for something to fill his emptiness—he’d just been searching in the wrong area. Sarah hadn’t been for him.
He’d even forgiven his stepbrother who, though he hadn’t worked full-time in the business at that time, had sided with his father over the firing of Sarah.
What he couldn’t forgive was his father’s actions or get over the hurt his father had caused by refusing to admit that what he’d done was wrong.
A sluggish wind whispered through the bushes, moving the humid air around in the suburb that was well outside the Fort Worth Dallas area. It did nothing to cool him off as he shifted impatiently.
Tailor-made suits had given way to khakis and jeans as he’d moved into the slums to represent the less fortunate. It seemed like another lifetime—a lifetime his father enjoyed reminding him of as he insisted André get over his snit and come back to work for him.
But André refused, for many reasons, the least of which was his father wouldn’t admit he had been wrong. So here he sat, waiting in the semidarkness, sweat trickling down his back, wishing the hundred-degree heat would finally break and bring some relief to the area.
He was waiting on a contact that had information on something that would really interest him, or so he’d been told. What it was he couldn’t imagine, but many contacts in the past had come through for him, especially the one he was waiting on, so he wouldn’t leave until the tardy man showed up. The slight sound of sneakers on cement caught his attention, drawing his gaze to his unhurried contact.
“Hey, man, you been waiting long?”
André heard the drawl of Billy Redford as he came idling up. Tall and slim, Billy wore pants that were way too big, held up with a belt cinched in around his middle, and a tank top that had seen better days. The cap on his head was turned, the bill pointed down and to the right—always the same direction, same color, same tilt to the hat. Billy dropped down on the bench next to André.
“What do you think, Billy? We were supposed to meet thirty minutes ago,” he said impatiently. It was too hot to be impatient, he realized, and glanced across the park, willing himself to relax. Billy had good information. He usually did. Getting upset wouldn’t hurry the man. More than likely it would slow him down.
Few people could be seen wandering the park. In the distance he heard the occasional horn or someone’s loud laughter that broke through the night. Other than that, it was eerily quiet. Most couples, and singles for that matter, traveled into Fort Worth for the evening on a Friday night.
“I got caught up, man. You know you didn’t have to wait. A man with the color of your skin this time of night could just get himself into major trouble out here, ya know?”
“I live in this neighborhood now, Billy. I doubt because I’m Caucasian anyone is going to pick me off.” Of course, that wasn’t necessarily true, André thought, but he wouldn’t admit that to Billy. He wanted to help in the lower income area. He ignored the voice that said he still had bitterness toward his father that had partially been responsible for landing him where he now practiced.
Billy never met André’s eyes, his gaze constantly roving as he reached under his shirt and pulled out a manila folder, dropping it between them. That’s how Billy was. He was never still, always moving, his gaze never settling on one thing. Tall, slender, black, he was at least five years André’s senior.
And he was right. André needn’t have waited, except he had nothing at home waiting for him, no one there to welcome him, nothing at all. “Yeah, well,” André countered, “you said it was important. Your client was sure I’d want this.”
André lifted the folder to look in it, but Billy stopped him. “Where’s my payment?”
“I see the goods, you get paid,” André replied mildly, thinking they went through this every time Billy brought him information. It was standard practice.
Billy released the envelope. “I think you’ll find some interesting stuff in there.”
“Reading the mail again?” André murmured as he opened the papers to peruse just what was in them.
“Nah. But I have ears.”
“This life is gonna get you in trouble one day, Billy. You need to go legit,” André said and then sat forward as he realized what the papers covered.
“My money?” Billy prompted.
“Who gave you this stuff?” André demanded, his gaze going to Billy, his heart starting to hammer loud in his ears.
“Hey, that ain’t part of the deal, man,” Billy protested. “I can’t reveal my sources. I just deliver the goods and get paid.”
“This is different.” To André, at least, it was. This was about him, about his father, about the past.
“Not to me it ain’t,” Billy muttered. “I tell on my sources, I don’t get the business.”
André forced himself to calm down and pulled an envelope from his back pocket “Tell your contact I want to meet him.”
“I’ll do that,” Billy said, snatching the envelope. Just as quickly it disappeared from his hand under his shirt. Billy hurried off, leaving André sitting there holding the information that might just prove that his almighty father wasn’t perfect. That he could make mistakes. Of course, if it was true, it could also ruin his reputation, but all André could think about was the fact this might finally make his dad see things differently. It might finally make him admit he could be wrong.
But how?
André continued to sit there and stare at the information until an idea bloomed in the back of his mind, an idea that he didn’t really cotton to at first as it crawled up and presented itself, but an idea just the same. It was an idea that, as he forced himself to look at it and examine it objectively, might really work.
If André could only get his dad to go along with him.
And if the information wasn’t simply a pack of lies. Either way, this was something that couldn’t be ignored, and whether André liked the idea or not, it was a way to find out if this information was the truth.
His dad would probably love his plan.
André wasn’t sure how he felt about it.
But to see his family name like this, in these papers, and the consequences it would cause if it were true…
He had to do it.
Chapter Two
“Your father is busy. Is there something I can help you with?”
Rebekkah Hawkley stood poised by the elevators, ready to deter André Watson from going into his father’s office, if at all possible. She hated it when André showed up. He always put Drydan in such a foul mood, and then she had to work with an angry man for the rest of the day.
“Hello, Rebekkah,” André murmured with a smile, turning on the charm that usually got him past the secretaries in the building. Had Wanda not contacted Rebekkah, André would probably have made it all the way past Shirley and Mary and be in there right now, once again arguing with his father about some silly
