Page 23 of Forgotten Path
“Doesn’t,” Brianna corrected him automatically. Then she winced. “I mean, she does care, not don’t.”
“Guess you doesn’t know my mom, then.” He smiled to let her know the mistake was intentional.
She mustered up a sad smile of her own and admitted, “I don’t. I knew your brother, though.”
His face softened, and he caught himself and pasted on a scowl. “Mikey gave me his business when he enlisted. I’m allowed to be here.”
That wasn’t exactly true, but she wasn’t here to argue with a preteen. “Okay. Well, I work for the paper company, so I’m going to pay the employee rate.”
“There isn’t an employee rate.”
She extended a five-dollar bill through the open window. He opened his mouth to protest. Then he reconsidered and grabbed the money.
“Good call,” she told him. “Save the hustle for the drunk tourists.”
“Do you want to park next to Bodhi’s Jeep?”
“Who’s Bodhi?” She didn’t know everyone in town, but she’d never met a Bodhi.
Theo shrugged. “Some guy who has the same Jeep as Doc. And heisn’tcheap like you.”
She followed his finger as he pointed to a Jeep that did look exactly like Doc’s Jeep. In fact, she’d have sworn itwasDoc’s Jeep.
She frowned and shook her head. “Nice. Anyway, no. I’m going to park behind the mill—in the actual parking lot.”
He shook his head as if it was her loss, and she waggled her fingers goodbye before raising the window and continuing across the gravel patch to the shuttered mill building. Her breezy exchange with the boy did nothing to settle her emotions. She’d been stirred up since late morning, when Chad had come from a meeting with Sharon and ordered Brianna to stop investigating the water issues at Emerald Estuary Estates.
If anything, the sight of Michael’s little brother trying to earn the money that his mother either couldn’t or wouldn’t made Brianna even edgier. A lump took up residence in her throat, and pressure began to build behind her eyes.
Pull yourself together, Bri. No crying. This is probably a fool's errand, anyway.
Not to mention possibly a crime. Was it breaking and entering if she had a key to the building? Even if she wasn’t technically supposed to have it?
After the company had shut down the paper mill, but before Sharon could list the property for sale, Brianna had to certify that Gulf Paper had complied with all its environmental obligations—both the legal and statutory ones—and the voluntary pledges they'd made. And, of course, they hadn’t come through on the voluntary parts, which shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone at the company.
But when Brianna delivered her report, Sharon freaked out. That time, Chad sided with Brianna. He told Sharon a company was made up of people, and people were only as good as their word. Then he ordered her to scrap the plans to list the mill for sale unless she wanted him to take the funds needed to meet all their sustainability promises from her department's budget.
Sharon definitely did not want that. Not one bit. Her annual compensation was tied to the real estate department being profitable. Remediating the company's failures would put the department in the red, which meant she could kiss her bonuses goodbye for the foreseeable future. She’d been fuming when she stormed out of the meeting, and, in the emotion-charged atmosphere, Brianna had forgotten to return the key.
But, the tables had turned, and Chad supported Sharon’s position that there was no need to confirm Glazier’s claims that he was now in compliance. Chad had ordered Brianna to let it go. Or else. Or else, what, she didn’t know and didn’t care to find out. She hoped the documents inside would help her change his mind. And, if not, she’d already promised them to Doc Ashland anyway.
She snugged her car up to the side of the building and parked right beside the loading dock. Then she hurried to let herself in through the back door before her courage failed her, and she chickened out.
The interior of the building was dark, hot, and stuffy. No surprise, there. She flipped the metal box to turn on the lights. Nothing happened. Thatwasa surprise. She’d assumed the company had kept the utilities turned on. Apparently not. A frown creased her mouth. If they weren’t maintaining a stable temperature and low humidity, mold would grow in the walls. Then Sharon would really have a hard time unloading the property.
Not your problem,she told herself, digging her phone out of her bag and turning on the flashlight feature. The light wasn’t overly powerful, but it was better than stumbling around in a pitch-black abandoned factory. As she walked through the cavernous building, the clack of her shoes echoed off the walls and her heart thudded almost as loudly. The beam of light from her phone bounced wildly, and she tried to still her shaking hands.
All she had to do was find the file room, grab the archived environmental reports, and get out of there. The documents should have been scanned and uploaded to the company’s digital database. But they hadn’t been. The mill closing had been a massive dumpster fire. Slapped with a cease-and-desist order to stop dumping chemicals into the water and an enormous fine, Chad shut down operations and got out of the paper production business entirely, shifting the company’s focus to distribution and, apparently, building overpriced McMansions.
Brianna clicked her tongue at the memory. Gulf Paper had, of course, paid the remediation fine, but that was the end of it. For all Chad’s talk about honoring his word, he was content to let the building sit empty indefinitely rather than fulfill all the promises he’d made to the community so that it could be sold. A new enterprise would have provided jobs to replace the ones lost when the mill had closed. Maybe Theo’s brother would’ve stuck around. The boy could be playing soccer after school instead of gouging tourists to make a buck.
She reached the file room and let herself in with the second, smaller key on Sharon’s ring. A pair of windows set high in the wall let in enough sunlight to make her flashlight unnecessary. She closed the app, hurried across the room to the last filing cabinet on the right, and yanked open the bottom drawer.
It was empty. She blinked. When she reopened her eyes, it was still empty. Frowning, she slid the drawer closed and pulled open the one above it. Maybe she’d misremembered?
Also empty.
In a frenzy, she began opening and shutting file drawers. The banging as the drawers closed drowned out the sound of the blood pulsing in her ears. Where were the files?
