BOOK ONE: DECEPTIONS
Chapters One to Twenty Six
Vignettes 1 - 140

BOOK TWO: YESTERDAY ECHOES
Chapters 27 to
Vignettes 141 -

Monday, November 22, 2010

Vignette #89: Tears

“It’s perfect, brilliant!” The woman on the phone gushed. “Personally, I can’t believe any one from Crockett’s department came up with it.”

“They didn’t.” David Turner told her.

“Ian Justyn?” She asked.

“Ian Justyn.” He confirmed.

“Well, that settles everything in my mind.” She said almost to herself. “I take it you messengered this to everyone?”

“Just the board members. The execs have only seen the Crockett design.”

“I heart HRT.” She said no bothering to hide her distain. “Ridiculous. My guess is this will be a quick vote at the meeting in the morning.”

“I doubt the whole thing will take more than an hour.”

“Did Tolan balk?”

“No. Once he saw what Young Justyn uncovered, he knew it was inevitable.”

“Justyn’s right, keep it under wraps for a while and see if anyone comes forward to wonder where their paychecks are. Where did that kid come from anyway?”

“God.” Turner confirmed.

“I’m going to have to go to church more often.” She said. “Well, David, I just wanted you to know what I thought a head of time, not that any one with half a brain in their head could think anything else.”

“You’re the last to call and confirm.”

“All positive?”

“You were the most negative.” He told her.

“Somehow not surprised. Now if we can just put the schedule together that backs up the campaign.”

“Oh, Jessica…” Turner was confident. “There are some more surprises to come on Wednesday.”

“Good ones for a change?”

“Trust me.”

“I have to David.” She said without out any distain. “You’d out vote me anyway, but I am totally on board this time. Things are definitely looking up for the fall.”

“We always say that and end up disappointed.” He reminded her. “Somehow this time, I think we won’t be.”

“Midas has returned in the form of a young naïve country boy.”

“Either that or Justyn has just reminded us all what we’ve been able to do all along.”

“Who cares? Things are back on track. Stand behind the rest of us, David, and let us clean house the way we’ve wanted to for years and things will be just like yesterday.”

“I’m finally with you on this, Jess.”

“Prove it in the morning, David. See you then.”

The line clicked. David put his own phone in the cradle. Turner had his own decisions to make before the board meeting.

He couldn’t get the scene in Justyn’s office out of his mind. It haunted him. It had made him cry. He hadn’t done that in years.

Perhaps it was just time to call an end to it all. He couldn’t take it any more. “Young Justyn needs the truth.” He said quietly.

He needed the truth. It could possibly bring an end to everything, everything they had worked so hard to find. The one thing he had learned after all these years is that the end to the story was never exactly what they had planned on. He wasn’t sure he cared any more.

The old man stood and made his way to the door. He slipped his fedora on, and made his way to the penthouse foyer. Tipping his hat, he told his secretary good night, and rode the elevator to the lobby.

When the elevator doors opened, there they were. Those same three faces, still looking young and still seemingly innocent. Little did the world know how guilty they all were.

He stepped forward and looked at them closely, the image of Ian Justyn and his little boy searing in his mind. He reached out and touched the portrait of her.

“What have we done?” He finally managed to say out loud.

He signed out and waited for the car to pull up front. He allowed himself to be treated like the matriarch he was. The one title he’d actually earned.

The old man sat alone in the back seat of his limo. For the second time in too long a time he cried, silently, all the way home.

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