“I know that’s right. I’m going to be spending the rest of the week getting ready for my new life too. No more taking whatever they throw our way girl,” said Cory as they clasped hands. “Mr. Skeffington is giving both of us a chance, and we’ve got to make the most of it.”
“I agree.” Tears were welling up in Joy’s eyes. “He’s going to clean house too, and start hiring more people of color.”
Cory nodded. “I heard. It was like the reality of his practically all-white company was right before his very eyes, but he chose not to see it. Until he met you,” Cory added.
Joy would have normally dismissed such praise, but she knew it was nothing but the truth. “I just hope our new life is everything it’s cracked up to be.”
“It will be,” said a confident Cory. “It absolutely will be.”
They hugged. But when they stopped embracing, Joy asked a favor of Cory.
“It depends,” Cory said. “What is it?”
“I have no idea how to get from William’s house to the highway to Indiana.”
Cory laughed. “Follow me girl. I’ll take you to the highway.”
“Thanks, Core,” she said, got in the Porsche that, to her delight, smelled just like William, and then she followed behind Cory’s Toyota Camry as they left his estate.
But just after Cory blew his horn and waved for her to turn left onto a rural highway outside of Chicago, while he drove straight, he suddenly heard a crash so loud it horrified him.
When he looked through his rearview mirror, he saw that Porsche skidding across the street after an SUV had crashed into it. He tried to turn around but the rubberneckers had him pinned in. So he forced his way through.
But Joy was stuck in that Porshe after the crash with her airbag deployed. Her entire body had been rocked so violently that she ended up laying sideways onto the passenger seat. She had on her seatbelt, which prevented her from going through that side window, but she still felt the sting.
But when she sat up and looked out of that side window, she could see a man hopping out of the passenger seat of that SUV that had crashed into her, only he had a gun in his hand. Was he a cop?
But when he stopped in the middle of the street and aimed that gun directly at her head, she was so stunned that she became frozen in place.
And just as the gunman was about to pull the trigger as if he was going to fire a hail of bullets into that car until he was certain she was dead, Cory in his Toyota Camry came speeding into the frame and didn’t stop speeding until he ran straight into that gunman, causing his gun and his body to separate and flyinto the air. He landed nearly thirty yards away, where another car accidently ran it over. That gunman was dead.
Then Cory, still terrified for Joy, jumped out of his car and ran to the Porshe.
But he couldn’t open the door. All he could do was screamare you alright, Joy?Are you alright? He could see that she was conscious, but pinned into that car.
She wasn’t dead, but she was a long way from alright.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The private Boeing 787 Dreamliner sat idling on the runway awaiting takeoff as William, along with Sloane and a handful of his executives, sat in the jet’s conference room reviewing the notes sent over by the British Foreign Secretary’s office. Maximus Bluff, the security chief, was also in the room.
“How is the British press handling the accusations?” asked one of the executives.
“They aren’t,” said Maximus. “At least not for now. Two journalists that we know of have a scant amount of intel, but we’ve paid them enough to stay quiet. For now.”
“But how long will they sit on a story this juicy?” asked another executive.
“A week tops,” said Maximus. “And that’s no guarantee.”
“When will we know what the accusations are?” asked a third executive.
“Not until I’ve spoken again with the Prime Minister,” said William. “Myself and Max are the only two people who have full knowledge of what those accusations are. I’m going to keep it that way for now.”
“And if it hits the press before you can damage control?”
“Then our already herculean job will just get more difficult,” William said as his phone rang.
Sloane picked up his phone and looked at the Caller ID.
