“What did that mean?” I asked.

“Dunno. The fire wiped out everything a few days later, the night before the shipment was to go out. I suspected that’s what he was talkin’ about.”

I grabbed the edge of the table as the blood rushed from my head. “You think Gardner started the fire?”

He looked down at the table. “Could be.”

Had my father really torched the factory? The man I’d known could hardly stomach killing a fly. “Dora died in a car accident a week later.”

“Yeah.”

“And Henry Buchanan hung himself days after that.”

“He shot the wad. His mistress was dead and his company had burned down. And the government contract was gone, so he had nothing. At least his wife got his life insurance. A nice fat policy.”

I stared at him in silence, too stunned to say anything.

“Just the insurance policy? What about the factory?” Neely Kate asked, emerging from her alcohol-induced stupor. “Surely there was money to be made from it.”

He shrugged. “Never sold. It got tied up in probate. Henry had his lawyer create a paper saying there were three heirs, but he didn’t provide a name for the third. Since they couldn’t find him or her, they couldn’t do anything with it.”

“So it’s just stuck?” I asked.

“Henry’s will was pretty strict. The family was fit to be tied. But there’s a time limit. Twenty-five years from when it was logged into probate. That limit’s up in another couple of weeks.”

I squinted at him. He seemed to know a lot about a will that had nothing to do with him. But then again, some people became obsessed with pieces of their past. Maybe this was one of those situations. But I quickly moved onto couldn’t find one of the heirs. What if I was Henry’s daughter and it was me they were looking for? I felt like I was going to throw up.

“You got any more questions?” he asked, looking at the door like he wanted to bolt.

“One more,” I said. I wasn’t about to let him go until the biggest question of all had been answered. “I need to know the name of the big shot. The man behind it all.”

He shook his head, his eyes wide with terror.

“The name,” I stated with bite behind my words. Neely Kate shot me a surprised look.

Dirk glanced back at Jed, then at me, still terrified. He licked his lips and looked around the room. When he didn’t see anyone else paying us any mind, he said, “If y’all ever tell anyone I said it, I’ll deny it and call you bald-face liars.”

I squared my shoulders. “I can live with that.”

“Okay.” He licked his lips again. “I heard Dora tell Buchanan a name. I only heard it once, right before she quit. She told him she was sorry she’d ever introduced the guy to Buchanan in the first place. She said the guy was unhappy, and I’d never seen Buchanan look so scared.”

“And what was that name?” I asked.

“J.R. Simmons.”

Chapter Twenty

I’d never felt such a volatile mixture of emotions at once—fear, disgust, elation that we’d gotten solid information, but then the aftertaste of utter horror.

If Dora had been the one to introduce J.R. Simmons to Henry Buchanan, how had she met him? And worse, could he be the older married man Dora had carried on with in the December and January before I was born?

“Can I go now?” Dirk asked, looking over at Jed rather than at me. He didn’t look too good—he was paler than ever and he seemed pretty close to losing his beers.

I’d scared the bejiggers out of him. But then, if J.R. Simmons was involved in this mess somehow, I could see why. Especially since a lot of people who were connected to the factory had died—whether “accidentally” or otherwise.

I needed more information. I needed to have a vision. The question was how to steer it. I thought about the visions I’d had for Skeeter as the Lady in Black. I usually saw the person telling someone else the information I needed to know. Someone like Dirk was bound to share his secrets with someone, and I’d bet anything he’d contact them after he left. If I could see who it was, maybe I could track them down.

“Just one more thing.” I reached out and grabbed his wrist, closing my eyes and concentrating on whom he’d contact about Atchison.

The vision was strong, hitting me with more force than most. I was suddenly in a car, a phone pressed to my ear.

“Beverly, someone knows,” I said, my voice rising in panic.

“Knows what?” a woman’s voice asked.

“About the fire at the factory. About the parts. About the blackmail. All of it. They were talkin’ about a diary.”

“Okay, calm down,” she said, her tone soothing. “Who knows?”

“A woman and her friend hustled me in the pool hall and forced me to tell them.”

“What are their names?”

“Rose, and I didn’t catch the one who did the hustling. Rose was the one askin’ most of the questions. She knew things.” I swallowed, starting to hyperventilate. “We’re gonna go to jail.”

“Calm down, Dirk. I’ve got everything under control. No one’s going to jail. They’re bluffing.”

The vision faded and I was left with a splitting headache and overwhelming nausea. “No one’s goin’ to jail.”

He looked at me like I was a crazy person. And since he already thought I was out of my mind, I might as well go for broke.