The Angels' Share

by J. R. Ward

"Is there something else?" Edward prompted.

  "This is very awkward for me."

  "Clearly."

  There was another silence, as if the man would have much preferred Edward get to the point. But that was not going to happen. As Edward had long learned in business, he who opened the meeting in any given negotiation lost.

  And yes, he knew why the man had driven out to the farm.

  Monteverdi coughed a little. "Well, now. Indeed. With your father's death, certain . . . arrangements . . . that he made need to be attended to, and in my case, with alacrity. Although I know you are in mourning, I'm afraid that there is one situation in particular which cannot be put off and which is imminently due. Accordingly, and in order to protect your family's name and reputation, I am coming to you so that things may be handled discreetly."

  "I have no idea what you're talking about." Liar, liar, pants on fire. "So I'm afraid you will have to be more specific."

  "Your father came to me several months ago for a private loan. I was happy to take care of what he required, but let us say that I had to get creative with the financing. The monies are due now and they must be repaid before the quarterly Prospect Trust board meeting or--"

  "Or you will be in a tight spot?"

  Monteverdi's face got hard. "No, I will be forced to put your family in a tight spot."

  "I can't help you."

  "I don't think you understand. If that money is not repaid, I'm going to have to take legal action, and that will become very public, very quickly."

  "So sue us. Call the New York Times and tell them we owe your Trust company fifty-three million dollars. Tell them we're deadbeats, liars, thieves. I don't care."

  "I thought you said you knew nothing of this."

  Goddamn drink was still in his veins. Also, he was out of practice with verbal sparring.

  "I think the issue," Edward said with a smile, "is your needing to protect yourself. You're trying to strong-arm me so that you don't have to tell your board that you executed a massive, unsecured loan without their knowledge and admit that you've been skimming the interest from it for yourself. My response is that I don't give a shit. Do whatever you have to. I don't care because it's not my problem."

  "Your mother is in a delicate state."

  "She's in a coma for all intents and purposes."

  "As the eldest son, I would think you'd care about her welfare more than this."

  "I moved out here to this incredible luxury"--Edward waved a hand around at the ratty furniture--"to get away from all of that and all of them for a good reason. So sink that big fancy ship up on that hill. Shoot your cannons at my family's mansion until the whole lot of it ends up on the seafloor. It is not going to affect me one way or another."

  Monteverdi jabbed a finger across the space. "You are not worthy of calling yourself a son."

  "Considering who my parents are, I'm proud of having lasted as long as I did under that roof. And do us both a favor. Don't try to mask your self-interest in the rhetoric of altruism while you're threatening my family. Tell me, how much interest did you pocket? Ten percent? Fifteen? If the loan was for six months, that's at least two and a half million right there for you. Nice work if you can find it, huh."

  Monteverdi tugged at his icy white French cuffs. "I regard this as a declaration of war. What happens next is your fault."

  "How codependent of you." Edward indicated his body. "But I've been tortured for eight days by people who were going to kill me, and in my case, that is not hyperbole. If you think there is anything that you can do to get my attention, you are delusional."

  "Just watch. You may not care about your mother, but I wonder if you feel so cavalier about your siblings. As far as I understand it, you have always been quite the caretaker."

  "Were."

  "We shall see."

  The man turned away and was out the door a moment later. And as the old-fashioned phone started to ring again, Edward stared down at his ruined legs . . . and wondered, not for the first time, what might have been.

  What should have been.

  Too late for all that now, however.

  Cranking his head to the side, he stared at that receiver hanging on the wall by the galley kitchen. The thought of walking over there exhausted him, but mostly, he knew what the call probably was about.

  They were going to have to come for him if they wanted him, though.

  ELEVEN

  Edwin MacAllan, Master Distiller for the Bradford Bourbon Company, was getting nowhere. Sitting in his office, which had been his father's command central up until the man had died unexpectely a decade ago, Mack was trying to reach someone, anyone at the business center. Nothing. All he was getting was voice mail, which, considering he was dialing senior management's private lines and not going through the receptionist, was unprecedented.

