“No, I think this is above his pay grade,” Ken said.
“It is. What we need to do is call Jake. Let’s set up a meeting of the war council.”
“Oh, goody.” Alice rubbed her hands together. She’d thought the first meeting she’d attended had been the coolest thing, ever. Since then, Jenny Benedict had told her all about the war council the families organized for her—and the way everything had played out.
Alice met first Ken’s and then Ian’s gaze. “If your arsonist turns out to be this ‘Owen fucking Baker,’ then I claim first dibs on punching him in the nose.”
“You’re a bloodthirsty little thing,” Ken said. “I really love that about you. Especially when you employ that trait to our advantage.”
She liked the looks in their eyes and the expressions on their faces. They hadn’t proven that it was Baker who’d set fire to their business, but they knew. And because they did, well, she did, too.
“I love you both. You’re the only ones I’ll go all Rambo on some asshole for.” And that, she nodded, was that.
* * * *
“If I had to come up with one word to describe Owen Baker, that word would be phony.” Jake Kendall sat back and looked around the table.
Ian was surprised at how quickly Jake and the network of people he and Grandma Kate had put together worked to uncover the goods on Owen Baker. Not a full twenty-four hours had passed, and here they were, once more at the Big House, gathered around the dining room table.
War council. An apt name for it. I am feeling distinctly war-like. Amazing how both he and Ken had put away the anger and frustration of dealing with Owen Baker a few short years before. At the time, he’d wondered if they’d been cursed by this person who seemed to want to take everything they’d achieved away from them. At the time they hadn’t been able to match the man’s cadre of high-priced lawyers. Actually, that was the moment I began to believe in our justice system. They’d had only a neighborhood lawyer, a man they’d met at the local bar where they’d go sometimes on a Friday night.
But they’d also had the law on their side, and that had been more than enough.
“I’ve gone over the file that Jake gave me. Baker’s finances are a running disaster,” Kate Benedict said. “No American bank will loan him a single cent. I believe he’s found a bit of success borrowing from other, international institutions. His favorite financial coping tool appears to be ‘bankruptcy.’”
“Huh. He made himself out to be quite the entrepreneur back in Colorado,” Ken said.
“He did,” Ian agreed. “He hired three different lawyers, convinced that we had somehow conned his father out of a burgeoning, vibrant business. Owen Baker called it his ‘legacy.’”
“What was his father’s reaction to that?” Grandpa Noah asked.
“Embarrassment,” Ken said. “We didn’t even know he had a son until we got that notice of the first lawsuit. Carrick had tried to get his son to come home to help with the business for years before he finally decided to sell it and retire. Carrick told us that when his son had been growing up, nothing he could do pleased Owen. He said that realizing his son had no interest in the business Carrick had made his life’s work—something he had in fact built to pass down to him—had broken his heart.”
“From what we were able to discover, Owen returned to Colorado nearly two full years after you established Edgers, to escape the unsavory types he’d fallen into ‘business’ with in New York City,” Mel Richardson said. “Grandma Kate is right about his use of bankruptcy, too. He’s also made a habit of stiffing other small businesses who he hired to do work for him. One of my contacts had a chat with a man he’d left holding the bag for over a hundred grand.” Richardson shook his head. “Said the man told him Baker was persona non grata everywhere on the eastern seaboard. That no one had liked him from the get-go, thanks to his air of entitlement and his outright horrible treatment of people. In my opinion, Owen Baker is a snake oil salesman of the worst kind.”
“Do we know where he is at the moment, Adam?” Kate asked.
“I just got word as I was leaving the office to come here. It will not surprise anyone, I’m certain, to know that he’s in Waco.”
“Do we know where in Waco? And more importantly, do we know why?”
“Our people are looking,” Adam said. “I’ve also obtained a recent photograph of him, from his driver’s license renewal, taken last year.”
Adam took a moment and sent the photo that he’d had on his smart phone to everyone at the table.
“He hasn’t aged well,” Ken said.
“He looks like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth,” Kate said. Then she grinned. “I know that’s an old expression, but he has the look of a conman. Anyone his age looking that innocent makes me suspicious.”
“Because his expression is innocent, but his eyes are—well, there’s just nothing there.” Ian hadn’t recalled that about Owen Baker until he’d seen his photo. They’d only seen him the one time—the final time they had to go to court to defend themselves against his baseless charges. That reminded him of something he’d thought at the time.
“The first two times he tried to sue us he let his lawyers handle it. That last time? He was there, as if he knew he was right and he had been certain his lawyers had just screwed him.”
“He did have that air,” Ken agreed. “What do you call it when a person is convinced they’re right, no matter the evidence?”
“Stubborn?” Richardson asked.
“Delusional?” Jake looked around the table.
“Let’s just call it like it is. The man is crazy.” Kate looked up from her notes. “We all know someone who exhibits those same characteristics. Myopic, only focused on themselves, believing themselves
