Now & Again by E. A. Fournier Page B

flammables, roadway factors, lighting – stupidity – you name it. And when we’re done, I do a reconstruction. You know what I find, every time?”
    He stopped and watched them. His nostrils flared. “I find there’s no such thing as an accident. Get it? Things don’t just happen – they happen for a reason. There’s always a cause, and in a mess like this, there’s lotsa causes, but there’s always a first cause.”
    The officer reappeared with their licenses and handed Vic a couple of enlarged printouts. He studied the sheets intensely for a moment and then nodded to the officer. The man snapped the plastic licenses back down on the laminate and returned to his place at the table.
    “So…Kendall and Josh…” He looked at each one in turn as he said their name. “Just so you know, I haven’t had a lotta sleep and I’m gettin’ a lotta heat. It’s comin’ all the way from the mayor’s office, and from Captain Broxterman’s office…” His voice was rising. “And all the way down to that Geico lizard, all screamin’ at me to finish my damn reconstruction! But I can’t! Why?” His words dropped back to a conversational level. “Because I’m a professional.”
    He leaned even further forward on the table, supporting himself with a hand, and fixed them with a menacing look. “Know what’s holdin’ me up?”
    Kendall and Josh wore empty expressions. They hadn’t a single clue what the right answer was but they knew they were in deep trouble.
    Chadek didn’t blink. “Your truck.”
    “Our truck?” Kendall spoke louder than he meant to. He quickly lowered his voice. “We were just part of the accident, like everybody else.”
    “Yeah,” Josh chimed in. “What’d we do?”
    Chadek made a show of arranging his chair and sitting down, but he never broke eye contact. “It’s more like what you didn’t do.” His focus snapped to Kendall’s eyes. “And, just for the record, Kendall, you and your truck were not like everybody else.”
    He cocked his head, first one way and then the other, like a robin listening for worms. “That, boys, is the end of my cheerful little intro to the conversation we’re about to have. Comfy?”
    Kendall and Josh didn’t move a muscle.
    “Good. Now, talk to me. Take your time. Take all the time in the world. Tell me exactly why you did what you did and – especially –
when
you did it!”

CHAPTER 10:
    Quyron rushed into Jonathan Newbauer’s outer office and smiled briefly at Sophia, his administrative assistant. “Sorry, I only found out a few minutes ago. Has it already started?”
    The solidly built blonde looked up from her wide screen activities and shrugged at Quyron. “Don’t worry about it. It was a last minute deal anyway. And they’re having problems with the connection – always something.” She smirked. “They’re probably still working through the what’s-up-guy-greeting thing. You know how they are.”
    “Yes, I do.”
    Sophia walked briskly over to the inner office door and tapped firmly as she opened it.
    Quyron paused in the doorway to comment softly, “I don’t know how you stand this every day.”
    Sophia smiled innocently, “The pay, dear, how else?”
    The well-appointed inner office was airy and bright, with sunlight streaming through a bank of windows. Newbauer waved Quyron to come in. He motioned her to take a seat facing one of the triad of screens that formed the centerpiece of his lavish meeting table. Jonathan vainly struggled with a complex remote device trying to improve the severe picture interference washing across the displays. Nothing he did was helping.
    The voice audio snarled and popped in some strange signal-to-noise synchronization with the visual distortion. “I…I don’t understand but there’s…very troubling in the…” Unmistakably, the screen image was the head and shoulders of a man, but it was hard to identify much beyond that.
    Quyron seated herself across from Newbauer and close to the