A brief contact with something solid. He went after my father, not just me. He went after my father through his attorney. While my father was in the hospital, Cole was quiet. There doesn't know.
Haley said he doesn't know any of this hospital bed dealing with enough. And I haven't told him because I didn't want to because he'd worry. Doctor said stress. She pressed her mouth together. I I've been doing this so he wouldn't have to know.
Oh, he could just focus on getting better without knowing that someone was trying to take everything he spent his life building. She stopped there. She pulled her hand off the workbench. She straightened. "Okay," she said.
"Tomorrow 9:00, Gerald's meeting me there. Ray and I will be outside." Cole said, "Dadam, not inside." He said before she could speak outside. "You need your space in there, and we're not going to crowd it.
It will be there." She held his gaze. The evaluating look was still there. It was always there. A permanent slightly raised calibration of someone who had learned not to take things at face value.
It something had shifted just slightly. A lock shifts when the right key turns. Okay. She said there she picked up her tool bag. She walked to the door.
She stopped with her hand on the frame and she said turning around. You know what the worst part of this whole thing is? The worst part isn't prove it. The worst part is that it worked. It worked.
People stopped coming in. People believe the story about me and I had no way to fight it because you can't fight a rumor. You can only outlast it or replace it with something true. Cole said, "You replaced it," she turned. "By walking in here," he said, "by fixing Ray's bike.
By coming back and fixing Pete's and Garretts, by being exactly who you are in a room full of people who had no reason to give you the benefit of the doubt until you gave them a reason to." He paused about you is different now in this garage and in everyone who talks to this garage. Puit's story is losing ground. Haley looked at him for a moment. The garage.
She said in one corner of one town story spread, Cole said, especially true ones. She held his gaze one more second. She walked out, the door closed behind her. Hatch Arades, who had been doing something quiet in the back for the last hour. Lemon stood beside Cole.
She's going to be okay, Hatch said. A question, not reassurance. A statement of assessment from a man who had been watching and making calculations. He's going to be okay, Cole said. The question was whether she had to do it completely alone.
Hatch nodded. Nobody should have to do it completely alone. Cole looked at the door she'd gone through. No, he said they shouldn't. That night, Garfield Puit received information.
He received it the way he received most useful information through a third party who had a third party's deniability tossed along in a phone call that lasted less than 4 minutes. And thatuit would later claim if anyone ever asked he didn't specifically remember information was this the Morgan girl had spent the afternoon in the Hell's Angels garage making phone calls she had spoken to Gerald Finn she had a meeting at the county attorney's office the next morning it listened he was 61 years old and he had been navigating situations like this one for 20 years first response to this kind of information was never panic but was for pe people who hadn't planned their contingencies contingencies. He called his attorney at 8:47P lasted 11 minutes. His attorney, a man named Howard Le, who had practiced in the county for 15 years and understood implicitly which clients required which kind of help listened carefully. He asked two questions.
He said he understood. The next morning at 8:15 45 minutes before Haley's meeting at the county attorney's office was placed to a person in that office, not to the county attorney herself, to an administrator. All raised questions about the appropriateness of the meeting given what was characterized as an ongoing civil dispute in which the county might be seen as taking sides. Was carefully worded, professionally worded. Whoever made it had clearly done their homework on who in that office was most likely to be cautious about appearances.
45. The meeting was in jeopardy. Haley got the call at 8:47 while she was in her truck in the parking lot of a coffee shop 2 m from the county building. There were honests. The administrator said there were concerns about the scope of the meeting.
Given the nature of the matter, there was some question about whether this was the appropriate venue for the administrator used the phrase allegations of this type. Haley said, "What type?" The administrator said, "Allegations involving a prominent local businessman." Haley said nothing for 3 seconds. Then she said, "I have an appointment confirmed with your office.
I have documentation of crimes. I have an attorney accompanying me." Sir, are you telling me the meeting is canceled? The administrator hedged not cancelled necessarily said perhaps a brief postponement while the appropriate parties I'll be there at 9. Haley said she hung up.
She sat in her truck. Her hands were on the steering wheel and her knuckles were white and she was breathing the way you breathe when you have been hit and you need 3 seconds to assess the damage before you decide how to respond. Gerald Finn. Gerald picked up immediately. He said the call went to Patricia Marsh.
She's an administrator. She's not the attorney. She doesn't have authority to postpone a scheduled meeting without the county attorney's approval. But we show up. We keep the appointment.
If they try to turn us away at the door, that becomes part of the record. He knew about the meeting. Haley said out somehow and he moved overnight to block it. Yes, Gerald said. Which means we're closer to the truth than he's comfortable with.