  The CFO, COO, and three senior vice presidents were not picking up.

  Lane was also not answering his cell.

  As Mack hung up the phone again, he knew damn well that caller ID on the corporate phones meant that people knew who it was. And whereas one or two might not have answered, all five? Yes, their CEO had died, and there was chaos, but the business had to keep running.

  "Hey, am I doing this--"

  Before Mack could get to the word "right," he shut his mouth and remembered that his executive assistant, who had also been his father's, was not out there anymore. And hadn't been since her brother had had a heart attack the day before yesterday.

  As if all the interviews he'd done today hadn't reminded him of the loss?

  Clearly, they'd just thrown him into a case of denial.

  Putting his elbows on the piles of paperwork, he rubbed his head. Hiring was a lot like dating. HR had sent over a number of candidates, and each one of them had been a swipe left, the executive assistant equivalents of high-maintenance, bobbleheaded beauty queens; neurotic, Glenn Close, bunny-boiling clingers; or sex-less, defensive, hairy-armpitted man-haters.

  "Shit."

  Getting up, he walked around the battered old desk and took a lingering stroll around, looking at the artifacts that were displayed in glass cases and shadowboxes. There was the first barrel that had been stamped with No. Fifteen, the company's brand of relatively reasonably priced bourbon. A line-up of special bottles celebrating the University of Charlemont basketball program's wins in the NCAA tournament in 1980, 1986, and 2013. Historic revolvers. Maps. Letters from Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson to various Bradfords.

  But the wallpaper itself was the true testimony to the company's product, longevity, and pride. Every inch of flat, vertical space was layered with labels from countless bottles, the different fonts and colors and images illustrating an evolution of marketing, value proposition, and price.

  Even as the product that was packaged stayed exactly the same.

  Bradford Bourbon was made precisely the way it had been since the late 1700s, nothing changing, not the make-up of the grain mash, not the strain of yeast, not the special limestone aquifer-fed water source, not the charred oak of the barrels. And God knew the Kentucky seasons and the number of days in a calendar year hadn't altered.

  As he measured the history that had come before him, it seemed inconceivable that over two centuries of tradition could end on his watch. But the corporate bigwigs had decided, before William Baldwine had died, to freeze the purchasing of corn, which meant there was no more mash, which meant Mack had had to shut production down.

  It would be unprecedented. Even during Prohibition, the BBC had continued to make its liquor, albeit after a relocation to Canada for a time.

  After fighting with the suits and getting nowhere, Mack had turned whistleblower at Easterly and let Lane in on the shutdown--and then Mack had helped the prodigal son get access to some of the corporate financials. But after that? He hadn't heard anything since.

  It was like waiting for biopsy results, and the stress was killing him. If he lost this job, this livelihood? He was losing his father,
plain and simple.

  And he hadn't liked living through that the first time.

  Antsy and frustrated, he went out into the reception area. The barney, empty space was too quiet and too cool, the hot air rising up to the exposed beams of the converted cabin's high peaked roof, the AC'd stuff falling to the floorboards. Like the rest of the Old Site, as this campus was known, the Master Distiller's office was housed in a refurbished original structure, the old mortar and log construction retrofitted with everything from running water to Wi-Fi in as unobtrusive a manner as possible.

  Hitting the oversized door, he stepped outside and wandered across the cropped lawn. The Old Site was as much a functioning bourbon producing facility as it was a tourist attraction to teach laymen and aficionados alike exactly what made Bradford the best. Accordingly, there was a Disney World cast to the acreage, in the very best sense, the buildings all quaint and painted black and red with little pathways leading from grain silo to mash house to stills and storage barns. And ordinarily, there would be groups of tourists led by guides, the parking lots full, the gift shop and reception buildings bustling with activity.

  Out of respect for the passing of William Baldwine, everything was closed to nonessential personnel for the next week.

