A Good Kind of Trouble (A Trouble in Twin Rivers Novel Book 1) by Ellie Ashe Read Free Book Online Page B

reputation for running costs up and shoddy quality. She wrote one article about the dozens of lawsuits against the company and ValCorp threatened to sue the newspaper. That threat was enough to get her yanked from the story and replaced with Jeff Edwards, a sportswriter, even though her stories were completely accurate.
    But she wasn’t about to drop the arena story. Jeff wasn’t going to follow up on the leads she’d developed, but someone had to. And the envelopes with the bond information were addressed to her, so there was someone out there who wanted her to keep working this story.
    She had amassed a huge dossier on ValCorp, Inc. and was investigating whether the company’s founder, Teddy “Bear” O’Bannion, was also behind the sudden purchase of most of the property surrounding the proposed arena site. Those blocks had seen a remarkable boom just before the site was announced. Bear, as he preferred to be called, came across as cuddly as his name would imply. But according to Lindsey’s research, Bear was a shrewd businessman who had cultivated allies in city government that helped him get the high-paying contracts. He had also left a wake of bankruptcies and lawsuits behind him.  
    Which was how Lindsey ended up at the courthouse this morning. A small window manufacturer was suing ValCorp, alleging corruption and interference with a business relationship. The window company’s owner alleged that after he signed a contract with Bear to install the windows on a high-rise project, Bear bought a competing window company and breached the contract, deciding that he could make more profit if his subsidiary did the work.  
    These weren’t new allegations. Lindsey had heard of several lawsuits that were similar in nature. Many had hinted at payoffs to city officials, primarily building inspectors, but all the other suits had been settled with confidentiality agreements, so no one who had sued Bear O'Bannion would talk to her. This suit, though, hadn’t settled before trial, so she decided to watch as much of the testimony as she could.  
    She had been sitting in the audience of the trial, the only person attending who wasn’t an interested party, when she heard one of the several defense lawyers call her name.  
    “Huh?” She had raised her head to find everyone in the courtroom staring at her, including Bear O'Bannion, who was flanked at counsel table by a half-dozen lawyers. One of those high-priced suits was standing and looking at her with a smug look on his face.  
    Judge Chinn had stared at Lindsey over his half-glasses. “Are you Ms. Fox?”
    She had stood, unsure of what to do. “Yes.”
    “Come up and be sworn in, Ms. Fox,” he said.  
    “No.”
    The judge looked confused. “What?”
    “I’m not here to testify,” she said.  
    “Why are you here?”
    “I’m a reporter,” Lindsey said. There was a script reporters could use to object when judges tried to close courtrooms to the public. But she had never needed to object before and the script wouldn’t exactly apply here.  
    “Your honor,” the smarmy suit in the middle of the courtroom said. “Ms. Fox is under subpoena. She has vital information about the dispute.”  
    “No,” Lindsey said.  
    “Did you receive a subpoena?” Judge Chinn asked.  
    “No!” She definitely would have remembered that.  
    “Mr. Derry, have you a record of serving the subpoena?” the judge asked the suit.  
    “I’m sure we have that, your honor,” Frank Derry said. At this, the other ValCorp attorneys at his table started frantically thumbing through stacks of papers and boxes of documents. “The fact that she’s here today indicates that she expected to be called to testify.”
    “That’s not true,” Lindsey said.  
    “Uh, can we have a sidebar?” The plaintiff’s lawyer stood, looking confused.  
    “I won’t testify,” Lindsey said.  
    “You will if you’ve been subpoenaed, Ms. Fox,” Judge Chinn said.  
    “No, I