The Experiment

by Holly Hart

  “I won’t sit here and listen to this –” Agnes starts, but Desmond stops her again.

  “Hear him out,” he urges.

  “The money was part of a CIA operation to identify and neutralize insurgents who were killing Christian civilians in northern Iraq,” says Pearce. “Chance came up with a way to convince the CIA that the cash had been destroyed, and demanded his share of the company in return. Exposure would likely have resulted in Patrick being assassinated, or at best imprisoned, so he agreed.”

  “Now you’re slandering Chance and my husband!” Agnes barks. “I won’t stand for it!”

  “I believe Patrick had only the best of intentions,” he says, raising his hands in a placating gesture. “Misguided, yes, but ultimately, he built Atlas into what it is today: a unique company that’s desirable to many investors. Chance Talbot, however, is nothing more than a thug and an opportunist.”

  Agnes shakes her head. “No. That’s not true.”

  Pearce reaches into a folder on the table and pulls out a sheaf of paper.

  “Mrs. Sullivan, we’re you aware that Chance Talbot has a lengthy criminal record?”

  She frowns. “No,” she says. “He doesn’t talk much about his life before the military. I know he grew up in foster care. I assume that’s not an easy life for anyone to survive in.”

  Pearce flips through the papers. “Assault and battery, theft, breaking and entering. Does that sound like surviving?”

  “How did you get those documents?” she asks. “If he was allowed to enlist, his juvenile records had to have been sealed by the courts.”

  “I’m a resourceful man, Mrs. Sullivan.”

  “It still doesn’t prove anything.”

  “No,” he says. “And now, thanks to Ms. Bishop – I’m sorry, I mean Mrs. Talbot – we won’t be able to prove anything in court, either.”

  “If this is true,” Desmond pipes up, “We can’t afford to screw around with this deal. I say we sell while we can and let Chance fend for himself.”

  The older lady rounds on her son.

  “We will not sell until I’ve talked with Chance and given him the opportunity to explain himself, is that clear?”

  Desmond glances down at the table. “Yes.”

  She looks to her other children and their spouses.

  “The rest of you?”

  They all mutter their agreement.

  “Fine. Then it’s settled: I’ll talk to Chance as soon as he and Sara return to Chicago. Until then, we don’t do anything different.”

  The Sullivans rise from the table and cross the boardroom to the door. As Agnes passes Pearce, he holds up a hand to halt her.

  “What is it?” she snaps.

  “I understand how you must feel right now,” he says. “And I respect your wishes. But may I give you some advice before you leave?

  “Don’t trust Chance around any of your family members.”

  “Mr. Pearce,” she says archly. “Chance is a member of my family.”

  “As you say. But I feel the need to point out that one of his assault charges was against his own foster father. They were eventually dropped when the man refused to testify. Sound familiar?”

  Agnes glares at him before turning to walk out of the room in silence.

  As she slams the door behind her, Quentin Pearce smiles his first genuine smile in a very long time.

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-Five

  52. SARA

  “How many times do I have to tell you I don’t want a big party?” I sigh.

  “Why is everything about you?” Grace snips on the other end of the line.

  “Because I’m the bride, dumbass!”

  “Sure, rub it in. Listen, you and Chance eloped without me, fine, I’ll get over it. But you have to let me celebrate it somehow!”

  “Fine,” I say as I round West Shubert onto North Wayne. “Who are you going to invite? You’re my only family, and Chance doesn’t have any at all, unless you count the Sullivans.”

  “Okay, we’ll make it a small party then!”

  I roll my eyes. “Fine, I give up. Do what you want.”

  “Yay!” she squeaks. “So are you just going to give me your credit card, or what’s the deal?”

  I stop in my tracks, prompting the guy who’s been walking behind me with his dog to do a dance step onto the boulevard to avoid running into my back.

