“Let’s move a bit more out of the way, shall we?” she said. “This really needs to remain private.”
Vivi was looking at her questioningly now.
“Is there a problem?” Grant asked her, openly concerned now, too.
“I’ll wait until we’re all gathered before—here we are,” she said, as the remaining two members of the council joined them, also both men. The mayor, Tom Fielding, stepped over to join them as well. Even better.
They all had expectant expressions on their faces, clearly happy about what was happening in the park that day. There was more shaking of hands, and greetings with Grant and Wyatt; then they looked at her.
“It’s come to my attention that there is a serious problem with one of the proposals today that I was unaware of until I just spoke with Mr. Hammond out in the parking lot.”
Now Hammond frowned. Oh, you’re going to do a lot more of that when I’m done.
“What seems to be the problem, Ms. McCafferty?” asked Henry. “And which proposal are you referring to?”
“Yours,” Chey said, looking directly at him and the other two councilmen who had been standing with Hammond earlier.
Hammond took her arm. “Be careful,” he warned, but for the first time, he looked truly worried. He clearly wasn’t expecting her to stand up to him.
“I believe you’ve threatened me enough for one day,” she told Hammond, then slid her arm free and looked at the surprised faces of their little gathering. She held her hand up when Wyatt stepped forward. “I got this,” she told him, and he must have seen something of her current mood in her eyes because he stepped back . . . and smiled.
Chey looked at the council members who were not involved, at the mayor, and at Vivi, Grant, and Addie Pearl, and said, “It seems Mr. Hammond here is very concerned that your proposal must go through today. To the extent that he cut the power to my house to delay my arrival, then ambushed me by my truck, threatened to destroy Wyatt’s career, and possibly harm myself, Vivienne, Hannah, or Avery, along with our farm, if I didn’t agree to shut our proposal down.”
All eight faces, Wyatt’s included, went momentarily slack as what she’d said hit home.
“Now see here,” Hammond interrupted, his face turning red, “I will not have you slandering my good name with these ridiculous assertions and bold-faced lies.”
“The only lies being told are the ones you threatened to tell the media in order to get Wyatt’s fan base to turn against him.” She looked at the group. “I am a firm believer in the rule my aunt taught me at a very young age. The best way to find out what’s going on in the dark is to shine a bright light on it.”
Henry stepped up. “Ms. McCafferty, I’m not sure what in the world would prompt such an outrageous display,” he said, all benevolent kindness and avuncular understanding. “Now, I’ve known Paul Hammond my entire life, and I can state—”
“—that you are in on this, too?” Chey finished for him. “Good, at least we have that on record.” She then looked at the other two men standing there. “I don’t know what you’ve got going on with your little side deal, and frankly, I don’t want to know. The amount of sweat dripping off Mr. Hammond’s brow out in the parking lot would indicate that he needs an immediate influx of cash and this deal is where he’s going to get it. How much do you three stand to make?”
“That’s enough,” Hammond shouted, then immediately lowered his voice when a hush fell over the part of the crowd closest to them. “I don’t know what kind of medication you’re on, but you’ve clearly messed up today’s dosage. You sound a little off your rocker, sweetheart. So, I’ll just say this once: cease this sad little display right now, and I won’t drag you into court. Clearly you’re under enough strain as it is.”
“No,” Chey said, turning on him, her expression as fierce as it had ever been. “You cease. You cease threatening me and the people I love, and this place that I love. You said I underestimated you?” She gestured to the field full of people. “No, Mr. Hammond, I’d say you’re the one who underestimated me. Look what we’ve been able to do in just a few weeks.” Then she gestured to the media trucks. “You said you’d pay someone to pretend she’d been assaulted by Wyatt, or defrauded by him, and use the media to spread those filthy lies. Well, I can use the media, too. But not to spread lies and filth. How about I call one of those journalists over here and ask them to dig into your financial dealings with Pantheon, and everyone else associated with this deal. See what they can find out.”
“That will be quite enough.” This from Henry, who now looked rattled. “Let’s call the sheriff over here and see if he can escort Ms. McCafferty into town, where she can make a full statement, following proper protocol. We’ll let the police do their job and investigate your claims,” he said, sounding kind, but Chey saw the cold depths in his dark eyes. He was not happy with her. Not one bit.
Good. She wasn’t too thrilled with him either at the moment.
He looked at Chey. “Now, I’m willing to just overlook all of this if you want to go on home and take care of whatever it is you’re struggling with.” He looked at Vivi and Grant, who both still appeared a little shell-shocked by what had so rapidly unfolded. “Perhaps you could help her out? I’m so sorry for the burden you’ve clearly been under, my dear,” he said to Chey. “All of this must have taken a far bigger toll on you—”
“There’s no toll, Henry,” she said. “Except the one you’re about to pay.” Chey merely turned toward the media trucks, put two fingers in her mouth and—Hammond yanked them back out.
“Don’t you dare,” he threatened, the red in his face darker still as rage consumed him.
She turned on him before Wyatt could get between them. “No, don’t you dare. Did you honestly think you could hold this whole town hostage to get yourself some tidy pay out? Let’s talk about what you’ve gotten yourself into, because desperation is not a good look on you.”
People were starting to pay attention to their little group. Even a few reporters at the end of the media line were looking their way. Hammond saw this and turned on her. “We were one week away from getting it all done,” Hammond hissed, his composure finally breaking down completely. “One week.” He jabbed a finger in her face. “And you have to come in here with your idiot ideas and get everyone all riled up. One week, and we’d have had this all sewn up. But no—”
“Paul.” This from Mayor Fielding, who’d finally snapped to it. He turned to Henry and the other two men. “Whatever is going on here, let’s take a step back, maybe table all this for now, and sit down somewhere and get to the bottom of—”
“No,” Hammond spluttered. “This has to go through today.” His gaze swung to his three compatriots. “Sign the damn contracts, Henry. Jesus Christ, just sign the fucking contracts. Don’t you understand? We’re going to lose goddamn everything.”
One of the councilmen standing next to Henry started to back away, shaking his head. “This isn’t how it was supposed to work,” he murmured, looking more than a little distressed.