Page 19 of The Right to Remain

“I’ll clear it out in due time,” she said.

“I’m afraid the time is now. We need the space.”

“It’s not really your decision, CJ.”

“Everything in this company is my decision.”

“I don’t want to fight you on this, but Owen’s stock passed to me when he died. I own half this company.”

CJ laughed so hard he snorted.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

He brought his laughter under control. “You don’t ownhalfof anything. You own forty-nine percent of VanPoll Enterprises, and VanPoll Enterprises is a pimple on the ass of a corporate conglomerate owned byme.”

“I deserve some say in the company.”

“Now you sound like Owen. ‘Oh, CJ, I’m a half owner, I need a raise, pay me more money.’ Your husband was lucky I paid him as much as I did.”

“What you paid him was barely minimum wage, considering the hours he put in.”

“That’s a slight exaggeration,” he said with a disingenuous smile. “But I paid him enough.”

“Maybe I’ll just sell my shares and cash out,” said Helena.

CJ snorted again, nearly laughing in her face. “You really have no clue what it means to be a minority shareholder in a privately held company, do you? If you think Owen’s death is payday for you, think again. Your forty-nine percent is sellable only when I decide it’s time for me to buy it, and it’s worth whatever I decide to pay for it.”

“You make things so easy to understand,” she said without a hint of sincerity. “Things like why Owen couldn’t stand you.”

“It was never about liking each other. I owned the licenses to operate a firearms destruction business, and your husband had contacts at over two thousand local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies with truckloads of confiscated guns to destroy. It was a match made in heaven.”

“Hell, you mean. If you’d been honest about who you were from the beginning, Owen never would have gone into business with you. He certainly never would have agreed to be a forty-nine percent minority shareholder with you in control.”

“You know how I got the all-important one percent, Helena. Don’t play dumb with me.”

She didn’t know, and she hated to give CJ the satisfaction of knowing how little Owen had told her about the business, but this felt like her last opportunity to find out. “I’m not playing dumb, CJ.”

He smiled, seeming to realize she was being truthful. “How thoughtful of Owen to keep this secret from you—and to let me be the one to tell you.”

“Just say what you need to say.”

“I don’t have all the details, since I wasn’t at the hospital six years ago.”

“Do you mean when Austen was born?”

He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. “No. I mean when he wasbought.”

Helena was silent.

“As I understand it, you told Owen to come up with two hundred fifty thousand dollars on the spot. This company was barely profitable back then. Where did you expect Owen to get that kind of cash? The ATM? Lucky for him, I was willing to pay a quarter million dollars for a one percent interest that, at the time, had virtually no value at all. Lucky for me—not so lucky for you—it’s worth much, much more today.”

Helena could no longer hold her tongue. “You are such an ass,” she said, glowering.

“Actually, I’m an extremely fair and reasonable man. Owen may never have liked me, but he was very loyal. I reward that kind of loyalty.”

“I don’t want your reward.”

“Don’t be foolish,” he said. “All of us need to be smart. A grand jury is investigating your husband’s death.”