The Angels' Share (The Bourbon Kings Book 2) (13 page)

It would be unprecedented. Even during Prohibition, the BBC had continued to make its liquor, albeit after a relocation to Canada for a time.

After fighting with the suits and getting nowhere, Mack had turned whistleblower at Easterly and let Lane in on the shutdown—and then Mack had helped the prodigal son get access to some of the corporate financials. But after that? He hadn’t heard anything since.

It was like waiting for biopsy results, and the stress was killing him. If he lost this job, this livelihood? He was losing his father, plain and simple.

And he hadn’t liked living through that the first time.

Antsy and frustrated, he went out into the reception area. The barney, empty space was too quiet and too cool, the hot air rising up to the exposed beams of the converted cabin’s high peaked roof, the AC’d stuff falling to the floorboards. Like the rest of the Old Site, as this campus was known, the Master Distiller’s office was housed in a refurbished original structure, the old mortar and log construction retrofitted with everything from running water to Wi-Fi in as unobtrusive a manner as possible.

Hitting the oversized door, he stepped outside and wandered across the cropped lawn. The Old Site was as much a functioning bourbon producing facility as it was a tourist attraction to teach laymen and aficionados alike exactly what made Bradford the best. Accordingly, there was a Disney World cast to the acreage, in the very best sense, the buildings all quaint and painted black and red with little pathways leading from grain silo to mash house to stills and storage barns. And ordinarily, there would be groups of tourists led by guides, the parking lots full, the gift shop and reception buildings bustling with activity.

Out of respect for the passing of William Baldwine, everything was closed to nonessential personnel for the next week.

Or at least that was what senior management had said. More likely? The cost cutting wasn’t just stopping at the grain supply.

Eventually,
Mack ended up in front of one of the three storage barns. The seven-floor, uninsulated wooden buildings housed hundreds of aging barrels of bourbon on heavy wooden racking systems, the temperature variants of the seasons setting the stage for the alchemy that happened as the alcohol dated, fell in love, and married the charred fibers of its temporary wooden home.

As he opened a paneled door, the handmade hinges creaked, and the rich, earthy scent that hit him as he stepped inside reminded him of his father. The interior was dark, the beams supporting the rows and rows of barrels rough cut and worn, the thin pathways that cut in between the stacked racks two boards wide and thirty feet long.

The center aisle was much broader and made of concrete, and he put his hands in the pockets of his jeans as he stalked deeper and deeper into the building.

“Lane, what are we doing here,” he asked out loud.

Bourbon required time. It wasn’t like making vodka, where you could just turn on a spigot and there you had it. If the company wanted something to sell seven years, ten years, twelve years from now? You had to keep the sills running now—

“Um … excuse me?”

Mack pivoted. Standing in the open doorway, with light streaming in behind her, a woman with an hourglass shape and long dark hair was like an apparition from some sexual fantasy. God … he could even smell her perfume or her soap or whatever it was on the fresh air passing by her body and blowing into the stacks.

She seemed equally surprised as she looked at him.

“I’m so sorry,” she said in a low, unaccented voice. “I’m looking for Edwin MacAllan. I have an interview with him, but there’s nobody in the office—”

“You found me.”

There was a pause. “Oh.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I just—anyway, my name is Beth. Beth Lewis. Do you, ah, do you want me to come back some other time?”

No,
he thought as her hair caught the breeze and curled up off her shoulder.

Actually … I don’t want you to leave.

“I
can’t reach Edward.”

As Lane strode across the business center’s reception area and into his father’s office, it was like walking into a room full of loaded guns pointed in his direction: His skin pricked in warning and his hands cranked into fists and he just wanted to turn around and beat feet out of there.

Then again, the place was eerie as hell. The dim security lighting from his power cut tinted everything with a grim portent, and the ghost of William Baldwine seemed to lurk in the shadows.

Lane had no clue why he’d come in here. The police were probably pulling up in front of Easterly right now.

He shook his head as he looked at the regal desk and the big carved chair that was like a throne. Everything about the pair was like a stage set from a Humphrey Bogart film: A crystal decanter full of bourbon. A silver tray of cut-crystal glasses. A picture of Little V.E. in a silver frame. A humidor with the Cubans his father had liked on the other corner by the Tiffany lamp. A pack of Dunhill cigarettes and a gold lighter next to a clean Cartier ashtray. No computer. No paperwork. And the phone was a high-tech afterthought, dwarfed by the lifestyle, the objet d’arrogance.

“This is only the second time I’ve been in this office,” he murmured toward Lizzie, who’d stayed by the door. “I never envied Edward.”

While she glanced around at the leather-bound books, and the diplomas, and the photographs of William with prominent national and international men, he found himself focusing on her: the way her hair, which had been blonded by the sun; her breasts as they filled out her black polo shirt; her long, muscled legs, which were showed off by those shorts.

Lust
clawed into his gut.

“Lizzie—”

Jeff walked into the open doorway. “Okay, they’ve all left. The place is empty, and your lawyer’s gone back to the house to meet the police. Do you know how to change the code on that door? Because I would, if I were you.”

Lane blinked to clear the mental image of him shoving everything off the desk and putting Lizzie right up on it naked.

“Ah, I don’t, but we’ll figure it out.” Lane stretched his tight back. “Listen, can you give me a quick idea of exactly what you found at corporate?”

