Page 70 of Crash Course
He lifted one shoulder. "Why? I’ll admit it. But if you’re thinking I came here out of some sense of playing hero, you’re wrong."
"Add mind-reader to your list of talents."
"You had a look about you. A pissy one." He sat forward, propped his elbows on his knees, and clasped his hands together. "Coming here meant seeing you. Letting you read the report and if you wanted to talk it through in private, we could do that. That’s it."
He wanted to see her. He’d slipped that right in there. A burst of sunshine through gray clouds.
"Thank you."
He sat back. "You’re welcome. Now read that shit and tell me what you think."
She skimmed the first e-mail. Sludge. Twenty years ago. Former owner.
Twenty . . . No way.She went back to the beginning, read it word for word, absorbing every syllable. Before moving on to the next page, she peered over at Cruz who sat quietly, watching with narrowed eyes and slightly puckered lips. Attempting to decipher her reaction, no doubt.
"If I’m reading this right, my father learned weeks ago that the Tate property received free sludge from the plant prior to the Tates owning the property."
"That’s correct."
"Back then, the EPA hadn’t banned PFOA yet and Dad’s company was using it. So, if the prior owner took sludge and used it as fertilizer, it’s still in the ground after all these years."
She tossed the e-mails on the coffee table and stood. "So," she walked to her desk, grabbed a legal pad, and came back to Cruz. "What do we know? PFOA numbers on the Tate farm are triple what they should be. The PFOA is probably from the sludge."
"From our research," Cruz said, "it could be from the air as well. Smokestacks release chemicals and when it rains, the water pushes the pollution to the ground. Sometimes it leaches into waterways or wells. Which could explain the stream’s results."
He’d nailed it. Everything she knew to be true about forever chemicals. "Dad says they’ve been compliant. Every time I ask him, he says it. I believed him."
"You think he’s lying?"
"I think he’s not a stupid man. Ithinkhe knows enough that he’s aware something is going on that shouldn’t be. Add these e-mails and a little girl with cancer and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out Randolph Industries might have something to do with it. I mean, hey, they’re the nation’s largest supplier of firefighting gear and foam. Before some of these chemicals were banned, they used them to manufacture their products."
She dropped into the chair, pressed her palms against her forehead.Calm. She had to think. To stay rational. Not get ahead of herself. Her father might be ruthless in business, but he cared for people.
For human life.
He’d never intentionally let people, little girls, succumb to life-threatening illnesses.
She straightened up and peered across at Cruz. "I have to talk to him."
"Now?"
She shot from her chair, grabbed the e-mails and the toxicology report. "Right now. And don’t bother asking if it’s a good idea. It’s not. I know it’s not, but I’m so flipping mad, I need answers. If he—they—are knowingly risking lives to save profits, I’ll lose my mind."
Cruz stood, stepped around the table, and stopped barely a foot in front of her. "You’re a big girl. You make your own decisions. Do what you need to. Want me to wait?"
Yes."You don’t have to."
"But if I want to?"
She lifted her free hand, set it on his thick forearm and let every ounce of his skin’s heat soak into her. Calm, steady, Cruz. Just what she needed.
"I’d love that," she said. "I may need a sounding board when this is over."
12
After coolingher jets for fifteen minutes in Dad’s office while he finished a meeting in the conference room, Cilla pasted on her best fake smile as her father entered the office. Between her research, the trip to Morgan, Paul’s visit, and this, she’d lost a good chunk of precious time on Dad’s PFOA issues.
Hopefully, it would all end here. "Hi, Dad."
