Jon erupted, but Dillon barreled on inexorably right over his boss’s outburst.

  “Okay, the computer glitch that screwed up the last month’s orders and stopped delivery to some of our biggest customers in the construction division. Sure, that could have been a bug on the line. But the major fire at our plant in Sarnia - was that really a freak lightning strike? The ruptured pipeline in Oshawa, the one that could have killed God knows how many people and wiped this company out? Was that just another accident? Just how many of these ‘Acts of God’ are you going to take before you’ll at least consider something else?”

  Jon sank back in his chair; his blue eyes bleak on the security chief’s face. If there was one man in this world Jon Rush trusted, it was Warren Dillon - with his life, if need be. He had done exactly that in the past. And yet…

  “Okay, let’s get this straight. What you’re saying is that someone in this organization - someone very high up with access to the necessary data - is deliberately trying to destroy this company?” Jon Rush spoke with a calm that belied the red flush of anger across his tanned cheekbones. “Warren, we’re talking about people I’ve known for years, many of them are people who worked for my father!”

  Dillon was clearly unmoved. He pointed his large, gold-ringed finger at his boss. “Look, Jon, I might have dismissed these incidents as accidents too, or at worst thought them the work of outsiders, if sabotage had been proven. But how do you explain the unidentified calls that cancelled orders for the material we needed urgently for the Parry Sound hotel construction project when we’re already so far behind we’re facing contract penalties? And how was Glencoe Oil able to outbid us on those western options? Explain that - after an unsubstantiated rumor started a labor stoppage at our Tiverton field and dropped our shares two points?”

  Jon held up his hand as if to stop the reiteration of the troubles that had dogged the corporation’s major interests for the past six months. Like it or not, common sense told him that Dillon was right. Any one of these seemingly random events alone could have been just bad luck or lousy planning. But taken together, what did they mean? Jon’s mind veered away from the possibilities his security chief was now baldly outlining.

  But again Dillon broke relentlessly into his thoughts. “Just tell me you’ll think about the recommendations in this file, Jon. We’re talking about some discreet surveillance. That’s all. If we find nothing, then, okay, I’m wrong and there’s no harm done.”

  “Really? No harm done?” said Jon sarcastically. His big fist landed heavily on the desk. “Do you honestly think we can keep a thing like this secret? How will our people react to the suspicion, to not knowing if colleagues they’ve worked with for years can be trusted? To knowing that each and every person’s loyalty is being questioned? I’m asking you how, Dillon? You know, my father built this company on loyalty and trust, the kinds of things your ‘discreet surveillance’ would destroy!”

  Dillon’s eyes rolled in the direction of the hard white-stuccoed ceiling with its recessed lighting.

  Jon ignored the irreverent gesture and continued. “Just how long do you think we can do that before we start to destroy ourselves?” Jon was leaning forward now, his broad shoulders straining the cloth of his fine gray woolen suit jacket.

  “And how long before we’re destroyed anyway?” Dillon shot back. “Jon, do you think your father would have sat back while someone betrayed the trust he’d placed in them? He fought like hell to push Rush Co. to the top - he wouldn’t have watched it crumble to avoid hurting someone’s feelings!”

  Dillon knew from the sudden tightening of his friend’s face that his reference to the dead founder’s name and reputation had hit a nerve where previous logic had failed. Now was the time to play his trump card. As Jon glared in angry silence, Dillon pulled a folded-up newspaper from the polished leather attaché case that stood open at his feet. It was the business section of that day’s Globe and Mail, the self-styled national newspaper of Canada. He had calculated that Jon would not yet have had time to read the paper. Dillon’s face was grim as he carefully pushed the strategically folded-over section across the desk and waited for the reaction.

  He didn’t have to wait long. Dillon knew by the livid white line around Jon’s tightly drawn lips that his boss was already absorbing the import of the article with its provocative headline:

  Rush Co. To Build Millionaires’ Health Spa in

  Remote West River Hamlet?

  The headline was insolently rhetorical and Jon’s muttered expletives told Dillon his earlier guess had been correct and this was no company press release designed to titillate potential investors and intrigue the public. Dillon threw a beefy arm over the rich brown leather of the chair back, straining the elegant cut of his dark pin-striped suit jacket, and ruminated on the newspaper contents and their implication
s as his boss furiously read line by line through the damning news article.

