Black Oil, Red Blood Read online

  Nash was starting to look a little nauseated.

  “Remember how everyone was getting sick?” I asked. “BP’s president tried to blame it on food poisoning. But according to Dr. Gupta, who was there on the scene at the time, most of their symptoms were respiratory. Nice try, huh?”

  “And,” Miles added, “remember all the reports about how BP required all of the local fisherman they hired to clean the spill up to sign non-disclosure paperwork? Basically BP put a gag order on them that forced them to keep quiet about what they saw and experienced while cleaning up the oil. And of course they had to sign them or not work. They couldn’t fish—the waters were closed. So it was either starve or work under BP’s gag order.”

  “And then at the same time,” Miles said, “we had Texas government leaders trying to convince us that because oil is a natural substance, it’s not toxic. I’ll give you three guesses where that little tidbit of conventional wisdom originated.”

  “And,” Miles said, “Texas Congressman Joe Barton even apologized to BP just because the Obama administration had the nerve to ask them to clean up their own mess. What does that tell you about oil and politics in the great state of Texas? Who do you think is really running the show here?”

  Nash groaned.

  I could tell I had his attention, so I pressed on. “You know,” I said, “Mercury is natural too, but we don’t bathe in it. There’s not a giant mercury industry fueling our country’s economy, so there’s not a big debate about whether or not it’s safe. We just know it’s not safe and we avoid it. We don’t touch it or eat it. We worry about eating fish that have been exposed to it. And yet, we touch, drink, and breathe toxic byproducts from oil all the time. We cook and store our food in pans and Tupperware made from petroleum products, for crying out loud. We eat fish that have been swimming around in the stuff.”

  “All right, but how does benzene poison people, specifically?” Nash asked. “I mean, is it poisonous to inhale, or eat, or what?”

  “It’s toxic whether it’s inhaled, ingested, or absorbed through the skin,” I said. “And by the way, it is easily absorbed through the skin. So anyone who was out on the beaches during or after the Gulf Oil Disaster dragging their bare hands through the oil and breathing the vapors was exposed.”

  “Wait,” Miles said. “I don’t want to derail your benzene speech, but I think you left out an important point. Remember how BP’s president initially tried to pass off the Gulf spill as a small one? Well, in the grand scheme of things, at the point in time he made that statement, he actually had a pretty good argument to back it up.”

  Nash spun around, pulling his attention away from the sight of the looming oil refinery and laser focusing on Miles. “After all this, now you’re trying to tell me it wasn’t actually that bad?”

  “No, no,” Miles said. “It was bad. Don’t get me wrong. But you have to consider it in the context of how much polluting and toxic exposure goes on every single day that no one seems to care about. At the time that statement was made, everyone was estimating a potential spill of around 11 million gallons, which is the size of the EXXON Valdez disaster. That seems like a lot of oil, right?”

  “It doesn’t seem like it,” Nash said. “It is. By anyone’s standards.”

  “Well,” I said. “Hold on to your hat, because tankers, drivers and boaters spill more oil in inland waters every year than the Valdez spilled in the ocean. According to the National Academy of Science, leaking oil from US cars, trucks, and two-stroke engines dumps almost 19 million gallons of oil in our lakes and rivers every single year. In inland freshwater alone, we spilled 120 million gallons of oil between 1985 and 2003. People fish in that. Swim in it. Drink it. It’s no wonder cancer is on the rise.”

  Nash’s gaze shifted to his glass of ice water, which he regarded suspiciously.

  “It’s filtered,” I said.

  Nash’s expression relaxed a little bit.

  “But your shower water is not,” I said. “And we know there are plenty of groundwater contaminations in this area, which means you have no idea what you absorb through your skin every day.”

  Nash groaned. “This is all fascinating,” he said sourly, “but what’s it got to do with all this?” He gestured expansively at the mountains of documents piled up against my wall.

