“Harrison selected a smart woman to be his wife. A woman who, in the face of unrelenting danger, didn’t hide or scream or rely solely on Harrison to save the day. She did all she could to save it too. And in the process, she saved both my life and Harrison’s.”
Harrison took Jayda’s hand and squeezed it. Jayda had to fight back tears. Nobody had ever given her credit for anything major. But this man, this wonderful man she’d just met, was giving her more than she deserved. It was amazing to her.
But not to Felix. “That’s the reason?” he asked angrily. “I would have done the same thing had I been in that limo! That can’t be the main reason.”
“That’s the reason that tipped the scale in Harrison’s favor,” his father said again. “Harrison chose a smart woman who will help him not just take from him. Which means she’ll help Bainbridge Oil. He chose a sharp, independent woman. You chose a fool. That says all I need to know about who is best positioned to take over my company. The only reason it’s a contest at all is because I was angry with Harrison. Unfair? Yes. Because he did nothing wrong. But he deserted me. The anger was there.”
“This is some bullshit!” Felix said angrily himself as he got up to leave, with Kitty and the two couples getting up too.
“I’m no fool,” Kitty said as they all headed for the exit doors.
“Not so fast,” Harrison said as two men entered the library, closed the double doors behind them, and then stood on either side of those doors. They were two plainclothes detectives that had arrived with Harrison. Everyone assumed they were Harrison’s security detail given what happened last night, and he hadn’t bothered to dissuade them of their assumption.
But Felix could smell a pig a mile away, and the fear Jayda and Harrison saw in his eyes betrayed him. “What do you mean not so fast?” he asked less-assuredly as he stared at the two detectives.
“There’s a movie we need to see,” Harrison responded.
“A movie at a time like this?” Kitty was incredulous as she, Felix, and the two couples with them turned back around and faced Harrison. Felix might have smelled a pig, but Kitty was clueless. “What kind of movie?”
“The best kind,” Harrison said as he nodded to William, his father’s house manager who stood behind HB and the attorney. William, in turn, pressed a remote control in his hand. A huge screen across the room dropped down from its rolled-up position, and then he pressed Play.
HB was surprised that his house manager had agreed to participate in this sideshow when he had no idea what was going on either, but he knew Harrison was not the kind of man to play games. He didn’t intervene.
They all watched what appeared to be video from an outdoors camera that showed Jayda on her e-bike pedaling through an alley. A faded-blue van with heavily tinted windows and a busted front driver side light was seen in that alley.
Felix frowned. “What is this? Is this a joke? Your fiancée rides a bicycle?”
“Yes I do,” Jayda said proudly.
But they all were glued to the screen as Jayda gave the driver of that van a middle finger gesture and kept on riding. The van’s driver could be heard attempting to start the van, but its engine wouldn’t turn over. Jayda could be seen looking back at the van, and giving it another middle finger gesture, before she rode out of the frame.
The driver could then be seen getting out of the van to look under the hood. But what shocked the room was when the passenger door of that van opened and Phyllis Davenshaw, Carter Davenshaw’s wife, got out of that van.
They all looked at Phyllis. Including a stunned Carter. “What are you doing in some alley?” he asked his wife. Phyllis slumped down in her chair.
But it was what she said on the video that stunned them all.
“Why won’t it start?” she angrily asked the driver.
“I don’t know! What do I know about a fucking van?”
“But we’ve got to get that bitch! You didn’t finish the job with Harrison and that’s why I had to show up. We can’t let her get away!”
“Something got damaged when I clipped his Maserati. But it was working up until now.”
But Phyllis apparently didn’t want to hear it because she pulled out her phone.
“What are you doing?” the driver asked her.
“What do you think?” Phyllis found a number and pressed it. “I’m going to Plan B. And your stupid ass better hope that works!”
“It won’t start!” the driver yelled. “How is that my fault?”
Then the video ended.
“Plan B,” Harrison said, “was the car that chased after Jayda in a second alley and threw her from her bike. That driverwas supposed to finish her off the way that van was going to do, but some young black men scared him away.”
Carter was looking at his wife. “What’s this about, Phyllis?”