  Or at least that was what senior management had said. More likely? The cost cutting wasn't just stopping at the grain supply.

  Eventually, Mack ended up in front of one of the three storage barns. The seven-floor, uninsulated wooden buildings housed hundreds of aging barrels of bourbon on heavy wooden racking systems, the temperature variants of the seasons setting the stage for the alchemy that happened as the alcohol dated, fell in love, and married the charred fibers of its temporary wooden home.

  As he opened a paneled door, the handmade hinges creaked, and the rich, earthy scent that hit him as he stepped inside reminded him of his father. The interior was dark, the beams supporting the rows and rows of barrels rough cut and worn, the thin pathways that cut in between the stacked racks two boards wide and thirty feet long.

  The center aisle was much broader and made of concrete, and he put his hands in the pockets of his jeans as he stalked deeper and deeper into the building.

  "Lane, what are we doing here," he asked out loud.

  Bourbon required time. It wasn't like making vodka, where you could just turn on a spigot and there you had it. If the company wanted something to sell seven years, ten years, twelve years from now? You had to keep the sills running now--

  "Um . . . excuse me?"

  Mack pivoted. Standing in the open doorway, with light streaming in behind her, a woman with an hourglass shape and long dark hair was like an apparition from some sexual fantasy. God . . . he could even smell her perfume or her soap or whatever it was on the fresh air passing by her body and blowing into the stacks.

  She seemed equally surprised as she looked at him.

  "I'm so sorry," she said in a low, unaccented voice. "I'm looking for Edwin MacAllan. I have an interview with him, but there's nobody in the office--"

  "You found me."

  There was a pause. "Oh." She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I just--anyway, my name is Beth. Beth Lewis. Do you, ah, do you want me to come back some other time?"

  No, he thought as her hair caught the breeze and curled up off her shoulder.

  Actually . . . I don't want you to leave.

  *

  "I can't reach Edward."

  As Lane strode across the business center's reception area and into his father's office, it was like walking into a room full of loaded guns pointed in his direction: His skin pricked in warning and his hands cranked into fists and he just wanted to turn around and beat feet out of there.

  Then again, the place was eerie as hell. The dim security lighting from his power cut tinted everything with a grim portent, and the ghost of William Baldwine seemed to lurk in the shadows.

  Lane had no clue why he'd come in here. The police were probably pulling up in front of Easterly right now.

  He shook his head as he looked at the regal desk and the big carved chair that was like a throne. Everything about the pair was like a stage set from a Humphrey Bogart film: A crystal decanter full of bourbon. A silver tray of cut-crystal glasses. A picture of Little V.E. in a silver frame. A humidor with the Cubans his father had liked on the other corner by the Tiffany lamp. A pack of Dunhill cigarettes and a gold lighter next to a clean Cartier ashtray. No computer. No paperwork. And the phone was a high-tech afterthought, dwarfed by the lifestyle, the objet d'arrogance.

  "This is only the second time I've been in this office," he murmured toward Lizzie, who'd stayed by the door. "I never envied Edward."

  While she glanced around at the leather-bound books, and the diplomas, and the photographs of William with prominent national and international men, he found himself focusing on her: the way her hair, which had been blonded by the sun; her breasts as they filled out her black polo shirt; her long, muscled legs, which were showed off by those shorts.

  Lust clawed into his gut.

  "Lizzie--"

  Jeff walked into the open doorway. "Okay, they've all left. The place is empty, and your lawyer's gone back to the house to meet the police. Do you know how to change the code on that door? Because I would, if I were you."

  Lane blinked to clear the mental image of him shoving everything off the desk and putting Lizzie right up on it naked.

  "Ah, I don't, but we'll figure it out." Lane stretched his tight back. "Listen, can you give me a quick idea of exactly what you found at corporate?"

