Thrill Ride (Black Knights Inc. #4)(73)
“They started askin’ me about my folks’ deaths. About how I’d feel if I discovered they hadn’t died in an accident. About what I’d do to the man who’d killed them if I could get my hands on him.”
“Whoa, whoa,” Boss held up a hand. “I thought your parents died in a boating accident down in Louisiana.”
“Oui,” Rock nodded. “So did I for the longest time. But at this interview, they showed me information that pointed the finger at Halsey Chemical Company.”
Ozzie’s fingers began clicking on the keyboard of his laptop before he mumbled, “Halsey Chemical Company. Why does that ring a bell?”
“Probably because fifteen years ago, and then again twelve years ago, they made the headlines,” Rock said. “See, Halsey had been dumpin’ waste into the bayou near my parents’ home for years. Everyone who lived in those parts knew it. A class action lawsuit was brought against the company while I was still in boot camp.”
“Two class action lawsuits,” Ozzie said, eyeing his screen, no doubt having pulled up boatloads of information about Halsey Chemicals and the lengthy trials.
“I’m talkin’ about the first one right now,” Rock clarified.
“Which was won by the plaintiffs.”
“Oui,” he nodded. “A few mid-level administrative types within the company copped to knowing about the chemical dumps, and they received pretty hefty sentences. The company paid restitution to those families who’d suffered physical ailments, but, you know,” he shrugged, his heart thudding slow and hard against his ribs, just like it did every time he thought of the awful injustice perpetrated down in Louisiana, “how do you put a price on a life?”
And for the first time since they’d gathered around the conference table, no one tried to answer a question when it was posed. Probably because the answer was obvious.
You didn’t. You didn’t put a price on a life. It was impossible…
After a long silence, he murmured, “My best friend, B.B. Fournier, was one of the ones who fell ill. And after several rounds of chemotherapy, an amputated arm, and a shitload of radiation, B.B. finally succumbed to the disease those bastard chemical company suits had given him with their negligence and ambivalence. And then there was my uncle Leon and my cousin Jenna and…and Lacy…”
Sweet, soft Lacy. The girl who’d promised to wait for him to finish his military stint so he could go to college on the G.I. Bill. The girl who’d been long dead, the victim of a rare and aggressive brain tumor that’d metastasized into her lungs and liver by the time his four years in the Navy were up.
“Who was Lacy?” Becky asked quietly.
Rock glanced across at Vanessa and saw realization dawn in her big, dark eyes. “My fiancée,” he whispered.
“Jesus Christ, Rock!” Boss rumbled. “Why the hell didn’t you ever say anything about this to us?”
Probably because it wasn’t something he liked to talk about. The fact that everyone he’d ever loved was moldering away in a dank, dark crypt down at the edge of the bayou. But instead of admitting as much, he simply shrugged. “I guess because, as my daddy used to say, the only thing you get from digging up the past is dirty.”
“Yeah,” Boss said, “but still…”
“I didn’t want or need pity. There was nothin’ to be done for it. My family and my fiancée were all dead, and that was that.”
But it still sat like a bitter pill in the bottom of his stomach, even all these years later, that the only thing the families of the victims of Halsey’s carelessness and malfeasance had to show for their lost loved ones were some old photographs and a little pile of money that’d surely run out by now.
“Anyway, I thought everything was settled with Halsey,” he continued, shaking away the memory of Lacy’s red hair and blue eyes. The love they’d shared had been young and green as an unripe strawberry, but it’d been true nonetheless. And her death had changed him, made him into the man he was today. A hard man. A…ruthless man. Vanessa might even call him heartless, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to argue to the contrary. “But, come to find out, Halsey hadn’t stopped dumpin’ their chemicals. My father caught onto to what they were up to and approached Martin Halsey himself. The man acted all shocked and outraged, assuring my father he’d look into it. ’Course it wasn’t until two days later that my father and mother were dead, their boat wrapped around a cypress tree, their bodies lost in the waters of the bayou for nearly a week.”
And sweet Lord have mercy, by the time they’d been discovered, there was hardly anything left that was recognizable. Had DNA not proven their identities, Rock would still be wondering what had really happened to them….
“Martin Halsey,” Boss murmured, flipping to the first page in his packet. He lifted a brow when he read the name that was second to the top of the list.
“Oui,” Rock nodded. “He was the second man who confessed his sins to me, which I can promise you were far more prolific and grandiose than orderin’ the deaths of my parents. You see, along with knowingly and willfully poisoning the people of Terrebonne Parish, he was also runnin’ drugs in from the Gulf…and girls.” He shook his head, remembering the disgusting spark of excitement that’d lighted Martin’s eyes when the man confessed about the girls. “Thirteen-, fourteen-year-olds… He’d sell them on the black market for a pretty little penny. And I can assure you, Halsey wasn’t just pond scum; he was the muck that lived on the filth that grew on the sludge at the bottom of pond scum.”