Chapter Sixteen
Tristan
I'd driven halfway back to the house, but I couldn't wait any longer to read Joseph Edwards' notes. Pulling over at a diner on the side of the road, I bought a cup of coffee and opened up Nina's father's notebook on the table in front of me. I took a sip of the drink that tasted like a cross between dishwater and mud and pushed the cup and saucer away from me. Pressing my phone on again, I brought up Nina's message telling me she loved me and stared at it, silently promising to show her how much she meant to me when I returned home.
As I'd driven here, the need to see what was written in the notebook had been overwhelming, but now that it sat there in front of me with nothing stopping me, I hesitated, unsure I could see the truth he'd uncovered about my father that had gotten him killed. My hand hovered over the tablet, shaking at the thought of what could be contained in those pages.
I was no fool. There was no way I'd be able to read the proof of my father's crime and not tell Nina the entire truth of her father's death, but the memory of how she'd reacted the last time was like a fresh wound still nearly splitting my heart in two. I couldn't lose her again, this time possibly forever.
But I couldn't live in ignorance not knowing what had happened between Victor Stone and Joseph Edwards.
Taking a deep breath in, I swallowed hard and opened the notebook. My eyes flowed over the page, taking in each word and its meaning.
Stone Worldwide—Victor Stone—Taylor Stone
I was surprised to see my brother's name mentioned so prominently at the top of the first page. Taylor had worked closely with my father in Stone Worldwide's business, being groomed to take over when he retired, but he was more an office mate than anything else. At least it had seemed that way.
Atlanta—October 2008
-civil suit—sexual harassment/judge?? Why a problem? Name of judge?
Joseph Edwards' notes made no sense. A sexual harassment case wasn't particularly noteworthy in Stone Worldwide. Thousands of employees across the globe meant at any time someone may feel they had a case, especially considering my father's proclivity for young women who happened to work for him. Sexual harassment cases had become commonplace by the time I was old enough to understand much of anything my father did at work each day.
Had Taylor been involved in one of those cases? I had a hard time believing that. If anything, he was the good son, never getting into trouble with drugs, women, or anything else. He'd graduated with honors from college and gone on to earn an M.B.A. He was the one who rose everyday before dawn to be ready to leave for work at six and stayed until late at night, often putting in fifteen hour workdays.
I'd been the one who'd been arrested twice for drugs, only getting off when the Stone family money had conveniently found its way to that local police chief in northern Jersey. It had been me who'd been carted out of apartments and clubs by Rogers more times than either he or I wanted to remember, usually costing my father money to keep the press quiet and women I liked to call girlfriends pacified so they wouldn't talk about the sex and my all-day coke binges.
As I remembered those days of my past, I shook my head in disbelief that it could be Taylor who had some part in anything unsavory. That was my role in the family—I was the black sheep. He'd always been the golden child, at least as far as my father was concerned.
October 2008. Taylor and I had been twenty-four then. He was still in graduate school being the exemplary student he'd always been.
Edwards' note indicated that something about the judge in the case had been a problem. What had he meant by that? I continued to read down the page, hoping to understand any of this.
-Amanda Cashen—July 1992-May 2008
My mind raced as I tried to find a memory of anyone with that name, but it didn't ring a bell. I'd never heard that name. 1992? Had my father had a child with another woman then and Amanda was the name of the baby? There had always been rumors that my father had other children. More than once I'd walked in on my parents fighting and heard my mother accuse him of fathering children with other women. His response was always the same—a sneer thrown in her direction as he belittled her claims as the rantings of a pathetic woman who didn't understand the way of the world for men like him. He never outright denied her accusations, which I was sure hurt even more than the painful doubts she had about her husband's love for her.
If a child named Amanda did exist and Edwards had found out, perhaps making that public would be reason enough for my father to want him out of the picture. As I sat there staring down at this mystery female's name, I couldn't imagine that could be the case, though. The note about a sexual harassment case made an illegitimate child a non-issue, unless the child was the product of my father doing something illegal.
I turned the page after unsuccessfully trying to read a number of notes that appeared to be simply scribblings and illegible symbols and saw a sentence that stopped me cold.