  “This is all the data we have that proves toxicity,” I said. “This is what Schaeffer was going to testify about—he was going to use all this data to try to prove that PetroPlex knowingly poisoned my client by failing to provide safety equipment and failing to limit toxic exposure. My client worked in the refinery’s benzene unit for 30 years, and there were leaks all the time, according to this data. Probably most of it is stuff that is public record, or results of private air monitoring tests. Schaeffer was finishing up his report the night he was killed, so I hope to high Heaven the report is in here somewhere, because I haven’t seen the final draft yet.

  “But this sounds like all standard law suit stuff,” Nash said. “PetroPlex has seen these kinds of claims before. What do you think is in here that’s actually worth killing over?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe before the night is out, we’ll find out.” I smiled. “So. Who wants coffee?”

  Nash sighed. “I hate all-nighters. Make mine a double.”

  ***

  Over coffee, we hatched a plan of attack for combing through the documents. Each of us would take a stack and work for an hour. We agreed to compare notes at the top of each hour.

  At 3 a.m. we stopped for our fifth break.

  “Anything yet?” I asked the two guys.

  “I’ve got nothing,” Nash said.

  “I’ve seen it all before,” Miles said, “which I know sounds melodramatic and jaded, but really, I’ve seen this all before.”

  “Maybe the reason only ten boxes were missing is because the killers got the ten boxes they wanted,” Nash said, looking pointedly at me. “In which case, you really risked a lot to break into a crime scene for nothing.”

  “I only hypothetically broke in, remember?” I said, shifting uncomfortably in my chair.

  This was news to Miles. “Wait, what? You broke in? You lifted all this stuff? Is that how we wound up with it?”

  “Hypothetically,” I emphasized.

  “Look, Chloe,” Miles said. “If you wanted to spend the night with two gorgeous guys, you wouldn’t have to break the law to do it.”

  “Hardy har har,” I said. “There’s got to be something here. There’s no way that whoever took the first ten boxes and killed Schaeffer would have had time to cherry pick before police arrived. If there’s really nothing here, it’s big time sorry luck.”

  “No sign of the final draft of Schaeffer’s report?”

  “No sign,” I said. “Nash?”

  “I’m not sure I’d recognize it if I saw it.”

  “Duh,” Miles said. “It would have Schaeffer’s name on it and be labeled ‘Final Report.’ Get with the program.”

  Nash remained unperturbed. “I’m just saying, a lot of this stuff is highly technical. I don’t really understand it.”

  “And that’s what PetroPlex is counting on,” I said. “Public records aren’t dangerous if they’re so hyper-technical that the average Joe can’t understand them. Which is why finding a good expert witness is critical. The witness is the translator. Frankly, I wouldn’t trust myself to translate this data on the record without screwing something up and losing the case in the process.”

  Exhaustion was starting to catch up with me. I took another shot of coffee to ward it off and dove into the next box. The first file I pulled out contained not a stack of looseleaf papers, but a book. An appointment book. Schaeffer’s appointment book.

  “Hey, look at this,” I said, opening it up to the current week. I saw a lot of time blocked out with my name on it. But I also saw several appointment blocks labeled “C.G.”

  Miles swiped the book away from me. “C.G? Who the Rita Hayworth is C. G?” he said.

/>   “Beats me. C.G. could be anyone.”

  “How could he be meeting with some secret person right under our noses?”

  “More importantly,” I asked, “if it had anything to do with the case, why would he keep it secret from us?”

  “Maybe it didn’t have anything to do with the case. Maybe it’s a relative or something,” Nash said.

  I shook my head. “He doesn’t live here full time. He bought that house because he wanted to study the refinery. He’s only in town for a few weeks at a time. And when he’s here, all he does is work. It’s not like he’s super active in the Kettle social circles. It’s got to be related to the case.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw five simultaneous bright flashes that started small, grew larger, and ended with the sound of breaking glass and an unnaturally loud fwoooooooot!

  The Molotov cocktails smashed through my windows and into the dining room table and all the surrounding stacks of paper with no more warning than that.

