“Beau?”
“No. We need to talk to the crane operator.”
“Not possible.” Beau’s frowning, his hands on his hips, shaking his head.
“Why not?” The more I think about it, the more I’m sure that the crane operator is the key to it all.
“Because he was injured, because the whole thing did to him what it did to Rick. He won’t talk to anyone, won’t go out in public. He hasn’t given one interview. OSHA cleared him of fault, but the accident messed with his head, and he’s been in seclusion ever since.”
“Out of guilt?” Talia asks, leaning against Beau’s desk.
He blows out a breath. “It’s true he should have heeded the warnings going off in the cab, but he’d been operating a crane for years and knew how far to push the limits to get the job done. He overestimated the ground stability, that’s all.”
“Then talking to me shouldn’t be an issue. I don’t want an interview. I just want to ask him for his side of the story.”
“You’re bullheaded, you know that?” Beau stomps to his desk and snatches a pen off the blotter. He scrawls a name and address onto a piece of paper. “Do not tell him where you got his name, and don’t tell him why you want to speak with him. Not in affiliation with M&H Development, at least. We let him go with a generous package. Not only doesn’t he work because of the accident, he doesn’t have to, either.”
“Thank you. I’ll be discreet, I promise.”
“Do that tomorrow. It’s close to quitting time. I want to go out to the site, and then we can talk more over dinner.”
I push back my annoyance at the delay. I do want to see the site but eating dinner and getting settled into Beau’s penthouse will feel like a giant waste of time. I need to find some of the patience I had when I was gathering, or trying to gather, evidence on Stevie Johansson. I’m not going to figure this out in a day, and Beau is saving us a lot of money giving us a place to stay.
Talia rides shotgun, and I sit in the backseat of the elegant SUV.
I check my email while they chat, and Barney has gotten back to me saying the articles all looked good and were worth my pay so far. I smile when he says I’ll add a little sophistication to the Herald. I can’t feel any less sophisticated.
Beau laughs at something Talia says and eases out of his lane much to the anger of other drivers.
“Can you at least keep your eyes on the road?” I ask over the honking.
He laughs and winks at me in the rearview mirror.
Talia blushes.
For crap’s sake.
“Rick called earlier. I told him you were here,” Beau says, staring straight ahead.
Shrugging deeper into my seat, I say, “I suppose he didn’t like hearing I was checking into things.” I can imagine how their conversation went. “Does he want me to go home?”
“No. I’ve known Rick for a long time. He hates discussing any of this and you being here had a good chance of royally pissing him off, but I told him to let you do your thing. It’s good for him, Devyn. I’ve been trying to get him to see that this doesn’t have to put his life on a permanent hold. You spent time with him, more time during that blizzard than I have since the accident. How is he?”
I weigh what I want to say. As Rick’s business partner, Beau has the right to know how he’s handling things, but if Rick wanted him to know, he’d tell him. I don’t want to be in the middle. “He’s in pain. Physically, I mean. His back and hip give him trouble. I upset his schedule, and he didn’t get a lot of rest while I was there. It threw him off.”
Beau sniggers. “I doubt he minded.”
“Not like that. Don’t be an ass. You asked, and I’m trying to be serious. He’s angry, and he carries a lot of guilt on his shoulders.”
Beau nods. I didn’t offer new information.
“I don’t know how he’s ever going to be able to let it go.” I say it almost to myself. If Rick can’t look into the future because of the past, what does that mean for me?
“He won’t. He won’t let himself. He’ll live with it, and hopefully what he’s feeling will fade in time.”
It’s been two years, and his pain is a constant reminder. I think that will be easier said than done. “Did he say anything else?” I ask.
“He asked me to tell you he has room.” His eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. “He said you’d know what that means.”