One bad connection.
That night, Wendell did not fly back to New York.
He cancelled the meeting in Dallas. He ignored three calls from his chief financial officer. He checked into the only motel within twenty miles, a low brick building beside a gas station with flickering lights and a vending machine that stole his dollar.
At 11:42 p.m., his assistant, Mara, finally reached him.
“Wendell, where are you?”
“Pine Hollow, Alabama.”
There was a pause.
“Is that a real place?”
“Very real.”
“The board is asking why you missed the energy summit.”
“Tell them I found something more important.”
“More important than the federal storage contract?”
Wendell sat at the motel desk, the business card he had not given away lying in front of him.
“Possibly the thing that saves it.”
The next morning, Wendell returned to the Tate house.
He did not arrive in the SUV.
He borrowed an old pickup from the motel owner for two hundred dollars and a promise to return it with a full tank. He wore jeans, a plain shirt, and the least expensive shoes he owned, which still would have paid the Tate family’s electric bill for months.
Jaylen was in the yard, kneeling beside a lawnmower with its cover removed.
