Chapter 26

To assuage his guilt over Wilson's possible assassination, David decided to warn the wife beater of his pending death. Wilson had changed hotels, which was immaterial. David connected with the individual, not a location. The disembodied consciousness determined Wilson's new room number, found a nearby empty room and called Wilson on the telephone.

"Leave me alone!" Wilson screamed when he answered the call. "I cancelled the contracts. Just leave me the hell alone!"

"I figured you for stupid," David said using his stentorian voice, "but I didn't know you had a death wish."

"What? What do you mean?"

"Threatening an assassin's agent has to be a form of suicide. Pete paying one of his assassins to kill you has to be cheaper than refunding the first-half payment for those contracts. Am I right or wrong, Wilson?"

Wilson said nothing.

"If I were you, instead of hiring a killer to murder my wife, I'd hire the best protection available. In my humble opinion, Wilson, you're a dead man walking."

David hung up, studied Arabic for an hour, and then called Wilson again.

"Did you take my lover's advice?" David said using his female voice.

"Leave me alone! Please!"

"Your wife was served with divorce papers yesterday. She happily accepted service and has engaged the best divorce lawyer available. Settle with her, Wilson, and don't be stingy. Give her no less than half your net worth and agree with her other demands, including her sole custody of your daughter without visitation rights for you, or my man and I will dog your nights and days for the rest of your miserable life." David paused and added, "A short life if you don't hire the best protection money can buy."

David hung up and connected with Gloria in her past and bounced around in time with her until he met Kelly Woodson, the candidate for the bookkeeper job. He switched connections from Gloria to Kelly, starting in the present. Kelly, of course, was asleep on her friend's couch.

Nice legs, David thought. One bare leg dangled off the sofa.

Thirty years old give or take a year or two, blonde, tall from the way she fills up the couch, David noticed just before his disembodied consciousness ratcheted back in time in six-month increments. With each snapshot, Kelly became younger. He stopped his retreat in time when she was Eileen's age. Then he watched her age in monthly increments as he moved forward in time, observing vignettes from her life as he searched for events that would tell him if she would accept or be repulsed by his family's incestuous bent. He quickly discovered that group sex was no problem, but she'd been monogamous while married, and her attitude regarding incest remained elusive.

He switched connections to Robert Hummel, turned on the sleeping man's computer, composed another e-mail that condemned two more of Hummel's perverted friends to some years behind bars, and forwarded the e-mail to a detective working vice with the Tucson police. David had selected Detective Jorge Lopez as his connection with the Tucson P.D. because Lopez was smart, tenacious, and detested pedophiles with a passion. He'd met Lopez during a flight while connected to one of Hummel's sick friends when the man had had a brush with the law.

David decided to continue his use of Hummel's computer to communicate with Lopez for a number of reasons, not the least of which was an e-mail David would compose in the future that would confess Hummel's crimes to Detective Lopez. Upon reflection, David decided that his fears that one of Hummel's pedophile buddies would kill Hummel out of revenge were overblown. His investigation of the child-lovers in the loosely organized group provided no evidence that any of them were violent enough to kill, although, two of them had it in them to hire a killer to extract revenge. Of course, any of them could and would kill in self-defense. It was a matter of timing. He'd monitor the group, and if it appeared that Hummel might be in immanent danger, he'd sent the e-mail that confessed Hummel's crimes, turning Hummel's protection over to the police.

His plan could go awry, David knew, but he would take every step possible to avoid getting Hummel's blood on his hands. In this manner, if Hummel was killed, his death would be the perverted man's own doing, not David's, a rationalization perhaps, but to David's mind, a reasonable rationalization.

Be sure your sins will find you out.

You're a good man, Staff Sergeant Michael Flint, Ret., David thought.

After another hour studying Arabic, David reconnected with Terry Woodson and finally stumbled upon a clue he could follow. She was talking with her brother. They were both adults and both married when David listened to a conversation two years in her past.

"Do you remember story time?" her brother said.

