Page 51 of Backwater Justice

“No. We’re not expecting anyone. We cancelled all the in-person meetings until we knew Dad’s condition and when he’d be up for them.” Benjamin was in charge of most of the business, but when it came to their long-time, big-bucks clients, Milton was always at the ready.

“Will there be anyone else staying here?” Kat was wondering because she was about to propose the idea that Isabelle use the suite as her home base, too. It would make it a lot easier for everyone to stay in close contact with one another.

“No. It’s all yours,” Benjamin said.

“Hey”—she turned to Isabelle—“do you really want to be living out of a suitcase? Like every day?”

“What do you mean?” Isabelle knew exactly what she meant, but she had to play along to keep the ruse going. Everyone assumed they had just met earlier that day.

“Like, why don’t you leave the bulk of your stuff here, and then you’ll only have to take what you need when you visit the inns. From what I gather, Salem is about halfway between them.”

“You don’t mind sharing?” Isabelle continued with the act.

“Nope. Might be nice to have some female company for a change.” There were over 200,000 female truck drivers, but they only made up less than seven percent of the industry. “I don’t get to spend much time with other women.” She paused and smiled. “You don’t chew tobacco, do you?” Kat teased.

“Ha! No. Do you?” Isabelle looked at her in horror.

“Nope. Can’t stand the smell of it, either, and boy, do I get to smell a lot of it on the road. This is going to be a nice change of pace for me.”

“You are exactly the target audience for the Cascade Inns.” Oliver glowed.

“Maybe she can take a ride with me when I go down to Eugene? That is, if she’s not tagged to work,” Isabelle offered.

Eugene? Oliver and Dickie both began to sweat. That was not a good idea. Portland was safer. They hadn’t built the powder mill there yet. The plan was to have three manufacturing facilities. The compression machines were costly at five thousand dollars each, and Oliver knew he wouldn’t be able to hide those charges. The next two operations would be strictly powder. Depending on who the client was, they would deliver it in tightly packed bricks, or one-inch-square glycine bags, with a one hundred bag minimum. They were going to be in the business of drug dealing, but they didn’t want it to include the end-users. The street urchins. The dopers. Ernesto continued to be a “consultant” for a cut of the profits, and Oliver was intent on making profits.

Oliver jumped in. “We’ll have to look at the schedule. Maybe when Isabelle goes to Portland. Each of the inns are about an hour away.”

The women shrugged. They’d play along. By now, they could tell something was amiss, and Dickie and Oliver were in cahoots, unless they both suffered from blood sugar issues—both were jittery and had droplets on their upper lip.

“So you really don’t mind having a roommate?” Isabelle was giving it the oldare you sure?quiz.

“Seriously. We can watch TV and braid each other’s hair.” Kat laughed out loud.

The three men were speechless. Was Kat coming on to Isabelle? Or was she joking? If they said something, it could be taken the wrong way. Better to keep their mouths shut.

“My gear is still at the hotel. I’ll pick it up later so I can go downstairs and get acquainted with the staff,” Kat said, regaining her air of professionalism.

“Mine, too,” Isabelle added. “Maybe we can grab a bite to eat before we come back here. Where are you staying?”

“At the Roadside Inn. A couple of miles from here. What about you?”

“A B and B. About a mile away.”

“Cool. I’m sure someone can recommend a place to grab dinner, and then we can settle in,” Kat said.

Dickie’s eyes darted around the room, making sure he hadn’t left anything incriminating behind.

“I’ll bring you both a set of keys,” Dickie offered. He wanted to give the place one more sweep before he turned it over to the two women.

“Thanks.”

All five of them climbed down to the main floor. Kat walked toward The Pit. “Hey. So tell me, why is this called ‘The Pit’? It looks pretty nice to me.”

“You didn’t see this place before the renovations,” one of her new coworkers responded. “You had to actually step down into the area to get to the desks. As the company got bigger, we needed more space, so Mr. Spangler decided to make the floor level. Now we have a little more elbow room to move about.”

“I see.”

“I’m Sandy, by the way. That’s Charlie, Reggie, and Keith.”