  Jeff glanced around and didn't seem particularly impressed by the grandeur. "On the surface, the transfers I flagged look like your garden-variety debt-service payments to various banks. But then there are these huge balloon payments--and that was what got me worried first. Tracing the money transfers, I discovered notations for something called WWB Holdings--which turned out to be William Wyatt Baldwine Holdings. I believe it's a case of off-balance sheet financing that's gone out of control, and if so, I'm confident it qualifies as embezzlement. Now, when I did some Internet searches and called in a favor at UBS, I couldn't find anything anywhere on precisely what WWB Holdings is or where it's located, but I'll let you guess who was in charge of it."

  "Sonofabitch," Lane muttered. "That's where the household money went, too. WWB Holdings. So how much are we talking about?"

  "Seventy-two million. So far."

  As Lizzie gasped, Lane shook his head. "Damn it."

  Lizzie spoke up. "Wait, what's off-sheet balance--"

  "Off-balance sheet financing." Jeff rubbed his eyes like he had the same headache Lane did. "Basically, it's when you leverage the assets of one company to secure debt for another. If the second entity fails, the bank or lender expects the first one to pay up. In this case? I'm willing to bet that the funds lent to WWB Holdings were embezzled and when the loan terms weren't met, the Bradford Bourbon Company's money was used to meet the obligations. It's a way of stealing that's a little less obvious than just writing yourself a corporate check and cashing it."

  "Over one hundred and forty million?" Lane crossed his arms over his chest as he was struck by a fury that made him want to trash the office. "That's the total. You've got to be kidding me."

  "And that seventy plus million is just transfers from the operations accounts through February. There are going to be more. There's an escalating pattern to it all." Jeff shrugged. "I'm telling you, Lane, it's time to involve the FBI. This is too big for me to keep going--especially because I have to go back to New York. It's been a helluva vacation, though."

  Lane's phone started ringing, and when he took it out and saw it was Samuel T., he answered with, "Are they here? I'm coming--"

  "What are you doing!"

  The woman who rushed into the office was sixty and built like the battleship she was. From her gunmetal-gray suit to the dinner-roll bun of her gray hair, Ms. Petersberg was a tightly wrapped piece of work who had been running William Baldwine's bu
siness life for close to twenty years. But gone was the usual composure. Red-faced and wall-eyed, she was trembling, the reading glasses that hung down from her neck on a thin chain bouncing on her flat chest as she panted.

  Lane kept his voice even. "Get your things. Get out."

  "You have no right to be in this office!"

  Hysteria erupted from the woman, and she was surprisingly strong as she came at him, her fingers clawing at his face, her knees and feet kicking at him, shrill curses and condemnations punctuating the attack. Lizzie and Jeff lunged forward to try to peel her off, but Lane shook his head at them. Capturing her hands, he let her keep screaming as he eased her up against the bookcases as gently as he could.

  By the time she'd worn herself out, that neat bun was looking like a tossed salad on her head and her breathing was so ragged, it was like she needed an oxygen feed or she was going to pass out.

  "You can't save him," Lane said grimly. "It was too late for that some time ago. And I know you know things. The question you have to ask yourself is how much are you willing to pay for your loyalty to a dead man. I'm finding out more and more of what went on here, and I know you were a part of it. Are you willing to go to jail for him? Are you that insane?"

  He said this even though he wasn't sure whether he was going to call the Feds or not. Prison was usually a good inducement, however, and he wasn't above using that leverage at the moment.

  And besides, he told himself, if the fraud was as large as Jeff said it was? Then those lenders were going to start dropping dimes on their end when further payments were not made--and yes, some would call lawyers, and when the assets dried up even further?

  It was going to be debt-mageddon at the BBC.

  "He was a good man," Ms. Petersberg spat. "Your father was always good to me."

  "That's because you were useful to him. Don't take it personally, and don't ruin your own life over the illusion that you were anything other than something he could manipulate."

  "I will never understand why you boys hate him so much."

  "Then you need to wake up."

  When she broke free, he let her go so she could pat her hair down and reorder her clothing.

  "Your father only ever had his family's best interests and the interests of the company at heart. He was a . . ."