Chapter Thirteen
Devyn
“What are we looking for?” Talia asks, scanning papers in front of her. “I can’t help if I don’t know.”
“I have no idea. Something, anything, that proves the truck tipped over when it wasn’t supposed to.”
“But we’ve seen the video clip a hundred times now. The mud made it tip over. According to the instructional videos we watched online, they were supposed to be using outriggers and bearing plates, and they weren’t.”
“Right.” I dig through a pile of photographs.
Dispersed throughout the stack are pictures of Rick as he lay pinned under the boom while paramedics and engineers deliberate the safest way to free him. I set those aside without looking at them. I find the one I want and point at the truck before it tipped over. The wheels on the driver’s side of the truck have sunk into the mud causing the vehicle to become unbalanced. “So, first, the wind was against them. Second, the mud and the earth settling under the tires because of rain the previous day. Third, no outriggers or bearing plates which could have prevented the whole thing. But think of a car. When you’re driving and you slip into the ditch. You don’t flip over because you’re at an incline, not unless you’re going over the speed limit, and the truck wasn’t moving. If the framework and the boom were balanced, why did the truck tip over?”
Talia bites her lip. “You’re asking why the mud was enough to make it do that. Besides the wind.”
“Exactly.”
“Maybe the wind was enough.”
“Maybe it was.” I push my fingers to my eyes trying to keep the tears from falling. I’m not successful and one drips down my cheek.
“Devyn, what is it?” Talia asks, a hand to my arm. “It’s okay if this was an accident.”
I sniffle and wipe the tear away. “I wanted to give him something, you know? He’s lost so much in the past two years. I wanted to give him something back.”
“You don’t think you’re enough? I bet if you asked him, he would say you are.”
“I’m not enough, though, that’s the problem. He was run out of Cedar Hill just as much as I was. Hell, we’re sitting in his office. An office he hasn’t stepped foot in, I bet, since the accident. He lost his business, his wife. His social life, everything. I wanted to give it all back to him.”
“You wanted to give his wife back to him? Youdon’twant a relationship with Rick? Why are we moving to Old Harbor if that’s true?”
I stand and dig through the box in front of me, pull out more papers. A booklet of some kind with the front cover torn off is sitting under more photos, and I flip through it. It’s the crane’s manual, with pages and pages of diagrams and tables inside. I set it aside in case we need it later.
“She left him because she blamed him for getting hurt. I thought if I could prove this wasn’t an accident, that someone sabotaged that lift, maybe she’d go back to him and he’d be happy. It’s stupid.”
“It’s not stupid. Does he still love her?”
“He said he doesn’t, but they were trying for a baby.”
Talia tilts her head. “And you don’t believe it?”
I shrug and dig through the box again. “We’ve only known each other for a few days.”
“You don’t believe in love at first sight? Because I do. I believe the second you meet someone you’ll know if it can be more.”
“Like you and Beau?”
She quirks her mouth. “Just because there’s a spark doesn’t mean it will turn into anything.”
“I think you just proved my point, little sister. Anyway, the whole thing is moot if I can’t figure this out.”
“Okay, forget about falling in love for a minute and think back to what you said.” She stands and perches on the edge of the conference table where she swings her legs back and forth. “You said sabotage, but that wasn’t where I thought we were headed. I thought we were looking for a mistake, an error in judgment, an idiot not paying attention. Now what you’re trying to do makes more sense. You’re searching for a way someone could have deliberately made the crane tip over.”
I blink. For a reporter, sometimes I can be blind to my own way of working. “I guess I am.”
“But I don’t see how. There were a hundred people on site that day. Rick was there, overseeing everything along with his foreman. OSHA was there filming the lift. There’s no room for sabotage. Is there?”
“We need to talk to someone who would know.”