Terry's brother, David knew was seven years older than Terry.

Blushing, and with a bowed head, Terry said, "Yes."

"Did you come?"

"Yes, many times."

"Did you then or do you now feel like I abused you?"

"Never," she said with a coy smile.

Her brother nodded, and Terry's husband stepped into the room, interrupting their conversation.

He had not gone far enough into Terry's past, David realized, and quickly journeyed to Terry's prepubescent years, finding a number of incidents when big brother read stories to little sister while playing with her pussy.

David watched a seven-year-old Terry climax under her fourteen-year-old brother's probing fingers. He also watched Terry ask for story time, and when brother and sister settled on a sofa, she took his hand and placed it under her panties onto her cunt before he started reading. Terry had been honest with her brother. She'd certainly never felt abused. She had enjoyed every second of every story he'd read to her, which lasted for two years until her brother became sexually active with a girl his own age and guilt about what he was doing with his sister sunk in. From what David had observed, the brother had not escalated the sexual activities during story time beyond masturbating his little sister. He hadn't pulled out his cock and asked her touch him. He hadn't kissed her or gone down on her. He'd just read to her and fingered her to orgasm after orgasm, and then promptly locked himself in the bathroom to jerk off into the sink. David believed, given the opportunity and the proper circumstances regarding their significant others, that brother and sister would happily repeat story time in the present. They'd repeat the event, but they'd go beyond what they did when Terry was a girl. David didn't doubt for a moment that Terry, with only the slightest encouragement from her brother, would enthusiastically fuck him.

David had found the right person to handle bookkeeping for his mother.

Paul Fisher couldn't believe what was happening. Delmont had called an unscheduled board meeting to review and vote on a tender offer to merge a company called Tess Sanctuaries with the Johnson Center. Fisher wasn't unhappy with the prospect. Chairing a merged, larger organization would give him that much more power, but that was before he'd read the demands that came with the offer. One of the demands called for his removal from the board, for Christ's sake! Still, he wasn't worried. He had the votes. As chairman, he wouldn't even need to use his tie-breaking vote.

"There's a motion in front of the board, Paul," John Delmont said. "It's been seconded. Let's vote on it."

Fisher glared at him and said, "This is a waste of time, John. The demands accompanying the tender offer to merge aren't reasonable."

"More discussion would be a bigger waste of time," Delmont said. "You chair this board. Call for a vote. If the motion fails, we'll deal with the other pressing items on your agenda."

"Very well," Paul Fisher said. "A motion as been made to accept the tender offer as presented by Tess Sanctuaries, Inc, to merge with the Johnson Center for Domestic Violence. The motion has been seconded. We'll vote individually moving around the table to my left. John, what is your vote?"

"Yes," John Delmont said.

No surprise there, Fisher thought.

"Gary?"

"Nay," Gary Tippet said.

"Stuart?" Fisher said, looking smug after Tippet's no vote.

"Aye," Stuart Cornell said.

"Malcolm?"

"I vote yes," Malcolm Johnson said.

Fisher glared at him. "I'm surprised, Malcolm."

"Finish the vote, Paul," Delmont said.

"Walter?" Fisher said.

"I vote no," Walter Granger said, another board member Fisher had sponsored for a chair on the board.

Fisher smiled. The two remaining board members were in his camp. The vote would end up four to three against the motion, just like he'd figured.

"Carl?" Fisher said.

"I vote yes," Carl Willis said.

"What the hell!" Fisher huffed. "Carl..."

"Finish the damned vote, Paul," Delmont demanded.

"I vote yes," William Baker said without being asked.

"That's a five to two vote in favor of the motion," Delmont said. "The ayes have it, which means, Fisher, that in accordance with the tender offer, you're history. The members of this board no longer have to put up with your power games. In lieu of termination, the board will accept your immediate resignation." Delmont fixed his eyes on Walter Granger and then Gary Tippet. "Walter, Gary, we would not be adverse to accepting your resignations, either. I don't think you'll like the way we'll be running this organization in the future."