  How are we going to handle finances now? Is Chance going to give me a credit card? In the days since the wedding, I haven’t been in a situation where I had to pay for anything. And are we married enough for him to give me access to his money?

  I guess the fact that I just thought the words “married enough” is kind of an answer in itself. Crazier and crazier.

  “Look, sis, I’ll have to call you back. I’ve got a bunch of things to do.”

  “All right,” she says. “Hey, you don’t mind me staying at your apartment, do you? It’s so much nicer than mine.”

  Another thing I hadn’t thought about. I have a lease on the place, but I live with Chance now. But for how long? Do I keep paying rent on it until we get our marriage figured out? More questions for the pile I have to start asking once Pearce’s deal blows over.

  If it blows over. Chance still has to come up with a compelling reason for the rest of the board not to sell.

  “Yeah, of course,” I say absently. “Might as well. Just don’t wear my clothes.”

  “When are you going to pick them up, anyway?”

  “I don’t know. Chance kind of bought me a new wardrobe while we had a layover in Mexico City on our honeymoon.”

  “Ugh!” she barks. “How come you’re always so lucky? Why can’t I meet a rich hot guy who wants to marry me after two weeks?”

  “Stop whining. It was a lot longer than that, and you know it.”

  “Fine, whatevs. I’m going to wear your clothes. ‘Kay, bye.”

  She hangs up, leaving me with my head spinning. We didn’t even talk about the clients I’ve left hanging since the day Quentin Pearce picked me up in his limo and flipped my life on its head.

  I spend the next three blocks trying to focus on the thousand different things running through my head. And trying to figure out why the guy with the dog is behind me again. He should be a good block in front of me.

  I drop to one knee and pretend to tie my running shoe, long enough for him to pass by a second time. I shake my head at myself. Guess I still have my investigator’s suspicion, even if I’m not doing much investigating these days.

  That’s something else to add to the pile: when am I going to get back to my cases? They may not be as high-profile as a billion-dollar corporate takeover, but they matter. Every one of those girls matters.

  Which brings me back to money again. Will Chance subsidize Bishop & Associates to keep me afloat? Should I even ask him to? If he doesn’t, will Grace have to find a new job?

  It’s more than enough to keep my mind occupied until I reach Chance’s – I mean our – front door. I’m so deep in thought that I barely notice the guy with the dog has fallen behind me again.

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-Six

  53. INTERLUDE: QUENTIN PEARCE

  “Nice little office, Mr. Carter,” Pearce says as the receptionist ushers him into the room.

  “It does the job,” Tre says politely. “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”

  Pearce shrugs. “My ears are always open. Although I very much hope this isn’t just a rehash of Mr. Talbot’s speech against the sale, only coming from your mouth this time.”

  Tre motions for him to take a seat, then takes his own.

  “Definitely not,” he says. “In fact, I was hoping to talk to you about what might occur after the sale.”

  Pearce raises an eyebrow. “After? So you believe the Sullivans will sell?”

  “Let’s just say it’s in my best interests to be prepared for every eventuality.”

  “Forgive me if I’m a bit confused – aren’t you the head
cheerleader on Team Talbot?”

  Tre flashes an annoyed look. It’s enough to make Pearce sit forward in his chair.

  “We haven’t been seeing eye to eye lately on the future of the company,” he says. “Chance has made some… questionable decisions.”

  “Marrying Sara Bishop for one, I assume,” Pearce says, standing to peruse the various certificates on the wall beside Tre’s desk. “Hm. Harvard. Good for you.”

  “Thanks. As for Sara, it’s their personal decision to make. That said, it has definitely taken Chance’s head out of the game for several days now.”

  “Leaving you as president to run things in his absence,” Pearce says. “But I imagine you’re used to that, with him flying around the world and parachuting into war zones and all that.”

  “I keep the lights on, yes. I’m quite good at it.”

  “Mr. Carter, let’s cut to the chase, if you’ll pardon the expression. You’re hoping that, in the event of a change of ownership, you’ll still have a role in the company.”

