"I wasn't lovesick," he managed to say.
Lyle lifted the brow that wasn't split. "Seriously, dickhead, you're not foolin' anyone. You never did."
Sterling stared at him, wanted to tell him he was full of shit, but something tickled down his temple. His hot face hurt all over, along with a few choice areas across his torso. The biggest pain came from the middle of his chest though, a pressure so great he could hardly breathe.
Cam opened the door behind Lyle. "You boys work out your differences yet?"
"Yeah," Lyle said. "Golden Boy offered me my job back, but I told him to cram it."
"You can let me go," Sterling said, "But take him in for stealing."
Chapter Twenty-Four
Paige swung the hood of her father's Wildcat into the driveway. No Lyle.
She slammed the two-ton door, then trotted straight around her father's house and down the fence line, her angry breath making clouds in the biting fall air.
She came up short against Sterling's locked back door, banged twice, and was off the porch and halfway around the bungalow to the front door when she heard the back door opening behind her. She spun around to the porch again.
"Did I hear right? Were you in the dumpster ring with Lyle?" She charged after his retreating figure into the house.
"The C.I.A. would seize this town's grapevine if they knew how fast it transmitted." Sterling turned to the refrigerator and opened the freezer. "Yes, you both heard right. So what?"
She vaguely noted Walter's presence on the other side of the kitchen, but her knees were buckling as she caught a glimpse of Sterling. She grasped the end of the counter. "Good God."
Sterling's eyebrow was bloody, his eye swollen, his lip bleeding. His knuckles were scraped. His torn shirt revealed a patch on his shoulder where a fine layer of skin had been planed off and tiny spots of blood had risen.
She watched him wrap ice in a tea towel and hug it against his ribs with his elbow. Then he opened the refrigerator and bent his knees, trying to reach a beer on the lowest shelf.
"You didn't put Lyle in the hospital, did you? He's not home."
He snorted. "He's probably drinking off the pain, which is what I'd like to do if you'd both excuse me."
"What happened?" Walter asked. Demanded.
He had some of his color back, but not much. He'd already been acting like he was having some kind of stress attack when she'd dragged him into a meeting at Beck and Jakowski to tell them about Lyle's misappropriations. At the same time, he'd been willing to downplay it, which had been heartening, right up until Britta had interrupted them to say she'd just heard-from Cam, Paige assumed-that Sterling and Lyle were brawling outside The Mill.
At that point, Walter had paled with something that had looked like sick terror.
Paige was still incensed, but felt an underlying desire to cry as well. She was being stretched too thin, her emotions staked out so far by extremes of worry and anger and guilt, by so many people, she was going to snap.
Sterling wasn't answering, just leaned awkwardly, trying to reach the bottle of beer. His fingertips played with the top. He was obviously in too much pain to bend the extra inch needed.
She shuffled him out of the way and grasped the cold bottle, retaining it as she straightened to confront him. "Why did it have to come to this?"
"It was about time it came to this. Firing him just gave us both permission to get it out of our system." He held out his hand in silent request for the beer.
"You fired him?" Walter's jowls quivered as he shook his head in disbelief. "You had no right."
"The hell I didn't. He was stealing."
"How did you hear that?" Paige asked.
"Olinda."
Of course it had been Olinda. Her middle name was not Patience.
"Okay, so you were angry, but beating him up? That's just wrong," Paige said.
"Hey, I pulled the first couple of jabs ‘cause I thought he was drunk. He wasn't. It was a fair fight." He reached for the beer she still held.
"Alcohol is not the answer!" She threw it reflexively. It went through the window above the sink, exploding liquid and shattering glass with an ear-splitting smash.
The violence left her as shocked as the men.
"Babe, I look done in, but I'm actually still jumpy. That pissed me off. Leave. Now."
"We're going to hire him back," she said, nodding toward his father.
"Not fucking likely."
"Walter?"
He'd already agreed to keep Lyle employed so long as he paid back what had been taken.
"I want him back, son." Walter's voice, deep and grating, had an edge of desperation to it. He was sweating.
"No, you want to prosecute," Sterling corrected. "I'm going to need whatever evidence you've collected," he told Paige, and reached for the bottle of ibuprofen on top of the fridge. "Cam wouldn't hold him this afternoon because I didn't have the proof on me."
"No." Walter's mouth twitched as though he wanted to say more, but couldn't seem to make his lips do anything but repeatedly purse, like a mouse scenting cheese.
"We're talking about a few thousand dollars," she told Sterling, then nodded to indicate his father. "We've been to the lawyer and they advised us to ask him to pay it back. He can't do that unless he has a job."
Sterling paused in shaking pills into his palm. "What the hell is wrong with you two? He was stealing."
"It's a misunderstanding," Walter began.
"The hell it is! Ask the accountant." Sterling pointed at her.
She dropped her gaze, then jumped when Walter slammed his hand onto the stovetop, making the burner rings rattle. "He has to come back."
"It's me or him, Dad. Your choice. But let me tell you, if you're making senile decisions like rehiring criminals, then you're not fit to run the factory. I'll take it from you and fire the son of a bitch anyway."
Walter quivered with emotion. It was like he was sucking air through an invisible straw.
"Yeah, me," Sterling went on. "Taking charge because it's past time someone did. Christ, Dad, look at the shape the place is in. This is supposed to be my heritage? What the hell have you been doing the last ten years? Even Mom can see things are going downhill. That's why she wants you running for Mayor, isn't it? ‘Cause there's no money in the business anymore. Pretty soon, there won't be any money in this town. No one will have a job. I can fix that, but it means housecleaning." Sterling turned on her so he didn't see his father's distraught expression. "Starting with Lyle Fogarty."
Behind her hand, Paige bit her lip, still watching Walter.
His hand fisted on the stovetop. For a moment he looked like he was going to argue, then he swallowed, nodded once, and looked very old. Defeated.
"I'll tell your mother." He left, closing the front door behind him with a muted finality.
Paige slid her hand to her collarbone. "That was awful. What were you thinking, talking to him like that?"
"What the hell were you thinking, hiding this from me? How long were you going to let him keep stealing?"
Whoa. Apparently he hadn't worked out his anger. "It wasn't like that. I knew you were looking for an excuse to fire him."
"He was overdue to be fired," he cut in. "Everyone knew it and looked the other way except me. And you can take it as a warning, sweetheart, because you're next on my list. I can't trust you. Jesus, how much like your old man are you, thinking this shit doesn't matter?"
There were times when a bitchy comeback eluded her. This was one of them, and she really needed a mouthy remark to keep him from seeing how badly that cut into her. All she came up with was a hollow-voiced, "I had to talk to your Dad first."
Did he have any idea how difficult today had been for her? She pushed her hair off her face. "We took it to Gunner Beck, to get his opinion. I was going to tell you after."
A muscle jumped in his jaw. "You two were at the lawyers without me? Why are you still having meetings without me?"
"It was business for shareholders." She didn't say it with the intention of aggravating him, but wasn't exactly disappointed when his nostrils flared and his lips tightened.
"Yeah? Well, I invested fifty thousand dollars so I'm a shareholder too."
Wind gusted through the hole in the window. She pimpled against the chill. Against the way this changed everything.
"Yeah," he said with a nod. "I'm your partner. And since you're selling out soon, you don't have a lot of say in what goes on at my company. So quit asking me to save your brother's ass." He started to turn away, pivoted back. "And know that I'm through chasing you, making a fool of myself, because it's not worth it. Now take a hike while I fix my window. I'm too pissed to look at you."
She lifted her chin. "You know why I didn't tell you?"