Granger nodded. "You've got mine. If you run the organization as outlined in that ridiculous tender offer, the organization will be bankrupt before yearend."

"Walter?" Delmont said.

"Effective immediately, I hereby resign," Granger said, stood up and left the room.

"Which way do you want to jump, Fisher?" Delmont said. "Should we make a motion to fire your ass, or will you resign?"

Fisher said nothing. He was too furious to speak. He'd been outmaneuvered, a first for him. Traitors! He'd been toppled by treachery!

"John, I hereby make a motion to terminate Paul Fisher as a member of this board," Malcolm Johnson said.

"I'll enthusiastically second that motion," Stu Cornell said.

"All in favor of terminating Paul Fisher from the Board of Directors of the Johnson Center for Domestic Violence say aye," Delmont said.

A chorus of ayes came from the men at the table.

"Any nays?" Delmont said.

Silence.

"Fisher, you're fired," Delmont said. "Clean out your desk. You'll be watched, so remove only personal items. Please leave."

Fisher, his face red and his hands clenched tightly into fists, rose stiffly from his chair at the head of the conference table.

"You haven't heard the last of this or me," he hissed.

"Leave, dammit, or David Stanley's bodyguard will escort you from the premises," Stu Cornell said.

"David Stanley!" Fisher screamed. "David Stanley is behind this... this asinine merger?"

"Yes," Delmont said. "David and his family control Tess Sanctuaries. Now get!"

As Fisher stomped angrily from the room, Delmont said, "Stuart, would you please invite David and his sister into the boardroom, Grace and Beverly, as well. We need to form a new board for the J&T Center for Domestic Violence, pick a new chairman, and hire Grace as our CEO."

Fisher looked around the anteroom. When he spotted Stanley, he strode up to him and screeched, "You will fail! Mark my words, you will fail!"

Stanley smiled at him and said, "You are the failure, Fisher. You just lost. I won. Wanna know why? I'll tell you. You have no compassion in you. Men and women without compassion should not run charitable organizations. Goodbye, Fisher. I wish you good fortune in your for-profit endeavors. You should do well. Compassion is not necessary to make a profit."

"We're not finished, Stanley, not by a long shot! You won this skirmish, but I'll win in the end. I never lose!" Fisher shouted, turned on his heels and walked away.

"I think you just made a powerful enemy, David," Darla said.

David smiled and said, "I don't think so." If he comes at us, his for-profit enterprises might stop being profitable. That would rearrange his priorities.

By prior agreement, Darla Stanley, Carol Stanley Patterson (in absentia), Grace Black, John Delmont, Stuart Cornell, Malcolm Johnson, Carl Willis, William Baker, and Beverly Swan were elected to the Board of the J&T Center for Domestic Violence. John Delmont, acting chairman, then opened nominations for chairman of the board.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Darla said, "but from what I see, the chairman of the board enjoys no more power in running this organization than a regular member."

No one spoke for a long moment. Finally, Delmont said, "I believe, Darla, that you are correct."

"So, the title is one of prestige as opposed to power?" Darla said.

"Again, you are correct," Delmont said.

Darla nodded. "However, the chairman's leaderships qualities, personality and charisma are critical to the success of our grassroots campaign for donation dollars. Also the chairman, along with the CEO, will represent our organization at various functions, will make speeches, preside over press conferences, those sorts of events, correct?"

"Yes," Delmont said.

"So," Darla said, "the chairman must devote considerable time to the organization, without compensation, to perform the duties we've just outlined."

"Yes," Delmont said again. "Which leaves me out. I can't devote that much time away from my business."

Stu Cornell, Carl Willis, and Bill Baker voiced similar concerns about the time they could donate.

"I have agreed to take on the management of our fundraising campaigns," Darla said. "That will use up all my spare time and then some, so I am not a candidate for the chairman job."

"I'm a charming man," Malcolm Johnson said. "But I am utterly without charisma. If elected, I will not serve."