Chapter 40

The following day's local paper concentrated on greed and what it was causing in our fine local community. My name was not mentioned. There was no need. The next surprise came a few days later as the news came out. Our county was filing for bankruptcy. I guessed that I would not be seeing any of the money soon. If ever.

The result was that I outsourced claims against the officials who had been present during my rape, and the chief of police who was the one being charged with Sara's death. I also included the child services personnel who had taken part in Lily's kidnapping. I didn't want them - or their families - to be left totally high and dry. But I wanted some revenge. I knew that my aunty didn't fully agree with me on that, and that is why I wanted some external lawyers to take care of this. All those people would also be facing criminal charges, due to their activities, but I wanted to make sure that they would suffer financially, too. Hell, I had, and by quite a lot.

Only now did I have time to take a look at my business. Hell was already loose, there. My 'emergency update' had found its way onto the production line with that particular customer, and it was causing random errors which didn't go away with downgrading. The customer was furious, and my fellow workers were walking on very thin ice. I had made them my partners in the business, and they had betrayed me at the first possible opportunity, when things first started to look bad. On the other hand, I could understand that they had only the information from the 'news' media available, when they made their decision. Understanding them didn't mean that I wanted to work with them any longer. I made a call and agreed to meet the company representative in a cafe.

The guy looked very sour. My call had indicated that I had some information about their misbehavior, but I had not given any details. The situation they were going through was not good, either. We both knew that reverse engineering very tight code can be a bitch.

"Look, Mr. Weston, our company cannot do business with you, even if your charges were dropped."

I laughed at that.

"And why would I want to do any business with you? After all, you have put my code into production, and you have been using it in your business for several months now, without paying me anything!"

"There are no grounds for your accusation. I think we are done here."

He didn't stand when I presented him some pieces of paper.

"These are recent log files from your production environment. They show the version of the software you are using, and the names of the clients using them. They can be traced back to your environment."

"What do you want?"

"You can have my share of the company for seven hundred 'k.' You promise to keep my developers at your company for at least two years, if they want to stay. That is a good deal, as they are good workers. And, of course, you'll get a fully operational code."

He hesitated for only a moment, and I saw that he could hardly suppress a smile.

"Deal. But after that I don't want to hear about you."

"Deal."

Hook, line and sinker. I called my aunty and let her know the details so that she could finalize the sale with the company representatives. Then I called my accountant and told her that unfortunately her services would no longer be needed, but that I would be giving her an extra bonus of fifty thousand dollars, because of the good work she had been doing during the previous years. After all, she was one of the few people whose attitude to me had been neutral, all the time. With that fifty thou, and more time to concentrate on her other work, she would be okay.

After the taxes and fees, I still had some extra money that I intended to use. Throughout the local trials, it had become very clear that the two policemen that had been present while I was raped, were left to the wolves. They would have to serve their time while all the legal effort would be made to save the Chief of Police. The idiots in our town had just voted him back into office, thus giving him their support, so that he could continue the 'good work' he had been doing. During his trial, it became necessary to release part of the recording I had made during Sara's last call. His lawyer would have liked to have it all suppressed, but the judge wouldn't allow it.

Now the local paper was filled with stories of how some relentless people could not understand the word mercy, and how sad it would be if one long and unselfish career might be ruined because of a single mistake. Even the people in the churches said their prayers for their humble servants.

Humble servants my ass.

I did my final hours of my community service happily, as I had learned to like those people and the people working with them. I felt that they were my only friends in the whole town. At least they were the only ones who wanted to know my side of the things that had happened. Not one of them felt any sympathy for our Chief of Police.

My test results remained clean. Three more months and I might truly be safe. Still, I didn't really dare hope for that.

My aunty was surprised when I asked her to arrange a meeting with the spouses of the two policemen who's trial were in the finishing phase. Both of those idiots still did their best to protect their bosses, who couldn't care less about them. But my aunty became even more surprised when I told her the purpose of the meeting.

"You can offer both of them a two hundred thousand dollar fund. The fund's sole purpose is to support them and their families. But there are some rules. Most importantly, if either of them mention the arrangement to anyone, the deal is off, for both of them. Another thing is that they'll both need to divorce their husbands, and move away from this area, by at least a few hundred miles."

"Why all this, Eric?"

I sighed. She certainly didn't agree with me.

"I'm not that good a person. I want those two cops to suffer, but I also feel sorry for their families."

Later I heard that there had been some crying during that meeting, but after a brief discussion, both women decided to accept the deal. Now I had used up all the money from the sale of my company, for taxes or other things.

Other good news was that I finally managed to get my insurance company to start repairing my home. It had taken a few calls to their headquarters, but they had agreed that global publicity was not something that they wanted in a case like this. Hell, neither did I, but I was not going to tell them that. So within a month, Lily and I would have our home back.

Some other things happened, too. The case against the Chief started to roll out when one of the persons from the child support broke down, and made a deal with the feds. That caused some other dominoes to fall, too. Some new cases, other than mine, also surfaced. But if you wanted to know about those things, you needed something other than a local paper or TV station. I also found out what had started the ball rolling in the first place. I was asked to come to the courthouse as they wanted to know my opinion on how to proceed.