  Miles’ hair gel was one of the first things to ignite. “My hair! They got my haaaaaaaaaair!”

  I glanced frantically around for my dog. “Lucy! Save Lucy!”

  All I could see were flames. Flames in my house. Flames in Schaeffer’s files. Flames on my body. My shirt was burning.

  Nash was on me in an instant, using the full length of his body to kill the fire. His muscles were hard. Chiseled. Not soft enough to fully press in and douse the flames for lack of oxygen supply.

  He ripped my shirt completely off and gathered me into his arms urgently.

  I thought of the original Gone with the Wind poster print that was hanging in my home office—Rhett clutching a half-clothed Scarlett in a protective but intimate embrace, framed in the backdrop of Atlanta burning.

  My home. Burning.

  I felt no pain. Only Nash’s strength as he carried me out of the flames.

  Delirious, I wondered in that moment if he would kiss me.

  Unthinking, absent of any kind of rational thought, I lifted my chin and let my eyelids go slack, waiting, even hoping for, the sensation of his mouth on mine. In my diminished field of vision, I saw his lips. Strong. Hard. Steeled by heady determination and. . . something else? They moved. Sound came out.

  “Miles! The book! Get the appointment book!”

  Not what I had been expecting to hear.

  And then the relative coolness of the night air enveloped me as Nash kicked out my front door and carried me onto the lawn, half naked. I could feel the breeze between my breasts. I could smell a mixture of smoke, early morning dew, and heavy refinery tar.

  I was vaguely aware of Old Lady Ellason from next door standing in her lawn, clutching her curlers and screaming.

  I heard the screech of tires speeding away in the distance.

  And then, nothing.

  CHAPTER 13

  This time, when Delmont’s phone rang, it woke up his wife. She rolled over and jabbed him in the ribs. He groaned. Seemed like all she ever did anymore was poke and prod and nag him. Joe Bob, do this. Joe Bob, do that. Joe Bob, let me throw a poker party. Joe Bob, let me remodel the kitchen. Nag, nag, nag. And as far as getting any action in the sack, forget it. Thank goodness he had his sweet little side number to rely on for that. At least until Chloe Taylor had ruined it for him.

  His wife poked him again. “Pick up the phone already!”

  Delmont groggily rolled over and reached for it.

  He maneuvered himself out of bed and into the hallway before picking it up.

  “You better have good news,” Delmont said. “What happened?”

  “We torched the girl’s place. She and Nash and the town girly man had everything out on the dining room table when we got there.”

  “How much did they get through?”

  “I don’t know,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “At any rate, it’s gone now.”

  “Did you kill anyone?”

  “I don’t think so. An ambulance took the girl to the hospital, but she’ll probably make it. Her clothes were on fire. You should have seen Nash rip her shirt off. It was almost like he was looking for an excuse to do it. Can’t say I blame him, either. It’ll be a real crime if we have to put that girl down.”

  “Yeah, well, if we have to, we have to,” Delmont said. He wouldn’t be sorry if she were gone, although he didn’t want to be the one to off her.

  “We’re switching out counsel on the case. If it turns out that she knows anything she shouldn’t, the new lawyer will find out and let us know.”

  “How can you be sure of that?” Delmont asked. “She’s no idiot.”

  “The new counsel knows her. Well.”

  “How well?”

  “Just trust me on this one.”

  The line went dead. Delmont was irritated, but he was also ready to get back to sleep. He shuffled to the bedroom and got into bed. Too bad his wife was still in it, snoring up a storm. Maybe it was about time to trade her in for a new model, he thought sleepily.

  Surely there were some thugs at PetroPlex who could take care of that, too.

  CHAPTER 14

  I woke up in the hospital. Miles and Nash were both sitting by my bed. The first thing I saw was Lucy, unscathed and asleep in Miles’s lap. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  The second thing I saw was Miles’s hair. There were only a few scorched patches left.

