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They stopped, interrupted by a knock on the door. Connor gestured and young Matt Kolsrud, in Carhartts and heavy work boots, opened it, glancing at Sarah before speaking. “Boss, I need to talk to you about that extra time off. You said we’d work it out this afternoon.”
“Right, right. Tell Steph what you need”—he gestured toward the woman watching them from the other side of the window—“and that I said it’s okay.”
“Um, sure. Great. Thanks.” Matt backed out and shut the door.
Connor sank heavily into his chair and it squeaked in protest.
“Lucas knew how badly I wanted that land.” he said. “And that George Hoyt would sell it to the girl making ice cream cones at the Dairy Queen before he’d sell it to me. So, being Lucas, he figured a way around that.”
What would her brother say next? She wanted him to hurry up and explain, explain what Lucas had to do with George Hoyt and Porcupine Ridge and the H of their great-grandmother’s journal. And Jeremy.
And Jeremy.
But at the same time, she wanted him to shut up. To not say another word. To pretend her husband had not kept something so big, so terrible, from her.
“I meant to tell you all this yesterday, when we were in Grandpa’s office at the lodge, but then Holly came in, and I wanted you to kno
w first.” Connor rested his forearms on the desk, on top of the file that documented the company history. “Lucas proposed setting up a shell company to buy the land. Every acre, from the ridge down to the lake, including the Hoyt home place. It was a solid plan. The buyer would have no visible ties to McCaskill Land and Lumber, and George would never know we were behind it.”
“Until you started working on the property.”
“The deal would be long closed by then, and our involvement could be easily explained. The mysterious out-of-state buyer would contract with us to clean up the property, blah blah blah. Happens all the time. Usually it’s eighty acres or a couple hundred, not several thousand, but—same difference. But for a purchase that size, we needed financing.”
A sour heat began to grow in her stomach.
“You borrow money all the time. Businesses finance growth every day.”
He eyed her seriously. “We needed a lot of money. And I was afraid that if we requested a loan that size anywhere in the area, word would get out and one of the big boys would swoop in. So we went to Jeremy.”
“My husband loaned you—this shell company—the money to buy Porcupine Ridge?”
“And funds to upgrade the mill. He understood what we needed to do and why. Gave us good terms, a competitive rate. The land itself was the collateral. If we defaulted, he would take title. And he was my brother-in-law. He wasn’t going to screw me and unload it in a fire sale to Georgia-Pacific.”
“When was this?”
“Last summer. Before he got sick.”
When she couldn’t pretend he was under the influence of stress, or chemo. And not telling her after the deal was done, leaving that gnarly task to her brother? She couldn’t decide if that was kind or cruel. One more win for cancer.
“Did he tell you why he didn’t want me to know? Did he tell you what Lucas did?”
Connor made a noise meaning yes. Not everything she and Holly had told him yesterday about the assault had been a surprise.
“George Hoyt. All these years,” she said. “I never suspected he hated us. The other morning, after the storm, he drove down to check on the place and he couldn’t have been nicer. When we were kids, he let us ride all over the ridge. Anywhere we wanted.”
And the first time she’d slept with Jeremy had been in the Hoyts’ homestead cabin, on the land he’d helped her brother buy. Jeremy, who always swore he wasn’t sentimental.
“We gave him a life estate on the property between the highway and the lake,” Connor said. “He was just about broke. He’d already moved into the smaller house up by the highway and started renting out the lake house. Now that he’s getting a hefty monthly payment from us, he could move back down. It’s not fancy, but nice enough, and it’s on the water.”
“What was in this deal for Lucas? Let me guess. He wanted help funding his campaign.”
“Initially, yes, but Jeremy talked him out of running. How, I don’t know—I wasn’t part of that conversation.”
“Oh. Ohhh.” She raised a finger to her mouth, her eyes filling. “Jeremy knew that if Lucas stepped into the public eye, we would all have to make a decision. About what to say …”
“About the crash, and the assault,” Connor filled in, understanding now. “Makes sense. So Lucas contented himself with legal fees for the corporate work, which added up. Plus the commission—less than a real estate broker would have asked, but substantial, and a monthly service fee for transferring funds.”
“And this fictitious company he created?”
