“Don’t worry,” he reassures Franklin. “We’ll hook you up with another cash cow.”
“It still bothers me that Lorraine is concerned about whether or not we will be able to pin all the blame on R & B,” Caitlyn mutters.
Franklin sighs. “To be honest, it kind of bugs me that we’re screwing those guys over.”
“Fuck, dude!” Walton explodes.
“They do good work for us.”
“Well, yeah, but that’s beside the point,” Walton argues. “We’re talking big bucks here.”
“No room for sentiment,” Caitlyn agrees.
Walton appreciates her support and smiles at her. “As for Lorraine, Caits, remember that she gets paid to worry about shit whether it’s a realistic threat or not. She’d worry about liability risks posed by the quality of the toilet paper in our public washroom if she thought she could turn it into billable hours.”
Caitlyn chuckles.
Walton looks from one partner to the other and decides that it’s well past time to sum things up and be done with the worrywart routine. “The key is that the accident wasn’t foreseeable by us and that whatever went wrong was out of our control. Bad gas? Nothing we could have foreseen, and we sure as hell didn’t pump the gas. It’s all good.”
“But we chose the vendor,” Franklin counters.
Walton feels an almost overpowering urge to rip Franklin’s nervous head off his skinny fucking neck. “No, we didn’t. We didn’t choose anyone. Our aviation consultant did. We’ve got more layers of insulation between us and liability than a walrus has between itself and the Arctic Ocean. Relax, dude. Nothing was foreseeable from our vantage point.”
Caitlyn uncrosses her legs and eases forward. “So, the big three potential causes. Bad fuel. Structural failure due to shoddy maintenance.” She’s ticking off each of her points by popping up a finger as she goes. She pauses for a beat, then thrusts out a third finger. “Pilot error.”
Walton, who had been nodding along, hops off her blame train right there. “That’s my niece you’re talking about, Caits. She’s off-limits.”
“She was flying the fucking plane,” Caitlyn retorts.
Walton rises halfway out of his seat and leans across the table toward her. “We will not throw Megs under the bus!”
“Someone else might,” Franklin replies calmly. “Then what?”
“Not our concern,” Walton replies as he settles back into his seat. “We won’t hang Megs out to dry. If the NTSB does… well, nothing I can do to prevent that, but my sister will crush my balls in a vise if she ever thinks we’re smearing her daughter.”
Franklin nods. “Fair enough. We’re still sheltered if that happens?”
Walton smiles and nods. “Correct. Not foreseeable. Not under our control. See how simple things are?”
Caitlyn sits back in her seat, recrosses her legs, and taps her fingernails on the arms of her chair. “You keep repeating that mantra, Johnny Boy. Not under our control, not foreseeable.”
“It’s what makes us golden,” Walton replies curtly. He hates it when she spouts the Johnny Boy shit. It never leads anywhere pleasant. It doesn’t this time, either.
Caitlyn eases forward. “So, hypothetically, if there was anything untoward in Megan’s hiring—maybe a sketchy Cessna 210 rating—where do we stand?”
Oh fuck, Walton thinks. “Where’s that coming from, Caits?”
“I told you earlier, Johnny Boy. The Justice Department.”
“That’s just people tossing a hypothetical out, Caits. Relax.”
Her eyes narrow as she sits farther forward and rests her elbows on the table. “And if there is something to the idea that your niece shouldn’t have been at the controls?”
Walton doesn’t reply. That could be a problem but probably won’t be. He’s been assured by their lawyers that their corporate structure is airtight. It fucking well should be for the small fortune the bastards sucked out of us for that work.
“Isn’t that why our insurance company denied our claim for the plane?” Franklin asks.
“Sure,” Walton replies. “But you knew they were going to look for a way to deny the claim. Besides, it was for what, 100K and change? Petty cash, dude. Anyway, I sorted that—out of my own pocket, by the way. The records are sealed.”
“Sealed from the cops?” Caitlyn asks acerbically. “Give me a fucking break! A court order in a criminal trial will open that can of worms in a heartbeat.”
“Look, guys,” Walton says in a tone intended to placate his partners and dial things down. “We hired that particular instructor for a reason. His ass is also in a crack if this goes sour. It’s all good.”
“You’re a damned fool, Johnny Boy,” Caitlyn hisses. “You paid off that instructor to make sure Megan passed so you could hire her, didn’t you?”
Walton sits rock-still until the urge to smack the bitch passes. Then he shakes his head and reminds her in a strained voice, “I got his name from the consultant, too.”
“How?” Caitlyn shoots back, like a dog with a fucking bone. “Did you ask him to recommend someone precious Megan could blow for her rating?”
Walton manages, barely, to keep his cool. After all, there was no provable quid pro quo in the hiring or bribing of the instructor—it was a cash deal. “My mantra again, Caits,” he mutters. “Not foreseeable. Not within our control.”
“Fuck your goddamned mantra!” Franklin snaps. “You hired that instructor. You took Megan on as a pilot. If someone can show that you had any inkling this instructor is sketchy and/or that you even suspected Megan wasn’t one hundred percent qualified to fly with paying customers, we’re fucked, so let’s quit talking like we couldn’t foresee or control that.”
Caitlyn fixes a poisonous scowl on Walton. “Oliver and I couldn’t foresee or control that, but you sure as hell could, you asshole.”
“Any half-assed lawyer could drive a bus through that defense,” Franklin adds.
Walton starts to shake his head and open his mouth to argue the point. Caitlyn doesn’t give him the chance.
“Show me some daylight between the company and that scenario, you moron!” she shouts.
“I can’t believe you did that, Jonathan,” Franklin says with disgust. “You assured us Megan was fully up to speed in the Cessna. Hell, you