  Tre shrugs. “In a nutshell, yes. I have no stock in Atlas, so I rely on my salary to pay my bills. And please, call me Tre.”

  Pearce turns to face him, hands clasped behind his back. He attempt a sincere smile, and almost pulls it off.

  “Well, Tre, I for one appreciate your business acumen. In fact, from what I’ve been able to glean, Atlas owes a great deal of the success of its expansion to your shrewd mind.”

  “I could bring that same mind to the new owners, if they’ll have me. Assuming it comes to that.”

  “Oh, it will come to that, I assure you.”

  “How can you know for sure?”

  Pearce pulls the chair closer to Tre’s desk and sits again. When he speaks, he leans forward on his elbows on the edge of the desk and lowers his voice.

  “I’ll tell you what I told the Sullivans at a meeting in my office earlier today,” he says.

  “The Sullivans were at Empire?” Tre asks, eyes narrowing. “For what reason?”

  “Therein lies a tale,” says Pearce, smiling genuinely for the second time in a day.

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-Seven

  54. CHANCE

  “Ta da!” I say as I pull the cloche off the china dish. “Lunch is served.”

  Sara’s grin lights me up inside. It’s exactly the reaction I was hoping for.

  “You did not,” she says. “Seriously? Is this the real thing?”

  “I can show you the blue box in the recycling, if you want.”

  I pull a wooden spoon from behind my back and hand it to her, prompting a giggle.

  “You thought of everything,” she says, pretending to swoon. “Be still my heart.”

  I take my own spoon and dig into my mac and cheese. The taste hasn’t changed one iota since the last time I had it as a kid.

  “I should buy stock in Kraft,” I say, savoring the sharp taste of it.

  “Mmmm,” Sara moans though a mouthful of macaroni. “So good.”

  “So,” I say. “Any luck convincing Grace we don’t need a party?”

  “I at least got her to scale it back. Just us, Tre and the Sullivans. Kelsey, I guess.”

  “Don’t forget Tre’s mom.”

  She snaps her fingers. “Right! I’ll have to get her number from you.”

  I pull out my phone to look it up just in time for it to ring in my hand. The caller ID shows Agnes’s contact info.

  “Speak of the devil,” I say by way of greeting. “We were just talking about inviting you and the family to a party.”

  “Chance, we need to talk,” she says gravely.

  What’s this about? I’ve never known Agnes to skip the pleasantries – she’s too much of a lady for that.

  “Of course,” I say. “What’s up?”

  She recounts her meeting with Quentin Pearce earlier in the day. My blood temperature goes up one degree for every word, until I’m boiling over by the end of it. Sara’s eyebrows go up as she looks over at the expression on my face.

  “You don’t believe it, do you?” I ask.

  “I don’t know what to believe, Chance. I mean, your sudden wedding, the questions I’ve always had about the expansion capital…”

  “Agnes, I don’t want to go into this on the phone, but believe this much right now: Patrick was the greatest man I’ve ever known. I consider him my father. He wasn’t a criminal and I would never have betrayed him.”

  “I just… I just don’t know. Pearce started talking about the Department of Defense. Would he really call them in?”

  The DoD. Jesus, just like I feared.

  “Can you give me a day?” I ask. “Two at most. I need to get some things taken care of, and then we can meet.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Agnes, I can explain it all. But not right now, not on the phone.”

  She sighs. “All right, Chance. Two days, no longer. That only leaves a handful of days until the sale. One way or the other, the board will have an answer for Pearce on that day.”

  “That’s all I ask,” I say.

  “Good luck, Chance,” she says.

  “Thanks, Agnes. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  Sara’s bursting to talk as I click off the phone.

  “What’s going on?” she asks, eyes wide. “Why were you talking about Sully being a criminal? And you betraying him?

  I bring her up to speed on Pearce’s twisted narrative.

