Judgement by Fire

by Lydia Grace

To her surprise, the good quality jeans, flannel shirt, and warm sweatshirt Jon had ordered for her fit perfectly. Opening another, smaller box, Lauren felt her cheeks heat as she surveyed a selection of luxurious silken under things, then she smiled mischievously as she considered the consequences on Jon if she decided to model his purchases for him. The larger box contained fine leather boots of a type suitable for both walking and riding, and she wondered if Jon kept horses on the farm and his intention was that they should ride together.

  Looking out of the window across fields where the dull browns and greens of frost-rimed grasses were rapidly overwhelming the remaining patches of sun softened snow, Lauren felt a real temptation to put everything out of her mind. She could take a leisurely breakfast, explore the books she’d seen on Jon’s study shelves, and when he got home, she’d have him take her on a tour of his beautiful home and its environs. Maybe she could pick up some inspiration for new paintings in this unfamiliar countryside.

  And thinking of painting again brought her mind right back to the ruined bobcat portrait and the need to take some action to see if it could be repaired. Then to get her own life back on track. One thing was for sure, she wasn’t going to give up control of her life to Jon Rush, or anyone else, ever again. With a last wistful glance out of the window, she pulled on the stiff boots and went downstairs.

  Following her nose along the scent of coffee, Lauren found Mary and a heavyset black man she guessed must be Warren Dillon in a spacious, bright kitchen. Country-kitchen touches such as soft, sprigged muslin curtains, and a gleaming antique round pine table with press-backed chairs softened the sharp lines of polished stainless steel state-of-the-art appliances. Red and salmon pink geraniums gave out bright sparks of color in deep windows, and a huge Boston fern drooped its healthy-looking bright green fronds over a pine dry-sink, another antique piece, in the corner of the room.

  Warren Dillon stood as she entered, and offered a large hand in a friendly gesture. Lauren instinctively trusted this man, and the thought that Jon chose his friends wisely ran through her head. She apologized for keeping him waiting, and asked Mary if she could use the telephone for a few moments.

  In the study, she quickly looked up the number of Judy Harris, the artist specializing in repairing damaged canvases. She was relieved to find the other woman home, and her explanation received the sympathetic response she knew it would engender in another artist. Without hesitation, understanding the importance of the exhibition to Lauren’s career, Judy said she would put other work on hold to do what she could to restore the acrylic-on-canvas piece that had been so cruelly slashed by Lauren’s intruder.

  Relieved, knowing that she was putting her work in the hands of one of the best repair artists in the business and that there was nothing further that she could do, Lauren returned to the kitchen with a somewhat lighter heart. She found Dillon alone there, nursing a mug of coffee and staring morosely out the window. As she approached the table, he indicated a bowl and selection of cereal packets, and reached over to fill another large mug with fragrant fresh-brewed coffee from a French-style stainless steel cafetiere that stood on the table.

  Lauren thanked him, sensing from the man’s abstracted demeanor that there was something on his mind, and that he hadn’t yet made up his mind to offer her the same kind of instant trust that she’d felt for him.

  The reasons weren’t long in coming, and she admired the loyalty that lay behind his attitude. Warren looked at her over the steaming coffee cup, which seemed dwarfed in his huge paw. He seemed to be taking her measure, and Lauren tried to look casual as her heart and mind raced. What was in the mind of Rush Co.’s top security man, that he should direct such a look at her?

  “You know, Jon Rush is the most honest man I know. What you see is what you get. Not a game playing character, at least when it comes to relationships.” She nodded, mesmerized by the other man’s deep gaze, which seemed to look into her heart and soul. “He’s also my best friend. I’d hate to see him hurt.”

  Lauren felt a surge of irritation, which came through in her terse reply, “And this has something to do with me?”

  “You know damn well it does. Or you should. And if not, well, you’d better tell him, pronto. So he can get over it before you really hurt him.”

  The silence in the room was palpable. Defensive hostility seemed to breathe in the small gap between Lauren and Dillon. Lauren’s first reaction was anger, she wanted to tell the man to mind his own business, and that Jon was a big boy who could take care of his own heart.

