Page 38 of Broken
She nodded. “Right. Special Agent in Charge. I got transferred out west.”
The server returned with their drinks. After taking several sips, she asked, “What do you do?”
“Corporate America.”
Prescott’s phone rang with a call from Dana, the head of his Product Safety Division. “Sorry,” he said to Jack. “Gotta take this.”
She nodded.
Prescott answered. “Hey, Dana, what’s going on?”
“A plant employee confided that a coworker had tampered with a large batch of the painkiller. Turns out, the employee who came forward is the one who did it. The two had some kind of ongoing dispute and the one who poisoned the batch was hoping the other one would get fired.”
“Nice job,” Prescott replied. “You get eyes on this?”
“We’ve got video surveillance of him dumping a liquid into the vat.”
“Jesus, what the hell was it?”
“Antifreeze.”
“We’re lucky no one died.”
“The police are at his house now, and I’ve looped in Lorenzo from Marketing to put together another press release. I’m sorry, Prescott. This is gonna cost us.”
“It’s only money.” He thanked Dana and hung up.
“That sounded serious,” Jacqueline said.
“Someone in our manufacturing plant tampered with a popular painkiller and several people around the country got sick.” He told her the name of the painkiller. “Do you have any?”
“I’m sure I do, but it’s from a while ago,” she replied. “So, how are you involved with that?”
“I’m the COO of Armstrong Enterprises.”
* * *
Jacqueline
Jacqueline staredat him for several seconds.It can’t be. There’s no way.
A wave of nausea swept through her and she swallowed down the bitter bile. “Are you Prescott Armstrong?”
“Yes,” he replied. “Addison introduced us hours ago.”
She fisted her hand on her hip. “Addison introduced you as her future brother-in-law, Prescott. Isn’t your last name Hawk, like your brother, Nicholas?”
“No, it’s Armstrong.”
Her entire world flipped on its axis. The air got sucked from her lungs while months of seething anger jumped to the surface. As reality took hold, she stared at him in disbelief. For months, she’d been addicted to his touch, craved him like no other man she’d ever met. Being around him was fire and all-consuming.
And now?
She wanted to throw up.
Prescott—Prescott Armstrong—shot her a smile. “You want to go back outside and play another game?”
She wanted to scream at him for what he did, storm out, and never,everget within fifty feet of him, ever again.
