Easy Innocence

Chapter 41

"Are you sure? Illinois EPA said they sent you the NFR letter about two months ago."

He shrugged. "Like I told you, I work a lot of sites. Maybe they gave you the wrong information. Those government types screw everything up."

"Sure. I understand."

He examined her more closely. "Who'd you say you were?"

"My name is Georgia Davis. I'm working on a matter that—that involves the man that used to own the gas station."

"You got a card?"

Something in the way he was looking at her told her to back off. "Sorry. I didn't bring any."

He didn't say anything. Then he nodded.

"So you don't remember the Glenview job at all?"

He shook his head slowly. "Nope."

"Well, in that case, I'm sorry to have troubled you."

She felt his gaze on her as she went back to her car. Broadbent was lying, that much was clear. But why? She tried to piece it together as she drove back to Evanston. Fred Stewart has a piece of property. There's good reason to think it was contaminated. He sells it to Harry Perl, and Broadbent cleans it up. Paul Kelly said the clean-up could take years. But Perl gets a clean bill of health in record time.

There was no reason for Broadbent to lie unless he had something to hide. Then again, there was no reason for him to tell the truth, either. He had no idea who she was or what she wanted. Why extend himself? In fact, why was she? The land deal didn't have anything to do with Cam Jordan or Sara Long, and she didn't have much ammunition to pressure Andrea Walcher. Still, one nagging thought kept bouncing around her brain: anything was possible when you had the right lawyer to fix things. And Tom Walcher, Harry Perl's lawyer, was a fixer.

***

Georgia was back in her apartment when the phone rang a few minutes past four. It was Lauren.

"Where do the requests come in?" Georgia asked after they'd clicked onto the website.

"Clients fill out a form, and that form gets sent as an email to my Yahoo account. I get back to them with the dates and the girl and how they're going to hook up."

"How can I access those emails?"

"First you need to know how to get around the website." Lauren gave Georgia the URL, a user name, and a password. Georgia entered the information.

"How do I make changes?"

"It's a little complicated. We use Dreamweaver. Then we upload it to the server. For now, you might just want me to do it." She paused. "What changes do you want to make?"

"Nothing right now," Georgia replied. "But I might later. What about the email account?"

Lauren gave her another password and user name. Georgia clicked to the Yahoo account, then entered Lauren's user name and password. The website jumped to a page which said "Incoming Messages." There were none. "How come there aren't any messages? I thought you had clients writing in every day."

Lauren's voice got small. "Well, see, I kind of sent a message to everyone."

"What kind of message?"

"I—I told them we were going on vacation. That there wouldn't be any action for a while. But we'd be back."

"Why?"

"After Derek, well, I—I got scared so I decided to stop work until things cooled off."

"Probably not a bad idea," Georgia admitted. "Did Charlie get that message?"