  Yet you’re both on the same side. You both love the man, the niggly little voice wriggled into Lauren’s mind, and she knew it spoke the truth. Her anger evaporated as quickly as it had flared, and she sighed as she leaned back in her chair and looked Warren Dillon in the eye.

  “I don’t think you have cause to worry on that score. To tell you the truth, I think I’m a bit afraid on my own behalf. No one has ever come as close as Jon, and I’m scared to feel so vulnerable.”

  The other man looked at her hard then nodded in satisfaction. “I don’t think you need fear Jon. He’s one of the good guys,” Warren said, obviously relaxing himself as he poured more coffee and scooped sugar into the steaming cup, then topping it with a generous helping of cream.

  “Seems like we have a lot in common, Mr. Dillon,” Lauren said, a small smile playing around her lips as she set about dumping sugar into her own coffee. Seeing Warren’s questioning glance, she flamboyantly poured a sizeable quantity of cream in, stirred the rich-looking liquid, and raised her mug to him in a salute. “It seems like we both love the same things,” she said, and enjoyed his grin of understanding.

  Lauren was just finishing a helping of breakfast cereal when Warren’s mobile phone shrilled from its perch on the table. A look of strain and shock came over his face as he listened to the news that came through the small black receiver, and he asked a few terse questions.

  “Why the hell wasn’t I informed of this sooner?” he demanded, then. “A memo on my desk? Jeez, man, didn’t you think…no, no, I suppose you didn’t know. No, it’s all right. You couldn’t really have known how important this is. What hospital did you say again? And who’s the investigating officer?”

  Lauren’s heart began to pound, and she thought she was going to lose her breakfast right there. Had something happened to Jon? If this had been a call on a conventional phone, she would have had no reservations about rudely listening in on an extension. As it was, anxiety made her breath catch in her throat. Catching her stricken look, Warren hastened to reassure her.

  “It’s a member of staff, an accountant named Pippa Williams. She was involved in a hit and run accident last night. She’s still unconscious in hospital. Looks like she’ll make it, but it was a lucky escape. If you can call something like this luck.”

  “Oh God. I’m so sorry for her…but for a terrible moment, when you were so angry, so shocked…I thought…”

  “No,” he said gently, briefly patting her trembling fingers with his hand. “Jon is fine, as far as I know he’s in a meeting right now giving some poor unfortunate major supplier’s representative hell over a late delivery which has cost us contract penalties.”

  Lauren felt as though she could breathe again. After all that had happened, it was probably natural that she should worry in this way. But she hated to feel so vulnerable, so easy to wound. Warren looked thoughtful.

  “The thing is, really, that Pippa had asked me to see her, day before yesterday actually, and I put her off because I wanted to be in West River with Jon, in case there was any problem there…”

  Lauren flushed at the memory of the protest incident, knowing the part that Warren had played, remembering his hard grasp on her wrist when he thought she’d assaulted Jon. Then she thought about the security chief’s last words, something clicked in her mind. “Do you think this has something to do with things going wrong at the company? Mary told me there’d been several crises recently.”

  W
arren was silent a moment, assessing her with his eyes. Then he sighed heavily. “Yes, yes, I do. Pippa is the accountant with responsibility for the special projects accounting, and the difficulties seem to center on that area. The area concerned with selecting the West River site, among other projects. If she found something out of line…”

  “But why didn’t she simply contact her department head?” Lauren asked, frowning.

  Warren thought of Stephen Rush and his own dark suspicions about the man’s activities. “Maybe she couldn’t, maybe she suspected she wouldn’t get a sympathetic hearing,” he told Lauren. Or maybe she was afraid something bad would happen to her if she went to Stephen Rush. Like maybe a hit and run accident, he thought grimly to himself.

  “When did the accident happen?” Lauren asked, scooping cereal from her bowl.

  “A little after midnight last night.”

  The spoon stopped on its journey to her mouth as her fingers reminded her of the damp touch of melting snowflakes on Jon’s jacket, the memory bringing back in full force the shock of passion she’d felt when his lips settled on hers. There couldn’t be a connection. But she had to ask.

