“That’s just what I thought,” Stone ticked a finger in Humphrey’s direction. “So I worked off the assumption that they were all lying. I guess you could say I took a page from the dishonesty playbook. My team took a break from their inventory duties and started searching.”
“For?” The word was sharp on Humphrey’s tongue.
“Despite my lack of faith in the captains, I decided to follow up their claims about the memos from my office.” Stone walked the room as he spoke.
“I could have accused them of lying outright, canned them all and stocked the entire fleet with new personnel. Then, I thought,” he waved a hand above his head. “Maybe the captains were shrewd enough to cover their asses. Maybe they put the notes in their logs about the memos in case that directive came back to haunt them.”
Humphrey’s expression remained passive while his brother talked. In his head, Humphrey recalled his father’s words when he had spoken of Aaron’s nobility and Stone’s...intuition.
“...so I had my team look for those memos,” Stone was saying, “I knew we wouldn’t find them in my office since I never ordered the damn things, so we searched yours.”
“What?”
“The smarter thing to do would’ve been to hide the incriminating evidence at home. Not here. If we hadn’t found anything I’d have dropped it. I sure wouldn’t have pranced my team through our mother’s house. But in the end, arrogance, vanity and using a sixteen year old as your minion, bit you in the ass.”
Humphrey sighed, his striking features relaxing a tad. “Your imagination is astounding and you’d even sink low enough to drag our little brother-”
“Save the little brother bullshit. Vale’s psychotic-we all know that. We’ve always known that and it makes him a prime candidate to be your henchman in training.”
“Are you hearing yourself right now?!” Humphrey barked a laugh. “Nonexistent memos, blowing up ships- you’re the psycho and trying to pin it all on a kid.”
“Ah! That’s right, I haven’t finished the story,” Stone’s emerald greens gleamed. “I didn’t tell you we found the memos. Oh, not in your desk,” he said when Humphrey seemed to stagger back. “I have to tell you though, your desk is pristine. You could learn a thing or two from our little brother about making use of a desk. He sure made spectacular use of the one you gave him in here.
We found every memo neatly stacked in the bottom drawer. Copies, of course, but clear copies. It was so good of Pop to have the company keep using those carbon pads. Sometimes, the old ways are the best.”
“So it seems,” Humphrey smiled curiously then. “You know all you’ve done is found evidence against yourself?”
Stone didn’t bat a lash. “You think Pop will see it that way? Given how well he knows us, do you think he won’t be able to tell my handwriting from Vale’s? You think Ma won’t side with me too? She already knows he was responsible for coming after me about the story on the Stonewall. Don’t look surprised,” he smirked. “We both know Vale reported back to you on that.”
“You’d really drag Ma into this,” Humphrey’s voice was a growl. “Force her to choose.”
“I don’t want to bring any of them into this,” Stone growled back, “I’m the only one who knows. I’m the one who searched Vale’s desk.” He shook his head, disgusted. “I don’t want to know why you blew that ship. Given what I already know, I think it’s safe to say you’re involved in some pretty foul shit. I hope it works out for you, just work it out someplace other than Tesano.”
“Pop says Tesano will be mine.”
“He’ll say differently. I’ll see to it. The only reason I haven’t gone to him yet is because of what you and Uncle Em pulled. This would surely crush Pop, but I’d do it, Hump I swear I would.”
Humphrey’s heated expression seemed to level out and gave him a resolved look. “Looks like we’ll do what needs to be done.”
“You’ve got two days,” Stone said.
Humphrey watched his brother leave, waiting until the door closed at his back. “You’ve got even less than that,” he said.
~27~
“I’d call you an idiot if I didn’t love you so much.”
“They’re family, Rena.”
“His, not yours.”
“And we’ve had dinner with my family three times since our wedding. We’re already into October-the holidays will be here soon and we haven’t gotten together with Gabe’s family since, well...”
“That horrible Assumption thing,” Rena finished.
Giselle swiveled her desk chair to and fro. She and Rena met for lunch in her matchbox cubby at the library. Giselle had been too nervous to mention her dinner idea to anyone, including her husband.
“Listen G.G., I don’t think what’s wrong with Gabriel and his family can be fixed with a dinner.”
“I disagree,” Giselle shrugged, tapping a potato chip to the wrapper that had contained her sandwich. “Gabe was very close to his brothers and now he barely speaks to half of them.”
“I wonder which half.”
“Rena,” Giselle was torn between exasperation and curiosity.
“Aaron says Gabriel’s been distant, kinda cold, accusing them of-” she shook off the rest.
“Accusing them of what?” Giselle bored into her oldest friend with a hard stare.
Rena caved after a few seconds. Her pretty nut-brown face scrunched up in annoyance. “Aaron says Gabriel thinks he, Pitch and Roman are keeping Stone so tied up with business that he can’t focus on anything else going on in his life-what?”
Giselle shook her head somewhat dazedly. “Gabe said something like that to me. Stone’s been... distant and not because of business. He’s worried, but hasn’t made it sound like he’s upset with the guys, though.”
“Right...and you think dinner is the answer.”
“I think it’s a start. The holidays, you know? Family, coziness-”
“Athena Tesano.”
