about twenty minutes. I just left work without asking or anything.”
“I think you’re ready for a change,” Becca said.
“Why?”
“Because you’re already acting like a rebel.”
Kate thought about that. “I guess I am. Maybe Lance’s engagement will turn out to be good for me.”
“I bet it will. If not you’ll be stronger for having loved and lost him.”
Kate hung up the phone and continued driving toward Somerset. She didn’t think about Lance or Brody Oil and Gas. She just concentrated on herself and the new woman she was becoming. It was way past time for her to change.
It was hot and smoky at the refinery. The fire burned for almost three hours before the firefighters got it under control. Frank was busy talking to local media and Lance was calling his brother. Mitch was in a meeting and Lance had to leave a voice mail.
“Catch me up on what’s going on,” Lance said to Frank.
“We have four injured.”
“Have you talked to their families?”
“As soon as we identified the men who’d been injured. They’re in the emergency room now. I sent JP down there to talk to the families and make certain that there were no questions as to insurance coverage, et cetera. And I asked him to keep me posted on any pressing health issues,” Frank said.
“Good. Do you think we’re going to have to shut down?”
Frank rubbed the top of his balding head. “I won’t know more until we have a chance to talk to the fire chief.”
“When will that be?”
“Soon, I hope.”
“Have you stopped the flow of oil into the refinery?”
“First thing we did. We enacted our emergency protocols. And everything went exactly as it should have. I’m going to send you some suggestions for commendation for some of our guys who went beyond the call of duty.”
“I’ll look for that,” Lance said. His cell phone rang and he glanced at it. “It’s Mitch.”
“I’ll go see if I can talk to the fire chief,” Frank said.
“We’ve had a fire at the main refinery,” Lance told Mitch.
“Is everyone okay? How bad is the damage?” Mitch asked.
Lance caught him up. “Do you think this will impact the senator’s plan to allow us more drilling?”
“Not if I have anything to say about it. I’m going to go to his office right now.”
“I’ll get this under control. I’m going to have a press conference later on to let everyone know we’re okay and still in business.”
“Sounds good. I’ll get back with you after I’ve spoken to the senator.”
Lance hung up with his brother and surveyed the mess at the refinery. Employees were clustered to one side, all of them waiting to see what the verdict would be. They were a 67,000-barrel-a-day refinery, and if they had to shut down, all of those people would be without work. And they wouldn’t make their quarterly revenues.
He dialed Kate’s number. She usually served as a hub during these kinds of emergencies, when he couldn’t be in the office.
Her phone went to voice mail and he realized that she was serious about leaving the company. “It’s Lance. I need your help. We’ve had a fire at our main refinery. Call me when you get this message.”
The receptionist at the Brody Oil and Gas office wasn’t experienced enough to handle all the calls that were coming in. But the secretaries who worked for his duty managers could. Lance usually relied on Kate to take care of liaising with them. Guess it was time to figure out how to work without Kate. He called the finance manager and asked him to send every secretary they had down to help out. He then composed a short memo on his BlackBerry and sent it to the entire company apprising them of the situation and telling them that no one was authorized to speak to the media.
Frank waved Lance over to where he was with the fire chief.
“Lance Brody, this is Chief Ingle,” Frank said.
“Thanks for getting the fire under control so quickly,” Lance said, shaking the fire chief’s hand.
“You’re welcome. It is our job.”
“I know that. But I’m grateful all the same. What are we looking at here?” Lance asked him.
“We thought it was started by an explosion, but we’ve been talking to the men closest to the location where the fire started and none of them reported hearing one,” Chief Ingle said.
“That’s odd. How do you think the fire started?” Lance asked.
“I’ve called for our fire-scene investigators to do a thorough examination of the area. But one of my men thought he saw cans of fire accelerant.”
“What kind?”
“We don’t have any details but I wanted you to know what we suspected. I’ve called the arson investigator and he’s sending his team out, as well.”
“Crap. I have to notify our insurance company. They will want to work with your arson team.”
Chief Ingle nodded. “They always do.”
Insurance companies were very well versed in arson investigations—they didn’t mess around with fires. Lance wanted someone who had Brody Oil and Gas’s interests in mind. “Is it okay if I hire my own security team to be part of the investigation?”
“We’d rather not have extra people on the site,” Chief Ingle said.
“Darius won’t get in the way. He’s the best at what he does.”
“Darius who?”
“Darius Franklin. He owns his own security firm.”
“Okay, but only him.”
Lance understood that. The chief didn’t want a bunch of men trampling over the fire scene.
“When can we go back into production?” Lance asked.
“I think we’ll need at least 24 hours before I’d feel comfortable saying you can go back on line. More, if the investigation proves to be complicated.”
Lance made a note of that. And when the chief moved on, he turned to Frank. “Tell all of our employees to gather in the parking lot in fifteen minutes. Then set up a number so they can call in and get a message about when to report back to work and give them that number.”
“I’m on it,” Frank said, walking away.