  Carefully placing the spoonful of cereal, untouched, in her bowl, Lauren looked Warren Dillon in the eye and stated, “Jon went out before midnight last night, and he didn’t get in until late.”

  Anger blazed across the other man’s features, and Lauren had a sudden insight into just how dangerous an enemy Warren Dillon could be. However, his voice controlled as he replied, “Not much in the trust department, are you? I’m not sure you’re really the one for Jon, not if you jump on every little excuse to call his integrity into question.”

  Lauren flushed, feeling about two feet tall at his words, but still she had to know, and she looked mutely at the security chief.

  After what seemed like an age, he decided to answer. “Jon was with me. To save me having to drive out of my way to meet him here after a long day, and longer evening looking over your breakin, he met me at an all-night truck stop outside Port Hope. While some heartless bastard in a dark Jeep-style vehicle was running poor Pippa Williams down and leaving her half-dead in the street like a dog, Jon Rush was turning out on a bitter cold night because he needed to meet with me and talk to me about how to keep you safe.”

  There was an edge of anger and contempt in his voice and Lauren felt a sick feeling of shame flush through her. She should have trusted Jon, yet knew if the scenario played again, she’d still have had to ask the same questions.

  The room was silent aside from the occasional squawks of birds that crowded a bird feeder in the kitchen garden near the window.

  Finally, Lauren sighed and said, “After all that’s happened, you can’t blame me for running scared.”

  The big man‘s eyes took in her pale face and the lines of tension around her eyes and mouth and his expression softened.

  “No, no, I guess not. You’ve certainly had bad experiences recently.”

  “But nothing like what has happened to Pippa Williams. Maybe you should be at this woman’s bedside, in case she has anything to say, or needs some protection.”

  “But I told Jon I’d see you safely back to West River.”

  “I’m a big girl. Let me have a vehicle and I can see myself safely back to West River. I think you’re needed elsewhere.”

  Warren thought for a moment, seemed to argue with himself, then nodded.

  “Jon keeps his personal truck in the garage here, and I’m pretty sure he’s been driving a company Jeep, so you could take his vehicle. I’ll drop your canvas off with the repair artist, so you don’t need to detour into the Toronto area, and I’ll also alert the police chief in West River to be on the lookout for you,” he told Lauren, picking up his phone Lauren got to her feet.

  “Great, that’s all I need. Maybe he’ll put my name out on the police radio band and then every one in the area with a scanner’s going to think I’m some kind of wanted desperado,” Lauren said, rolling her eyes.

  Warren grinned. “Just promise me you won’t trash Jon’s truck. He restored that baby himself, and he loves her.”

  *

  Things seemed to be moving too quickly, spiraling out of his control. Or maybe they’d always been out of his control, and he just hadn’t known it. But ever since he’d overheard Pippa Williams talking on the phone to Warren Dillon, on the same day that he’d realized his biggest, most recent investments were going wrong, it had seemed like every move he’d made had been a step towards an inevitable end. There could be no going back. However, if he were going to crash and burn, then he’d take the others with him. They, too, would fry in his final blaze of glory.

  *

  Jon’s personal truck turned out to be a lovingly restored Ford half-ton of 1950’s vintage, deep maroon in color with gleaming chrome accents.

  “Ooh, I’m gonna love driving this baby!” Lauren said gleefully to an anxious looking Warren Dillon and Mary Wilson, as she hoisted herself into the cab.

  “Does she know how much work Jon put into this truck?” Mary asked Warren nervously.

  “Jeez, Lauren, I meant what I said. Jon loves this truck. He rescued it from a farmer’s field back over Orangeville way and has done all the restoration work himself. For all our sakes, don’t let anything happen to it! Not even a little, tiny, superficial scratch, or he’ll know and he’ll have our heads!” Warren was only half-joking, but Lauren was much too delighted to have the opportunity to drive the magnificent old truck to care about their attack of nerves.

  “Gee, guys, don’t worry, everything will be fine. This truck and me are gonna do some real drivin’,” she said, in her best mock Texan accent.

