Chapter 28

28

It felt good to be back on Powell's home turf, she decided as she was almost ready to leave her office for the night her first day back in Texas, but knowing that she'd left so many things unfinished with Gunnar wasn't sitting so well.

He'd kissed her in her hotel room that morning, though. Things had definitely been left unfinished then.

Then again, maybe it had been the donuts she'd eaten for a snack a few hours earlier making her feel a little iffy.

Food was really strange right now. No denying that.

Powell tried to distract herself by mentally unpacking some of the things Cara had said in Wyoming. She'd not wanted to leave the younger woman behind. But the TSP's business wasn't finished—and Powell's had been. And she'd had a meeting she couldn't miss that morning.

But Cara had been at B-3 not even an hour ago. She'd told Powell they'd all flown back from Masterson on Houghton's private jet. Heather had retreated back to Coleson Castle. Even though Daniel had offered to drive her and Cara and the girls home. Apparently, Norm and Miguel Rodriguez had already been waiting for Heather—both of them growling and snarling.

At Daniel.

Powell had heard about the evidence leak. Daniel had pulled her and Alex aside and asked them what could be done to keep things under control. It hadn't been pretty.

Everything seemed to be escalating, rapidly. Since the day someone had taken Haldyn—and almost taken Powell too—it was like everything was going crazy at the TSP. It terrified her. Absolutely terrified her. For Gunnar, for Heather, and Daniel, and Madison, Haldyn and Jarrod, Murdoch, all of her friends.

Powell hated feeling powerless. Not being able to help the people she cared about.

Well, she might not be able to help the TSP, but maybe she could help Cara. There was something about what Cara had said that was sticking in Powell's head. She just couldn't figure out what it was.

So it was time to look at the big picture where the Colesons were concerned. Financially. It didn't make sense that there would be that much of a financial struggle in one family that size.

Eden had legal fees that were astronomical, for a case that she had basically won. But Cara had said there had been ample evidence to support her innocence long before it went to court. So why had it been taken to court in the first place? That was a waste of time and resources. So…why?

Now there was the entire question of Hope's medical bills. When there shouldn't be. The sheer amount of coverage the Colesons received in the local news sites was weird too. Almost unnatural. Deliberate.

Something strange was going on with Cara's family. Powell wanted to know why. She was going to start digging.

That meant someone who was well versed in family law. And might have some ideas she could work with. Powell grabbed her phone and texted her mother.

It was time to get down to business.

Two hours later, she let herself in to her parents' house.

She was immediately hit by that feeling of coming home. This house was why Powell loved houses so much to begin with. She had always loved it whenever they'd get home from somewhere. Her old room was still upstairs, still painted the pale aqua she had loved so much as a teenager—no pink for Powell, ever—and the four-poster antique bed still stood where it had for years.

But home wasn't just the house. It was the woman in the kitchen, hands covered in ground beef and ground turkey and other meat loaf goop, when Powell walked in. Her mom wore a Mamaw's Place T-shirt, worn jeans, had her dark hair piled up on her head and looked twenty years younger than what she was. She'd be sixty in a year. It almost didn't seem possible. She'd been a twenty-one-year-old intern at B-3 when Powell's father had seduced her.

"Well, there you are," her mother said. "I was starting to get impatient. None of my children have shown up to explain to me how their precious brother is doing so far away."

Her parents were immensely supportive of their children, but her mother lamented Brandt "abandoning" the family to go play in the mountains. Mostly just to aggravate Brandt, but Powell knew her mother missed him. Just as much as Powell did.

Her eyes stung. Leaving her brother behind had been hard. "He's going to be okay, Mom. He's sore, no denying that. But he's going to be okay."

"And the men who did it?"

"They really weren't men. Just nineteen-year-old boys. They were searching the property for valuables, the cops think. But they were found dead a few days later. They may have been involved in that drug thing that's going on up there. And well, down here. Gunnar was up there too. And Heather Coleson. Daniel showed up later. Cara was up there with her aunt, watching Heather's girls."

"Cara, that girl. I am about ready to tie a knot in your brother's tail for causing her to quit. I still am not sure what happened."

"Alex is working very hard to rectify her quitting, Mom. Or just…working very hard to rectify her thinking he is an ass. I think he has a crush." And was acting like a dork with her. He'd been all about Cara the entire time they had been in Wyoming. Cara had just looked at him like he was the most confusing creature on the planet. And had reminded him he was up there to take care of his injured brother, not to pester her while she was watching her little cousins.

Alex had practically deflated right there in front of Powell.

He was so getting what he deserved.

"That is one girl he has no business playing around with. Not if he isn't serious anyway," her mother said, shaking her head. Like she almost always did where Alex was concerned. He was the most difficult of her mother's children, after all.

"I think he knows that. He's different with her. I wholeheartedly approve—if he's serious anyway. Cara—well, if Alex doesn't snap her up, I'm going to adopt her as a pseudo-baby sister, okay?"

"Deal. She's a sweet girl. Very bright. And I hate to see B-3 lose her."

"I'm working on that. I was going to run it by you and dad when I figure out the details." That was another of Powell's diabolical plans in the works.

"Oh?"

"I need a personal assistant who can be uniquely Powell-trained. On my payroll, not B-3. Who understands law and real estate and that I know I can work with. One I like. I'm going to need her very soon. And Cara fits the bill perfectly." Powell didn't want to work sixty hours each week once the baby was born. She just wasn't going to. She didn't need to either. Not with the kind of money she had built over the last five years. But she didn't want to step back from building her empire completely. So…Cara. "And once she passes the bar, I want to offer her a permanent position, as my assistant only."

"That would suit her skills very well. We both know she will be the safest at B-3 with you. It's a cutthroat world around the legal system. I'd like to do my part to protect at least those of you that I can."

"Especially considering what is going on with her family too." Not the best way to lead into it. But Powell was the kind of person who wanted to get things done. Especially when she was on a mission. "Something odd is going on with the Colesons, mom. And I have questions. I need your help."

Her mother finished shaping the meat loaf and washed her hands. She lifted the pan into the fridge, and then turned to Powell. "What's going on?"

"I think the Colesons are being targeted. Harassed deliberately." It was the only answer that made sense. It almost seemed like someone was chipping away at every bit of security the Colesons had. One by one. Bit by bit. With intent.

"Through someone associated with Dr. Eastman? I do not want you getting involved in that at all. I just do not." There was that mom look again. Powell would need to practice her own mom look soon. Just to be prepared.

Gunnar Erickson's Viking baby would probably require it.

On an almost hourly basis.

"I don't know if it has anything to do with Eastman or not. But some things Cara said in Wyoming have stuck out as odd. And I want your opinion before I speak with her family in more detail. I think they need help. But I am not certain just how or why. Or how to go about it."

Her mother started pulling lunch out of the fridge. "We are going to eat—you have lost a few pounds, young lady—and talk. I want to know everything. And why you think something strange is going on."

Powell laid it out there, every detail she could think of. And then waited.