Page 82 of Emergency Exit
“It did?” Ash was surprised. Once projects were moving, he tended to forget about them. He just remembered being grateful that Forest had invested.
“Yeah, I’m doubling my investment. Worth every damn dime. But let’s just…” He edged around the long marble island and picked up the letter without jostling Olly too much. He tore open the envelope and unfolded a single sheet of paper.
Ash watched the color drop out of Forest’s face. Olly leaned until Forest allowed him to slowly slide onto the floor, but Forest continued clutching the page before him. Olly hung on Forest’s leg while sucking on one of his stuffie’s paws.
“Are you OK?”
Forest usually buried his emotions, but Forest looked like a feather could knock him over.
“Forest?”
“Want Chloe,” muttered Olly around his stuffie.
“Forest, you’re freaking me out,” said Ash.
“The Sound Transit job and the homeless camp...”
“Yeah, I saw the news. That’s why you’re working late. But they’ll figure out it wasn’t your fault.”
“But itismy fault.”
“What?”
“I was holding the job until Sound Transit cleared the site. I’m not kicking people out of tents. Someone else can go be theasshole. I didn’t realize I was squeezing the subcontractor. Or I did, but I didn’t care. Also, I think I might have broken his nose.”
“You punched your subcontractor?” Ash tried to wade through Forest’s convoluted statement.
“He was going to hit Chloe. I just bounced him off the hood of the car.” Forest appeared to think for a moment. “And I probably did punch him a bit.”
“Uh… OK, question one: why would the contractor hit Chloe?”
“He’s her brother, and he’s an asshole. I don’t think it’s related to the encampment. I don’t know… Maybe it is. Doesn’t matter. The point is: he’s the subcontractor. They were under contract for the Sound Transit job, but it was stalled until the city did something. My PM said money had been tight for them, and they wanted other work. But he’s been unreliable. We didn’t want to use them.”
“So, you think he cleared the homeless encampment to kickstart the job?”
“Yes,” said Forest, looking at the letter again.
“Shit,” said Ash. “You need to call your lawyers. You need to get a crisis management team together. The second anyone connects the dots between Chloe and those guys, you’re going to have a problem.”
“A problem…”
“Yes, they’ll say you told Chloe to tell her brother to clear it out. Or something equally stupid. We’ve got to get out in front of this.”
“Oh, who cares? I mean, seriously, who the fuck cares what people think? Besides, once I tell people I beat him up, they’re more likely to say Terrence cleared out the camp to get back at me.”
“Yes, but that would mean confessing to assault,” objected Ash.
“Whatever,” said Forest. “It’s not like they haven’t been flashing my arrest record around on the news already.”
“Yes, that’s my point!” exclaimed Ash, waving his arms. Why was his brother stupid?
“So I beat up the douchebag who was assaulting my girlfriend, so what?”
“I really don’t think you’re taking the right view on this,” said Ash. “Optics matter. Your company is going to take a hit.”
“Yeah, probably. The bigger problem is that I need to find Chloe before she does something crazy. Who picked her up?”
“What?”