  She grinned with delight when she turned the ignition key and heard the purr of a beautifully tuned engine. After surveying the dash to make sure she knew where everything was, Lauren gunned the accelerator and took off down the driveway with a spurt of snowmelt-wet gravel and a cheerful blast of the musical horn.

  As she predicted, everything went well as she cruised the side roads and Highway 401 without a care in the world, enjoying the envious glances many of the male drivers who passed her cast over the truck. Several times other drivers of ancient trucks and cars blasted their horns towards her in courteous recognition, and when she stopped at a truckers’ café near Belleville for a sandwich and coffee, she almost had to fight the guys off. In this case, she knew it was the truck’s body they were interested in, not hers, and the horsepower and all the other works under the gleaming maroon hood.

  Finally, on the last leg of the journey home, she was singing along with an Elvis Presley tape she’d found in the cd/cassette player on the dashboard—tut, tut, Jon, not an original fitting!—when she noticed a big dark colored Jeep in the rear view mirror. He was coming up fast behind her on the narrow lane, and Lauren wrestled the steering wheel so that she could pull over to give the other big vehicle room to pass.

  “Slow down, you creep!” she muttered to herself as she saw the other vehicle was making no effort to slow as it hurtled towards her. Suddenly afraid she’d be rear-ended, Lauren debated whether to hit the accelerator and try to get out of the way or pull right over and risk getting stuck in the ditch that she knew probably lurked beyond the tall pile of dirty, melting snow on the side of the road.

  However, before she could make a decision, the big dark Jeep skidded past her, cutting in front at great speed and clipping the front wing of the truck Lauren was driving. Panicked, Lauren wrestled the wheel to keep from losing control, and the heavy truck slewed crazily off the road, the brakes catching just as it hit the snow bank.

  The other vehicle disappeared with an insolent blast of its horn but not before a shaken Lauren had seen the Rush. Co. insignia emblazoned on its passenger door.

  Lauren sat for a few moments, paralyzed by shock and fear as she tried to come to terms with what had just happened. Her left shoulder ached where she had struck it on the driver’s door as the truck skidded to a halt in the snow
bank, and her left wrist was beginning to throb ominously with the pain of what she suspected was a fairly serious sprain. Then, realizing that the outside temperature would fall sharply as the afternoon wore on and not wanting to find herself stranded on this quiet country lane, Lauren got out and walked around the vehicle to see how badly she was stuck. Silently, she cursed her decision to take a shortcut home on the back roads, because the front end of the truck was comfortably lodged right in the snow bank. Underneath the snow, no doubt, there would be soft ground to suck at the tires once she started trying to get out.

  On a sudden inspiration, she rummaged in the truck cab in hopes of finding a mobile phone or a car phone, after all, Jon had installed a new millennium state of the art CD player, why not some telecommunications? But she was out of luck. Standing at the rear of the cab, her shoulder aching and her wrist throbbing, Lauren had to fight back tears as she realized how serious the situation was and that she was in it alone. There were no houses or other buildings in sight, and the only habitation she remembered passing had been a good five miles back. The road didn’t look exactly well traveled, either. She was on her own.

  Carefully, hampered by the pain in her wrist and shoulder, Lauren started the truck and began rocking it gently backwards and forwards using the manual transmission and crossing her fingers the strain wouldn’t burn the gears out. Thankfully, she felt the tires begin to bite at the far end of a reverse swing, and with a roar, the big vehicle whipped backwards onto the hardened gravel surface of the road. Lauren sat for a moment with her head down on the steering wheel, trembling in every muscle with effort and anxiety. Then she set off somberly for home.

  Once the worst of the shock effect had worn off and Lauren was on the open road again, anger began to take its place. Did the idiot driving the other vehicle not see what had happened? Didn’t he understand how dangerous such silly games were? Seared into Lauren’s mind was the insignia of Jon’s company she had identified as the Jeep sped by. One of the company vehicles had run her off the road, and whoever had trashed her studio had pinned Jon Rush’s business card to the slashed canvas on her easel.