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the
documents?” Aden asked.
    “ Honestly? I think it’s
Tiffanie’s oldest,” Sam said.
    “ The step-whore,” Blane
snarled.
    Ignoring Blane, Sam continued, “The Rocky
Mountain News emailed me the fax. It’s a copy of what we had agreed
to four years ago. They were alert enough to notice the dates.
2004.”
    “ Oh God, Jacob. I’m so
sorry,” Jill said.
    “ Would you mind driving me
today?” Jacob asked.
    “ Not at all,” Jill
said.
    “ Great. I’m going to rest
for an hour or so.” He looked from Aden to Blane. “I’ll hit as many
sites as I can today. But we’re going to have to go public tonight.
Are we ready?”
    Aden’s face went ashen. Going public meant
telling the world that scumbag, loser, dropout Aden Norsen was
going to run Lipson Construction.
    “ We’re ready, Jake,” Blane
said. “Or we will be. I’ll set up a press conference tonight. Say
six o’clock?”
    Jacob nodded.
    “ She did this to destroy
me,” Aden said. “Nuala’s still in jail. Social Services is coming
at ten. I...”
    “ As always, she destroyed
herself. She’s on probation for stealing a set of documents that
includes this one. We’ve been waiting for this one to show up,”
Jacob said. “This is bad for her.”
    Aden nodded but didn’t look convinced. The
phone rang. To avoid thinking, Aden answered the phone.
    Jill lifted Katy from Jacob’s lap. They were
almost out the door when Aden said, “Jake?”
    “ Did you close the school
today?” Aden asked. “An email went out last night that the school
is closed today in memoriam for you. It’s on the website
too.”
    “ She really is an idiot,”
Blane laughed. He went around to sit at a computer. His fingers
flew across the keyboard.
    “ What?” Aden
asked.
    “ Hacking a website is a
federal offense,” Blane said.
    “ Well, the parents are
freaked out. The staff is freaked out...”
    “ How long will it take you
to fix the website, Blane?”
    “ Three minutes,” Blane
said. “I’ll send an email that the site was hacked and the ‘in
memoriam’ was a prank.”
    “ I’ll go to the school,”
Sam said.
    “ She gets satisfaction in
creating misery,” Jacob said. “This is stupid bullshit drama.
There’s no reason for us to freak out about any of
this.”
    Aden blew out a breath then nodded. Jacob
was right.
    “ I’ll get to the office,”
Aden said. “We have sites that need our attention.”
    “ Ok. Website fixed.
And...” Blane pressed a few more keys. “Resecured. Email is out.
I’ll go with Sam.”
    “ I’ll talk with Valerie,”
Jacob said. “Isn’t Mike being babysat by those military
people?”
    “ Yep,” Jill said. “Alex
and her friends.”
    “ We’ll need them today,”
Jacob said.
    Every head in the room turned to look at
him.
    “ Why?” Sam
asked.
    “ Because this stuff is
designed to get and keep us running around. Someone at the school,
someone at the sites, someone at the office. That leaves the house
unmonitored.”
    “ But they are in
Thailand,” Blane said.
    “ We’re having a big party
on Friday. There are going to be lots of people in and out of here
setting up, getting ready for Oprah, and every other thing. Anyone
could do anything. You heard what they did to Jill’s
place.”
    “ I’ll take care of that
first,” Aden said.
    “ Thanks. Let’s hope I’m
wrong,” Jacob said. “I’m going to rest for one hour. Then, we
start.”
    ~~~~~~~~
    Wednesday noon
     
    “ I’m sorry,” Jill said.
“Katy needs to use the restroom. I used the restroom here so I know
where it is.”
    “ Oh no problem,” Jacob
said. They were walking into their fifth job site. “Would you like
me to go with you?”
    “ JAKE!”
    “ It’s Marlowe!”
    As with every site they had visited, the
Lipson Construction employees dropped what they were doing to greet
Jacob. The site manager, an Amazonian woman named Bambi, came
running out of the construction office.
    “ I’ll be all right,” Jacob
said. “Go