  “Shit,” she breathes. “He really will resort to anything to push this deal through.”

  “And I still don’t know why!” I say, exasperated.

  “You said you think he’s going to flip Atlas to someone who wants to buy influence. I think I can confirm that theory – when I listened in on his call that day, he was talking to someone about getting dirt on you.”

  “You think it was the buyer?”

  “Not the buyer,” she says. “At least, not by the way he was talking to the guy, like he was a piece of shit on his shoe. He mentioned the guy’s uncle being involved.”

  I nod. That would explain quite a bit. But what Sara hasn’t asked yet is how someone could have come up with that story that Pearce is spinning. It’s just close enough to the truth to cast doubt on everything. Where did it come from?

  “All right,” I say. “Can you give me any more detail? Did Pearce use a name?”

  “No, they just used the term ‘partner.’ But I’ll never forget the guy’s voice: he had a New Jersey accent so thick, he could have been Snooki’s boyfriend.”

  New Jersey? Why does that spark an itch in the back of my mind?

  Sara sighs. “This is a nightmare. I was already jumpy enough as it was. When I was walking home before lunch, I thought a guy walking his dog was actually following me.”

  I arch an eyebrow. “Why’s that?”

  "He kept ending up behind me somehow, even after he’d passed me. Happened twice.”

  “Stay here,” I say. It sounds like an order – I should probably work on that if I’m going to be a married man.

  “What are you doing?” she asks as I stalk toward the front of the house. The blinds are closed in the huge living room window, so I drop to the floor and open them a crack at the bottom corner.

  Sure enough, there’s a black car across the street with two guys in dark suits.

  “Shit,” I mutter.

  “What?”

  “There’s a car across the street. Department of Defense is watching the house. That crazy bastard actually looped them into this.”

  Sara blinks for a few moments. “Are you sure there’s not another explanation? Maybe they’re just regular people.”

  “In a government issue Chev and black suits with sunglasses?”

  “Oh. Shit.”

  “We have to get out of here. I can’t do anything to figure this out if I’m in a holding cell.”

  She bites her lip. “Do you really think it’ll come to that?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “And I really don’t
want to find out.”

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-Eight

  55. SARA

  This is literally the craziest thing I’ve ever done, and I’ve done plenty of crazy things.

  “You expect me to jump to your neighbor’s roof from here?”

  “Front and back doors aren’t an option, and we can’t tunnel out,” Chance says. “I’m open to other options, if you’ve got any.”

  We’re both hunkered below the low wall that surrounds the greystone’s rooftop patio. There’s a little more cover from the trees, but we probably have only a couple of seconds once we stand up. We have to sprint and then leap the ten feet or so between us and the house next door.

  “Have faith in yourself,” he says. “I’m sure Kelsey trained you well.”

  “Yeah, and what if she didn’t? I drop three stories to the ground and then the DoD hauls what’s left of me away, that’s what.”

  He puts a hand on my shoulder. “Which leg is your strongest?”

  “I don’t know!” I whisper-shout. “I’ve never tested them against each other!”

  “You’re left-handed, so it’s likely your left.”

  “Wait, what if it’s not?”

  He smiles. “Have some faith in yourself.”

  “Okay, but you go first. I need you there to catch me if I don’t make it.”

  He frowns, thinking it over.

  “All right,” he says. “It’s time.”

  I take a deep breath. He knows damn well I’m afraid of heights. He took me to a train bridge in Philly once and tried to get me to climb up. I told him to kiss my ass.

  Now he’s my husband. Go figure.

  He points to the area where we’re going to launch from. It’s a drain well, so we won’t have to step up onto the wall in order to get across. He shoulders the pack he brought with him onto his back.

  He nods. I nod.

  Next thing I know, my hand is gripped in his and he’s pulling me forward. My heart races as my pupils dilate – he’s taking me with him! I pump my knees to match his speed as we cross the space to the edge in under two seconds. I make sure to push off with my left leg.