  The newspaper report had an authoritative tone to it, Dillon realized. It quoted “unnamed sources” at the company and carried far too many details of Rush Co.’s hotel division’s most recent and most delicate expansion plans - details the company wasn’t yet ready to go public with. On the brink of launching a major grab for a large slice of the increasingly lucrative luxury health and fitness market, the company had been searching for a very particular setting to create a luxuriously special ambience for a very rich and discerning international clientele. One of the favorite locations was an l9th century “castle” built by an eccentric Victorian millionaire on the shores of Lake Ontario in a remote Eastern part of the Canadian province of Ontario. It had the advantages of unspoiled beauty and 300 acres of woodland and gardens to provide privacy – as well as being little more than a three hours drive from the provincial capital and national business center of Toronto and slightly less than that from the national capital of Ottawa.

  But no decision had been made yet, as the company’s special projects branch was still investigating the potential of several sites. But the newspaper article had revealed these close-kept expansion plans to the company’s competitors – a serious disadvantage in a market area where competition was cutthroat. Before such plans were announced, especially those involving a specific site, companies first tried to cover every base, such as health, safety, community, and economic perspectives, thus saving everyone from nasty surprises and presenting a complete and attractive package to the public. As well as, hopefully, taking their competitors by surprise and showing themselves to be way ahead of the game.

  Unless, of course, the plans were announced prematurely. Then the public was treated to the spectacle of a corporate giant caught with its pants down.

  Like Rush Co. and the West River Project. Jon Rush didn’t like the feeling of his company’s exposure one little bit. Damn! Pressing the intercom on his desk, he asked Stephen Rush, vice-president for Avalon Hospitality Inc., the conglomerate’s hotel division, and Jon’s own cousin, to come into the company president’s office. Without pausing for social niceties, Jon tossed the newspaper article across the desk at his cousin the moment he walked in the door.

  “I didn’t know we’d made a decision yet on West River,” Jon ground out, his anger barely in check as he waited for the vice-president’s reaction. Stephen’s brow furrowed as he read the article, then he slammed the paper down on the desk. “I know nothing about this,” he declared, “but by God, if it was leaked from anyone on my staff, then heads will roll as soon as I know.”

  Jon’s face was still rigid with anger as he turned to his security chief. “I think we need to get this sorted out, Warren. Do it. Bring me proof, if you can. You’d better also keep up alternative inquiries—on computer hackers, for example. But if you’re right, if someone in our top administration is trying to destroy us, I swear I’ll have his hide.”

  Dillon cut his boss off. He knew exactly how Jon felt and his own hands itched for action. “I’ll bring proof, Jon, or you’ll get my resignation. I can feel it in my gut that I’m right.” Dillon rose and began stuffing the file folders he’d brought with him into the bulging leather case he carried.

  “What’s all this about, Jon?” Stephen demanded, raising a blond quizzical eyebrow as he claimed the leather chair Dillon had just vacated, moving it around the bigger man and making himself comfortable alongside Jon Rush’s desk.

  “It seems we may have a traitor in our midst. Warren thinks someone from inside is responsible for all the things that have gone wrong recently,” Rush told his cousin briefly. He’d already buzzed for Cathy, his secretary, and began giving her terse instructions for an emergency department heads only meeting to be held within the hour to try to retrieve the rapidly sliding situation, so Jon didn’t see the dark look that slid across his cousin’s face, a look that was quickly hidden by his usual expression of charming good nature. But not so quickly that Warren Dillon didn’t catch it, and speculate briefly about Jon Rush’s cousin and only blood relative.

  *

  Two hundred kilometers and a whole world away from the plush offices of Rush Co., a doorbell chimed in the silence of a charming renovated laborer’s cottage in the grounds of Haverford Castle. Inside, Lauren Stephens threw down her paintbrush in frustration at this latest interruption, splattering rich ochre across the darker gold of her broad-planked pine studio floor.

  The doorbell chimed again and with an exasperated sigh, Lauren tucked an escaped strand of deep auburn hair behind one ear and wiped her paint-smeared hands down the old flannel shirt she wore open over a tee-shirt. With a frustrated scowl she picked her way through the littered studio-cum-living room to the heavy oak front door. She’d gotten home late the previous night from a dinner date in Toronto celebrating the end of a successful exhibition of her work. Unable to settle after the late evening and long drive, she’d wandered over to her easel just to take a look at her current work in progress. She scarcely even remembered picking up the paintbrush, but several hours later her muscles were cramping from hunching over the easel, trying to capture that one elusive detail that would bring to life the entire scene she was working on. Dawn was painting her own vibrant scene on the sky outside when Lauren felt the first quiver of triumph as the brush strokes had begun to translate the essence of her imagination.