Jeff glanced around and didn’t seem particularly impressed by the grandeur. “On the surface, the transfers I flagged look like your garden-variety debt-service payments to various banks. But then there are these huge balloon payments—and that was what got me worried first. Tracing the money transfers, I discovered notations for something called WWB Holdings—which turned out to be William Wyatt Baldwine Holdings. I believe it’s a case of off-balance sheet financing that’s gone out of control, and if so, I’m confident it qualifies as embezzlement. Now, when I did some Internet searches and called in a favor at UBS, I couldn’t find anything anywhere on precisely what WWB Holdings is or where it’s located, but I’ll let you guess who was in charge of it.”

“Sonofabitch,” Lane muttered. “That’s where the household money went, too. WWB Holdings. So how much are we talking about?”

“Seventy-two million. So far.”

As Lizzie gasped, Lane shook his head.
“Damn it
.
”

Lizzie spoke up. “Wait, what’s off-sheet balance—”

“Off-balance sheet financing.” Jeff rubbed his eyes like he had the same headache Lane did. “Basically, it’s when you leverage the assets of one company to secure debt for another. If the second entity fails, the bank or lender expects the first one to pay up. In this case? I’m willing to bet that the funds lent to WWB Holdings were embezzled and when the loan terms weren’t met, the Bradford Bourbon Company’s money was used to meet the obligations. It’s a way of stealing that’s a little less obvious than just writing yourself a corporate check and cashing it.”

“Over
one hundred and forty million?” Lane crossed his arms over his chest as he was struck by a fury that made him want to trash the office. “That’s the total. You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“And that seventy plus million is just transfers from the operations accounts through February. There are going to be more. There’s an escalating pattern to it all.” Jeff shrugged. “I’m telling you, Lane, it’s time to involve the FBI. This is too big for me to keep going—especially because I have to go back to New York. It’s been a helluva vacation, though.”

Lane’s phone started ringing, and when he took it out and saw it was Samuel T., he answered with, “Are they here? I’m coming—”

“What are you doing!”

The woman who rushed into the office was sixty and built like the battleship she was. From her gunmetal-gray suit to the dinner-roll bun of her gray hair, Ms. Petersberg was a tightly wrapped piece of work who had been running William Baldwine’s business life for close to twenty years. But gone was the usual composure. Red-faced and wall-eyed, she was trembling, the reading glasses that hung down from her neck on a thin chain bouncing on her flat chest as she panted.

Lane kept his voice even. “Get your things. Get out.”

“You have no right to be in this office!”

Hysteria erupted from the woman, and she was surprisingly strong as she came at him, her fingers clawing at his face, her knees and feet kicking at him, shrill curses and condemnations punctuating the attack. Lizzie and Jeff lunged forward to try to peel her off, but Lane shook his head at them. Capturing her hands, he let her keep screaming as he eased her up against the bookcases as gently as he could.

By the time she’d worn herself out, that neat bun was looking like a tossed salad on her head and her breathing was so ragged, it was like she needed an oxygen feed or she was going to pass out.

“You can’t save him,” Lane said grimly. “It was too late for that some time ago. And I know you know things. The question you have to ask yourself is how much are you willing to pay for your loyalty to a dead man. I’m finding out more and more of what went on here, and I know you were a part of it. Are you willing to go to jail for him? Are you that insane?”

He
said this even though he wasn’t sure whether he was going to call the Feds or not. Prison was usually a good inducement, however, and he wasn’t above using that leverage at the moment.

And besides, he told himself, if the fraud was as large as Jeff said it was? Then those lenders were going to start dropping dimes on their end when further payments were not made—and yes, some would call lawyers, and when the assets dried up even further?

It was going to be debt-mageddon at the BBC.

“He was a good man,” Ms. Petersberg spat. “Your father was always good to me.”

“That’s because you were useful to him. Don’t take it personally, and don’t ruin your own life over the illusion that you were anything other than something he could manipulate.”

“I will
never
understand why you boys hate him so much.”

“Then you need to wake up.”

When she broke free, he let her go so she could pat her hair down and reorder her clothing.

“Your father only ever had his family’s best interests and the interests of the company at heart. He was a …”

Lane went out-of-body as the woman proselytized about virtues she ascribed to a man who had none to speak of. All of that was not his problem, however. You couldn’t change the mind of an apostolate; you couldn’t save someone who didn’t want to get in the lifeboat.

So this ever-efficient woman was going to go down with her former boss.

Not his problem.

As his phone started to ring again, she concluded, “He was always there when I needed him.”

Lane didn’t recognize the number and let whoever it was go into voice mail. “Well, then, I hope you enjoy the fond memories—when you end up in jail.”

“D
o you have any questions for me?”

As
Mack put the inquiry out there, he sat back in his office chair and looked at his interviewee’s ring finger again. Still vacant. Suggesting this Beth Lewis was as unmarried as she had been at the start of their meeting.

Yeah, wow. Way to be professional, MacAllan.

“Are you going to need me to stay late frequently?” Beth put her palms out. “I mean, the candidate. Will the candidate have to? And it’s not because I’m afraid of working. But I take care of my mother and I’ll need to get coverage for her after five. I can arrange it, I just need a little notice.”

“I’m so sorry to hear, you know, that anyone is …” He wasn’t sure about HR policy, but he was certain he couldn’t ask too much about her personally. “That your mother …”

“She was in a car accident two years ago. She was on life support for months, and she has a lot of cognitive challenges now. I moved into her house to take care of her and, you know, we make it work. But I need a job to support us and—”

“You’re
hired.”

Beth recoiled, her dark brows lifting. Then she laughed in a burst. “What? I mean, wow. I didn’t expect—”

“You’ve got four years of experience at the front desk of a real estate company. You’re personable, articulate, and professional. There’s nothing else I’m looking for really.”

“Don’t you want to check my references?”