Atlanta 2008—gas explosion cafe—end of Stone's problems
-sexual harassment case ruled in his favor November 2008
What did some gas explosion have to do with a sexual harassment case that ended up going in Stone Worldwide's favor shortly after? Edwards' notes were too vague for me to understand what he was referring to. I flipped to the next page and saw one word over and over and in all caps at the top of the page.
TAYLOR
What had Joseph Edwards meant by writing my brother's name all over the page? None of this made any sense. I kept going, baffled by what the connection was between my father's illegitimate child, a sexual harassment case against him, and some explosion at an Atlanta cafe.
Folded in half between the next two pages was a newspaper article from the front page of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution dated October 23, 2008. I laid the paper out flat on the table. In the center of the article was a picture of a cafe that looked like it was in the middle of a war zone. The front of the coffee shop was blown out, leaving a gaping hole in the building. Chunks of concrete lay everywhere, exposed wires hung low, and remnants of the store that had once served people their morning coffee lay in pieces inside the building.
Under the picture read the caption 50 Dead In Rush Hour Explosion.
My hands began to shake as I leaned forward to read the report of the bombing. The words swam in front of my eyes as I struggled to comprehend the horror of what had happened.
50 men, women and children killed at coffee shop blast. Gas explosion thought to be the reason.
Investigators still looking for clues.
Witnesses report the scene was "pure carnage."
7:38 am the explosion rocked the Corner Cafe one block from the courthouse.
Children on their way to school killed. Hundreds injured.
Reports of people smelling gas just before the blast.
Judge Albert Cashen one of the victims.
I flipped back through the pages to where the illegitimate child's name was written. Amanda Cashen.
There was no way it was a coincidence that a judge with the same last name as a child who could be my father's was killed in a gas explosion at a coffee shop near where he worked. And that he was a judge was likely no coincidence either.
My mouth tasted like bile as my insides churned at the idea that would explain this all. My father had the judge in a civil suit murdered. My father had been a monster, no doubt. Victor Stone was a man who got what he wanted, and if that required the sacrifice of someone, he wasn't above that. There was a long line of damage trailing behind him for most of his adult life. I didn't want to believe any of this, but it was all too easy. My father was like many powerful men. Any obstacle in his way to what he wanted was overcome or eliminated. If he hadn't been able to overcome Judge Cashen, then he would have eliminated him.
I leaned back against the booth and closed my eyes. The room felt like it was spinning around me. Taking a deep breath, I tried to push out the images of all those people lying dead and maimed because of my own father's actions. Children suffering, their parents devastated, all so Victor Stone could once again slip out of being held responsible for his behavior.
"Are you okay? Can I get you more coffee?" I heard someone ask and I opened my eyes to see the middle-aged waitress standing over me with a look of concern on her plain face.
I shook my head and mumbled, "Just a water, please."
She left me sitting there, my stomach sick as I turned the idea of my father's crime over and over in my mind. I didn't want to know any more. Not only had he killed the judge and Nina's father, but he'd killed innocent men, women, and children who'd never heard of him just going about their daily lives on their way to work and school.
My phone vibrated in my coat pocket, and I reached in to see a text from Daryl. I read it, feeling like the Universe had suddenly decided it was time to pile on. Need to meet. Got some interesting pics of loverboy you want to see.
A hollow feeling took over my insides as my mind raced with thoughts of Nina with her ex again. I didn't want to think about that now. Meet tomorrow at noon in my office.
The waitress returned with my water, placing it down and patting my shoulder as she walked away. I had to continue reading Joseph Edwards' notes, no matter how sick what he'd found out made me. After downing a big gulp of water that tasted faintly of chlorine, I flipped to the next page of his tablet.
Jessica Cashen—3:30 pm 1/6/09 832 Sturges Way Alpharetta
The rest of that page was filled with my father's and Taylor's names, along with Albert and Amanda Cashen's names linked with arrows showing how Edwards had attempted to figure out the connection between these four people. In the center of this drawing was one word followed by a question mark.