  Then the old-fashioned bell had sounded its gruff chimes, shattering her concentration.

  “Damn it, I’m coming,” she yelled irritably as the bell sounded again impatiently. She was prepared to give her early morning visitor a real tongue-lashing. But the harsh words died on her lips when she saw the tall, gaunt man standing on her doorstep.

  “Paul, aren’t you just the early bird?” she exclaimed instead, immediately hating the false brightness of her tone and knowing from the other’s expression that he had caught the shadowed anxiety behind her words.

  With a grim smile, Paul Howard put his hands on Lauren’s shoulders and gave her a brief, reassuring hug. “Lucy’s fine, Lauren,” he told her, “I’m sorry. I should have guessed that my turning up like this would make you anxious. She had a restless night, only to be expected, really, after running herself ragged the way she has been. I eventually persuaded her to take a couple of the pills Dr. Harris gave her. She fell fast asleep, but I was too wired to sleep myself. I took a walk down to Armand’s General Store and picked up a copy of the Globe and Mail. Guess what I found in the business section?”

  “Paul, it’s too early in the morning for guessing games. Come in and have some coffee, and tell me all about it. I’m glad Lucy’s okay,” Lauren said, stepping aside to let Paul into her studio. He brought with him the sharp tang of a late Ontario winter morning.

  Paul’s wife, Lucy, a well-known illustrator and author of children’s books, had recently undergone heart surgery. But the warnings to “take things easy” had gone ignored as Lucy had thrown herself back into a hectic schedule of book signings and promotional touring. She’d returned home, victorious but exhausted, much to the anxiety of her husband and the friends who loved her. Her friends worried about her, and that anxiety would intrude itself sometimes in unguarded moments.

  Leaving his snowy shoes at the door, Paul made straight for the big old settee which stood in the middle of the all-purpose room, strewn invitingly with bright jewel-colored cushions and a couple of woolly afghan rugs, which Lucy had once likened to “a favorite haunt of a sheikh of Arabia”.

  Lauren closed the door and returned to her easel to put the paint away. Swamped by a huge yawn, she paused to stretch her muscles before stooping to pick up the brush she’d dropped when the doorbell sounded.

  “Have a late night?” Paul asked with a grin.

  “No sleep at all, actually. I met this handsome blond type at the gallery a couple of days ago, who exhibited the ultimate charm – he liked my work. One thing led to another, and we did lunch, then we did lun
ch again, then yesterday instead of setting off for home after the exhibit closed, we went out to dinner. I got back here about two o’clock this morning and suddenly had an inspiration about that bobcat–” Lauren nodded towards the almost completed picture on her easel. “And the next thing I knew, some bum was on my doorstep, ringing the bell loud enough to raise all hell, and asking for coffee.”

  “I’ve always said you make the best coffee I’ve ever tasted,” Paul replied slyly, then added, “which is just as well, because you also drink more of the stuff than anyone else I’ve ever met.”

  Lauren’s coffee consumption was legendary, and she grinned again as she went towards the galley kitchen to fill a steaming mug for her friend, but Paul motioned her back.

  “I’ll get it,” he told her, his face serious again, “take a look at this article in the paper.”

  Puzzled, Lauren took the newspaper and curled up in her big easy chair to read, shrugging her shoulders to ease the tension that had accumulated in her neck muscles from her long night. But in seconds the tension returned in spades as she realized the reason for Paul’s agitation. They were going to turn Haverford Castle into a millionaire’s health spa? Lauren was barely aware of Paul moving restlessly into the kitchen and splashing coffee from the machine’s glass jug into two of the huge, chunky cartoon mugs he and Lucy had bought her as a joke the Christmas before. She felt her mouth go dry as she read the article a second time and a surge of anger dispelled her original disbelief.

  Haverford Castle was home to Lauren, Lucy and Paul, and about thirty other artists, some of whom lived here permanently, as well as others who were itinerant. Ten years before, the elderly owner, Mrs. Shirley Lloyd, had opened the old place up as an extension to her lifelong patronage of the arts. She’d also established an exhibition center in the main hall, and over the years the whole thing had grown into a lucrative tourist attraction bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars to the local community. But more importantly, and closer to Mrs. Lloyd’s heart, it had provided opportunities for artists to develop their work insulated from the constant financial anxieties of the unsheltered outside world. The two art festivals connected to the artists’ colony had become regular events attracting thousands of visitors both nationally and internationally to this rugged, isolated part of Ontario.