  My eyes were barely open, but I started giggling. I felt a little delirious. Drugged. “I told you, Miles,” I choked out.

  Miles smacked Nash, who was dozing, on the arm. “She’s awake,” he said.

  “I always told you,” I said.

  “Told me what?” Miles asked.

  “That you use too much hair product. That stuff is all flammable, you know.”

  “Chloe!” Miles said. “You shut your mouth right now! You get hit by a homemade bomb, and the first thing you talk about afterwards is my hair? My hair? I will never forgive you for this.”

  “Your hair makes Ryan Seacrest’s ‘do’ look like the Geico caveman’s” I said.

  That one made the very sleepy Jensen Nash actually crack a grin.

  I weakly slapped Nash on the knee. “Doesn’t it?” I said. “Doesn’t it? Miles’s hair is a friggin’ sculpture. It ought to be on display at the Guggenheim.”

  “Chloe Taylor,” Miles said again, momentarily choked up. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me! I might have to marry you for that one. Unfortunately, I’m now going to have to shave it off. Will you still find me attractive with a shaved head?”

  “Of course,” I said. “But now I know you’re not safe. Your hair is apparently a Molotov Cocktail magnet. I really have to stay away from Molotov Cocktail magnets. What are you going to do about that?”

  Miles shrugged. “Some risks are acceptable.”

  “And the smell,” I said. “Miles, you reek. Eau de burnt hair is not your signature scent.”

  “Cripes, Chloe, ease up. I haven’t had time to go home and take a shower, you know. And by the way, you don’t look so good, yourself. Hospital gown peach is so not your color.”

  “You were lucky, though,” Nash said softly. “Only a few minor burns on your torso. The doctors think you only passed out from the shock. “

  Oh, nooooooooooo. That was so not like me. Fainting like a Victorian-era woman just because of a few flaming projectiles? With no shirt on? How would I ever live that down? Forever after, in court I would be the lawyer who passed out naked when the heat was on. I’d be a walking target. Defense attorneys would be placing bets about who could get me to faint first. Hearings would now be more of a nightmare than usual. So not good. I felt myself flush.

  “It could have been a lot worse if I hadn’t been able to get your shirt off so quickly,” Nash said.

  “Oh yeah,” I snapped. “That would have been a whole lot worse.”

  “Don’t worry,” Nash said. “You have nothing to be ashamed of.

  Miles fanned himself. “Ooooh!�
� Is it heating up in here!”

  Nash actually had the decency to look embarrassed. “That’s not what I meant.”

  I was quickly regaining full consciousness. “Really?” I asked? “What exactly did you mean?”

  Nash was saved from a forthcoming cross examination by the nurse, who had come in to change my bandages. The nurse sent the guys outside while she did her business. I peered at the changing process through one eye. It really didn’t look so bad. I had sustained worse from cooking. But then, maybe that was more of a reflection on my cooking skills than on the actual state of the burns.

  The nurse finished up, and Nash and Miles resumed their places at my bedside.

  “I’m tired,” I said. “What time is it?”

  “Five-thirty a.m.,” Miles answered.

  “How’s my house?” I asked.

  Nash carefully avoided my gaze. “The initial reports from the fire department don’t sound good.”

  “Did they get all the files?”

  “I think they got the whole house,” Nash said.

  I sighed. “Well, at least I had rental insurance.” Assuming the policy was current and paid up. Crap. I really needed to make some money soon. Now, on top of everything else, I had hospital bills to pay. And of course Dick didn’t provide health insurance.

  Despite the vast amount of designer footwear and other expensive items I had amassed during my wealthier days, I wasn’t too worried about losing my actual stuff. I wasn’t materialistic. I had just bought all that stuff to keep up appearances. Lawyers tend to judge the quality of other lawyers by what they wear, drive, and possess in general. Louboutins were more of an intimidation tactic for me than must-have fashion.

  “Don’t worry,” Miles said. “You can stay with me. You can use my shampoo and conditioner. I won’t need it now.”