Free Collateral Damage by Austin Camacho

course. Dean will take you down to the conference room. But afterwards, would you be kind enough to stop by my office?” Then the spotlight of her attention turned to Oscar Peters, and Hannibal felt left in shadows. “Were you waiting to speak to me Oscar? Come on in.”

    The door shut out all sound when Hannibal closed it behind himself. Comfortable armed swivel chairs surrounded the long conference table, with lesser chairs lined up around three walls of the room. The front of the room was dominated by a projection screen and a flat television screen. If Hannibal stretched his arms out as far as he could, his fingertips might touch the opposite edges of the TV. Dean never even looked at the table, but went straight to a chair near the far corner. His usual seat, Hannibal assumed. Dean wore the company uniform du jour: dress shirt and tie, designer jeans and a pair of exotic Brooks Radius SC running shoes. He sat as he must at company meetings, waiting for someone to tell him what he should know. So Hannibal did, as succinctly as possible.
    â€œBea Collins cares about you. She doesn’t know why you walked out of her life without warning. Bea is a good woman and, in my estimation, deserves better. Now, I don’t have any evidence of you having committed any crimes at this time…”
    â€œCrimes?”
    Hannibal rounded the table and zoomed in on Dean like a telescopic rifle site. “I stopped digging but I can pick that shovel back up again. Right now, that’s not my job. So here are your choices. You can disappear again, abandon your lucrative job and the life you’ve got started here and start over someplace else. Or, you can do the right thing.”
    Dean had trouble keeping his eyes on Hannibal’s through the sunglasses. In fact, he glanced around nervously looking at everything but Hannibal. “The right thing. And you think you know what the right thing is, is that it? I won’t go back to her Mister Jones.”
    â€œLucky for her,” Hannibal said, standing over Dean as if he were on the witness stand in a courtroom drama. “But you need to meet with Bea and give her some sort of explanation for disappearing. You might even consider the truth.”
    Hannibal pressed ahead, even as all his instincts were shouting this was wrong. Dean Edwards was soft in the middle, no hidden core. This man didn’t have what it took to run a confidence game. He barely had the confidence to run his own life. His hands were locked together, his thumbsrubbing each other nervously. Yet he had the strength to stick to his intentions this time.
    â€œYou don’t understand. I care about Bea. Very much. But I had to go. I won’t get her involved in. in my life.” Then Dean stared at the platter sized triangular device at the center of the table. Hannibal glanced at it as well, realizing belatedly that it was a microphone of some type, designed to pick up comments from around the room. Good for meetings. Bad for confidentiality. And it occurred to Hannibal that whatever Dean’s problem was, it could have something to do with his work. And it could catch up to Bea whether he wanted it to or not. He nodded his understanding to Dean, slipped him one of his cards, and backed off a bit.
    â€œWhy don’t I pick you up from work tonight and we can work out the details. Five o’clock okay?”
    Dean nodded and Hannibal turned to leave. He figured he could open Dean up more later, possibly in Bea’s presence. He planned to take some time to slowly explain what he learned today and all it might imply. But as he stepped out of the room Oscar took his arm.
    â€œMs. Kitteridge would like a word with you,” Oscar said, steering Hannibal toward the corner office. “She says it’s pretty important.”

    Joan Kitteridge’s three-sided desk was a cockpit pinning her against the wall. Between her computer keyboard and monitor, her intercom,