I'm a Good Person (Book 4)

Chapter 18

Grayson and Kent's impromptu meetings in front of the Old Bridge Bank and Trust seemed to have done the trick, the run on the bank had been averted and the growing animosity around town had lessened to a mild anxiousness which Grayson and Kent assumed was a sentiment shared by the rest of the country if not the world as the stock market still hadn't evened out and didn't seem as though it was going to at this point, certainly not in the short term anyway.

Even with the town's immediate crisis solved, there was still the more persistent and increasingly troubling problem of David Slade, who continued to print outrageous stories seemingly becoming moreso each time he did so with no repercussions.

As the days dragged into weeks, nothing seemed to change except that the central focus seemed to shift to Robert and away from Grayson and the mill, having been thwarted in trying to bring about a panic. It was more obvious than ever that David Slade's aim was revenge.

"This man has got to be stopped," Kent exclaimed, slamming Grayson's office door behind him and throwing his copy of the paper down on his desk, "he's a criminal. He ought to be locked up!"

It seemed to be a daily occurrence for Grayson to go into Kent's office in a towering rage or for Kent to come into Grayson's in one himself. And always waving a copy of the Erie Times-News.

"I haven't even wanted to look today."

"I wish I hadn't looked either, but there it was, page one again!"

Grayson glanced at it, but he didn't have the stomach to read it. Weeks upon weeks of columns had pushed him to his breaking point, "one of these days I'm going to drive up to that newspaper office and drown David Slade in Lake Erie and it would still be kinder than what he deserves."

"What I don't understand is how he's getting by doing this! Alec sent a cease and desist, didn't he?"

"Three of them."

"Who the hell owns that paper anyway?"

"I don't know. We're trying to find that out, but whoever it is doesn't want to be known," Grayson replied, "which narrows the field down considerably in my mind."

Finally, curiosity got the better of him and Grayson read the first line aloud, "'how has Robert Nash, a murderer who escaped prosecution, been allowed to reenter society as if he committed no crime?' Who believes anything this blowhard says? It's disgusting. And notice how he somehow always leads with pointing the blame at Rob. He doesn't even have the courage to blame me for allegedly paying to fix the damn inquest in the first place! If he were doing that I could at least believe he was an overzealous editor trying to uncover some sort of imaginary corruption. But this," Grayson tossed the paper into the trash, "the man is scum."

"I hope Rob hasn't seen these."

"Not so far as I know, but he's been keeping things pretty close to the vest lately. It's only a matter of time before someone shows him, though. What I've been able to glean from Becky, he's no more popular now than he was last year when he tried to go back. And I'm worried about what happens when he is confronted with this and fighting so damn hard. He's already having a hard enough time."

Kent was every bit as bothered by the continued persecution of Robert a Grayson was. He had watched Robert fight tooth and nail just to feel normal and having to see all that work being ripped apart by a vindictive man like David Slade made his blood boil. Robert deserved none of what he had been forced to endure over the last year and the fact that the 'good people' in town were the ones who now wouldn't let Robert move on with his life enraged him.

"We're just going to have to re-double our efforts to get Slade fired."

Grayson nodded in agreement, "I'll have Alec start legal action. Slade's dug himself more than a deep enough hole now. I'm going to see to it he's buried in it. For good this time."